Farzhad Uses Twitter to Call Out EHR Vendors

When it comes to ONC, I think a few things have always been clear:
1. ONC has its heart in the right place.
2. ONC hates the government restrictions that have to work within as much as the rest of us.

If you’ve ever had a chance to meet with someone from ONC in person, then you know the first item to be true. They really do have a sincere desire to improve healthcare in America through the implementation of IT. Not only do you see that in person, but their actions compliment this as well. In fact, I’d say that they’re some of the most sincere parts of Washington DC that I’ve ever met.

The challenge comes with the second point. ONC has to work within the legislation and government regulations that they’re given. I once posted about Blumenthal’s HIMSS adress as being meaningless. Someone at ONC found it and asked what they could do to make his address more meaningful. I told them nothing, because he was subject to the government muzzle. I think they’re reply was something like, “Many of us here don’t like the government muzzle either.” Another simple example of how they are very sincere people at ONC. I wonder if Blumenthal could offer a non-muzzled speech now.

I say all of this as background for a tweet that Farzad Mostashari sent out to EHR vendors. The thing I love most about this tweet is that Farzad is using the farthest extent of his power possible to push forward health IT within the government framework. This is no easy task, but I think Farzad’s tweet is brilliant:

I think the ONC pledge is still being considered by many EHR vendors. I know how EHR companies make decisions and so this won’t be any different. However, Farzad already posted this tweet with EHR companies that have made the pledge:

I’ve also seen tweets from NextGen and Azzly. We’ll see if others pop up on the #ONCPledge hashtag.

Oh the power of a tweet! Can you imagine how simple, but powerful Farzad’s request could be? No complicated legislation. No expensive stimulus. No mind numbing regulation. Just good old fashioned public pledge to do what’s right. I wonder how else this could be used.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

2 Comments

  • Couldn’t agree more that they have their heart in the right place. I hope you can keep track of who has made the pledge. I responded to Farzad’s tweet with a tweet of my own that the silence would be deafening. One can assume that every EHR vendor knows how to tweet so anyone who doesn’t respond has “responded”.

    The real question is do their prospective customers care. If they do, they should chime in with support for #VDTNow.

  • It’s a good point. My goal with this post was to give some more coverage to the topic so that more and more EHR vendors would get on board. I hope this gets even wider coverage so that EHR vendors won’t have much choice.

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