I haven’t really commented in the past about Tom Daschle’s appointment as HHS Secretary.  However, today it was announced that Tom Daschle has withdrawn his name from being HHS secretary.  I don’t know Tom Daschle that well, but from what I’ve read, it seems like Tom Daschle would have been more focused on implementing changes too health care not related to IT.  This guest post by Tom Daschle on the Huffington Post seems to indicate this feeling I have.

One thing is certain, it’s quite shameful that Tom Daschle could somehow have missed $128,203 in additional tax and $11,964 in interest.  Considering the amount of money Obama is planning on investing in EMR, I’m not sure I would have wanted Daschle involved in the process.

Of course, you have to wonder if there exists a politician that isn’t tainted in some serious way or another.  Whoever Obama appoints as HHS secretary, I hope it’s someone who will invest appropriately in HIT.  I also hope they’re as transparent and open as past HHS secretary Mike Leavitt was in his blog.

UPDATE:

I just found this interesting set of quotes and media put together by Alborg about Daschle and various special interests that he might have had.

I’m so happy that Daschle was forced to resign. He was one of the major HIMSS representatives on Obama’s team. From the HIIMSS website:

“HIMSS has arranged for members to personally add their support for Senator Tom Daschle to be confirmed as the next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “

In fact, he was paid off by HIMSS members, including speaking fees from Misys Healthcare Systems ($12,000) and GE Healthcare ($12,000) on 8/2008. Quote from article “Tax Cheat Daschle Favors Federal Reserve for Health“:

“GE Healthcare, one of several healthcare companies that paid Daschle tens of thousands of dollars to speak to their organizations, stands to profit if Daschle is confirmed and pursues Obama’s plan for more federal involvement in the health care field. Indeed, a part of the Obama plan, which is a specialty of GE Healthcare, is the electronic processing of medical records.”

Another quote from the recent media:

“While the tax cheating is getting some attention from the media, the $220,000 in speaking fees that Daschle collected from special interests in the health care field seems to be getting more coverage because of the fact, as noted by Kenneth P. Vogel of Politico.com, that many of these firms “stand to gain or lose millions of dollars from the work he would do once confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services.” A front-page headline in the Washington Post, “Health Sector Enriched Daschle,” captures the obvious conflict of interest problem for the nominee. One of those firms is GE Healthcare, but chances are you won’t hear much about it from GE’s media properties…”

About Dashle’s book which includes HIT references:

“Daschle’s book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis,” published in early 2008, notes that “we are years, if not decades, behind European nations in harnessing health care information technology’s potential.” It calls for removing much health care policy-making from the political arena but states that at the same time the executive branch of the federal government should promote creation of an IT infrastructure for health information.”

The only question I still have is whether anyone exists that isn’t as bad or worse than Daschle.  At least maybe his replacement will know how to file his taxes.

Unless you’re a part of the health care blogosphere, you probably haven’t been following the incredible firestorm that health care bloggers have created around the acquisition of Wellsphere by HealthCentral. Here’s the cliff notes version:

• Bloggers receive flattering email from Wellsphere asking to join their Health Care blogger network
• Bloggers provide their blog feed to Wellsphere
• Wellsphere aggregates their blog content for months
• HealthCentral Acquires Wellsphere
• Bloggers Freak Out
• Bloggers learn that the TOS gave Wellsphere the right to sell their content
• Bloggers feel betrayed
• Bloggers flame Wellsphere and HealthCentral for acquiring them
• Bloggers pull their blog feeds from Wellsphere
• ? (still to be written)

Honestly, I feel like bloggers are making much ado about nothing.  Sure, the emails from Dr. Rutledge were incredibly flattering.  I had to literally tell myself when reading them that Dr. Rutledge had never read my blog.  He didn’t really know how good I am at blogging even though his email called me an “expert blogger” and a “true medical expert.”  Seems like many bloggers who got that email couldn’t read through the marketing gloss.  (See the full emails here)

I too joined Wellsphere and my experience was very much like this health care blogger except the part where he feels like a sucker.   I knew what I was getting into.   All that was suggested was getting more exposure for my blog and possibly more credibility and visibility for my name.  My blog being about Health Care IT I didn’t see the promised traffic and so I pulled my blog.  No harm no foul.

I think people are making a bigger deal out of having their content on Wellsphere anyway.  If you’re blog holds any weight, then there are tons of spammers all over the internet that are pulling in your feed and republishing it.  Having it on Wellsphere doesn’t change the value of your content.  In fact, in some ways it can add more value to your content since it links back to your original post.

Sure, I feel bad for those bloggers that didn’t understand what they were getting into.  However, do I think that Wellsphere was unethical in what they did: No.  I also disagree with Dmitriy who said that “Wellsphere epitomizes all that is wrong with the “Health 2.0 Movement.”"  There are so many bigger issues with Health 2.0 than this, but I digress.   From my experience, Wellsphere did exactly what they told me they were going to do.  Do I wish they could have driven more traffic to my site?  Yes.  Did it happen?  No.  Oh well, it was worth a try and cost me almost nothing.

The funny part for me about all of this is that just last week I sent an email to a couple wellness educator friends of mine that were looking to creating a wellness website.  I sent them Wellsphere as an interesting example of building a community of people focused on Wellness.  When asked, I told them that Wellsphere was probably VC funded and as such would be looking for exit opportunities.  That’s just how a website like it works.  You build it to exit.  Most common of which is purchase by another company.  It’s just unfortunate that so many bloggers were unaware of the web VC busines model.  Don’t expect this to change anytime soon.

Since I’m the eternal optimist, let’s take a look at a couple really cool things that have happened because of the HealthCentral acquisition of WellSphere:

• I’ve found a ton of really cool Health Care bloggers that I’d never known before
• Health Care bloggers have never been more passionate and united in a common cause

Now if we can harness that passion and energy to something as important as health care and wellness, we can certainly do a lot of good.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Searches for Top EMR companies has been the biggest source of traffic to this site in the past month.  Users searching Google for this will be directed to my long list of EMR and EHR companies.  I feel a little bad that someone is searching for the top EMR companies and gets directed to a list of over 400 EMR companies (and that list is definitely old).  Hopefully as the EMR and EHR Matrix of Companies on the EMR and HIPAA wiki continues to fill out, it will be a better resource in finding the various EMR and EHR companies that exist.

What’s interesting is that my guess is that many of those looking for an EMR company don’t know how to start the EMR/EHR selection process.  They’re overwhelmed by the over 400 EMR and EHR systems available on the market today.  I have a feeling that this economic downturn will eliminate a number of these systems and EMR companies will continue to merge.   However, doctors will still be faced with the daunting task of sifting through the hundreds of possible options available to them.

I have a feeling this is why many doctors and those interested in implementing an EMR have turned to Google to narrow the list down for them.  They figure Google must have some information that will just show them a list of top EMR companies.  Of course Google doesn’t know any better, because honestly no one can make a universal list of the top EMR companies.  There’s just too many variables involved.

I do have some ideas of my own for making the selection process better.  I’m even seriously considering writing a short E-Book about the EMR Selection Prcess.   What do you think about that?  Is that something you’d be willing to buy?  What do you think it would be worth?  It would be a quick guide to helping people make the most of the sometimes difficult EMR selection process.  I’d also provide some tools for comparing the various EMR systems you learn about.  I’ll let you know as this progresses.

For those finding my site after searching for the “Top EMR Companies” I think you’re on the right track.  Check out my Theory of 5 EMR Systems and you’ll see that I’m a strong proponent of streamlining the EMR selection process.