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At EMR and EHR we welcome people to submit guest blog posts on our contact us page. We’re happy to post them with your name and a link to your website or anonymously. This week’s guest blog post comes from a doctor who wishes to remain anonymous but has some real questions about CCHIT’s involvement in the EMR world. Enjoy!

Companies are lobbying the Administration to keep product-testing and standard-setting within the sole jurisdiction of a nonprofit body called the Certification Commission for Healthcare Technology. Founded in 2004 with industry money and grants from nonprofits, CCHIT now receives $7.5 million a year under a contract with the federal government. The other half of CCHIT’s $15 million budget comes from fees paid by companies. Mark Leavitt, chairman of CCHIT, is a former tech vendor. He sold his electronic health records company to GE in 2002 and later became chief medical officer of the Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society (HIMSS), a trade group in Chicago. Seven of the CCHIT’s 19 voting members work for vendors or for-profit tech consulting firms. -– Chad Terhune, BusinessWeek, May 4, 2009, The Dubious Promise of Digital Medicine: Why huge spending on electronic records won’t produce quick improvements in efficiency or care.

$15 million dollars per year! To do what? Where is all the money going? I wonder how much Mark Leavitt makes per year? How much are the voting member paid per year? Boy, would I love this job! And what about the fact that almost half the voting members work for vendors or consulting firms! Is there a conflict of interest?

Does anyone have any additional information on CCHIT? This really makes me curious. Alarms are going off all over the place when I hear the basic information about CCHIT, how much they take in per year ($15 million) and what they actually do (certify a few EMR Systems).