Meaningful Use #HITsm Twitter Chat

I had the honor today to host the #HITsm Twitter chat. For those not familiar with the #HITsm chat, you just join every Friday at Noon ET and watch the tweets that are sent using the #HITsm hashtag. There are usually 4-5 questions that are discussed over the hour chat. Since I was the host, I created the questions this week. I chose to focus the chat on the latest happenings with meaningful use. The transcript of the chat is found here.

I just took a look at the stats for the chat on Symplur and saw that the chat had 68 participants that sent out 474 tweets which had 3,196,079 impressions. You have to be a little careful looking at impressions since that’s potential impressions, but it’s still interesting to consider the possible reach of a chat.

There were some really interesting tweets during the chat, so here are the questions and a few (ok, more than a few since I got carried away) of my favorite tweets:

Topic 1: What are your thoughts on the AMA’s MU letter? Will we see any of their changes put in place?
Read: AMA Provides Blueprint to Improve the Meaningful Use Program


Limited, but still possible to change many things.


Predictable from Chuck, but he makes an interesting point.


Is it a big enough deal to get things to change.


Such a missed opportunity that many of the these ideas weren’t listened to during the rule making process.


I’m sure nurses would have a similar comment.

Topic 2: Will the Flex-IT act be passed? Is passing it a good or a bad thing?
Read: Killing Meaningful Use and Proposals to Change It


Great point. If you want to switch EHR, you’ll have to forgo meaningful use for a year. That will stop many from switching EHR software.


More delays?


Should MU be kept on life support, or should we let it die?


Good question on the place of standards post-MU.


It will help many who want MU money. Many won’t get MU money if this doesn’t pass.


Some are dragging their feet, but there are enough that aren’t that can’t make it that it’s worth considering the change.

Topic 3: The EHR penalty exemption was reopened. Will we see more opportunities for organizations to avoid the EHR penalties?
Read: Meaningful Use Hardship Exceptions Reopened


I think that Flex-IT would take out those nails and reopen the coffin and discover that MU has one last breathe.


Lots of exemptions


And we’re just getting started with submissions since they reopened it.


The government would never just work on the symptom instead of the problem, would they?

Topic 4: Many doctors are becoming vocal about their dissatisfaction with EHR software. What will it take to make doctors happy with their EHR?


Sad, but true.


Interesting idea. Much harder to execute.


Sadly, this means we won’t see a satisfying EHR anytime soon.


I love the concept of an EHR becoming a genius doctor advisor.


They’re too busy being doctors. Plus, it’s hard with 300 choices out there.


Ouch! Just ouch!


True. Business, financial, and regulatory. Not clinical.

Topic 5: Share your favorite MU stories and anecdotes (good, bad, crazy, scary, hysterical, etc).

Got a little long, but that shows you how much interesting information is discussed in just an hour Twitter chat. I look forward to hearing the ongoing conversation.

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.

   

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