Physicians Ask New HHS Head For Health IT Help

The American Academy of Family Practitioners has written to new HHS Secretary Tom Price with a list of areas in which health IT could use a helping hand.  In its letter, the group outlines issues with physician use of health IT that the new leadership could tackle.

According to the AAFP, the top issues policymakers need to tackle include:

  • Lack of healthcare data access undercuts care: Without interoperability, it will be hard for doctors to ensure continuity of care, care coordination and a learning and accountable health system, the group says. It names the Direct protocols as an example of progress on this front.
  • HIT functions are too business-oriented: According to the AAFP, the healthcare industry has spent too much time focused on automating the business of healthcare, particularly documentation. The letter argues that it’s time to flip the focus from business functions to delivery of appropriate care.
  • HIT reduces physician satisfaction: The group argues that current health IT solutions are “extinguishing the joy of practice” for physicians and contributing to physician burnout and frustration.
  • EHR certification standards are undercutting clinicians: The AAFP contends that existing standards for EHR certification are causing problems physicians, as they don’t do much to push vendors to meet user demands or improve their technology.

This is certainly a reasonable summary of issues in physician HIT adoption. And they deserve to be addressed Unfortunately, it’s not likely that that the AAFP will get much satisfaction from HHS, CMS or any other government entity. I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that agencies like ONC aren’t going to get much more done.

I do have hope that current waves of technology will allow health IT issues to self-heal to some extent. In particular, as healthcare technology becomes more decentralized, connected and mobile, providers won’t have to manage clumsy, ugly EMR interfaces on the desktop. In part due to some chats with vendors, I’ve become convinced that next-gen HIT solutions will present data via lightweight clients (perhaps even lighter than existing apps) which create an EMR-on-the-fly. One example of a company working on this approach is Praxify which Healthcare Scene recently saw at HIMSS. This lightweight client approach could make existing concerns about HIT usability and architecture obsolete.

However, I’m realistic enough to know that no matter how nifty emerging HIT approaches are, we still have to get from here to there. And as long as clinicians remain something of an afterthought when EMRs are designed – something which despite vendor denials, remains a big issue – we’re likely to keep struggling with today’s HIT issues. Let’s hope the revolution comes before we’ve exhausted our issues fighting current health IT demons.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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