I decided to see if I could find the Senate testimony on EMR and EHR so that I could see the types of messages that were being told to Senate during their hearings on health care IT.  Well, it turns out that I found a ton of interesting information about the Senate hearings.  I had a feeling it was part of the public record and I think I was right.  In fact, I found a video of at least one Senate hearing and I’ll be writing about it shortly.

In this post I want to just highlight one section of the testimony from Adrienne Hahn.   It looks like Adrienne Hahn is from Consumers Union, the independent, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.  In Adrienne’s testimony she makes the following assertions about Health Care IT:

By harnessing the power of modern information technology systems we can improve the quality of American health care and moderate health costs by: 

1. Reducing Errors 
2. Eliminating service duplication, 
3. Promoting pay for performance, and 
4. Providing the data necessary to evaluate the actual comparative effectiveness of various treatments and drugs. 

I should point out that the majority of Adrienne Hahn’s testimony has to do with preserving a patient’s privacy and the impact of these choices on the consumer.  However, the above list of improvements caused me to pause.

Look at the list above and tell me which one benefits the doctors.  I guess reducing errors could possibly lower the liability a doctor has.  However, does anyone really think that in this sue happy world that a doctor’s liability insurance is ever going to come down in price?  Other than that, this list doesn’t include anything that benefits the doctors.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I have seen a ton of information advocating for patient’s privacy.  I’ve seen ton of people lobbying for better reimbursement models (see insurance companies).  Who is making sure that software is being built that will make doctors lifes easier as well?  If you’re a doctor’s advocate, I’d love to see and hear about what you’re doing to use health care IT to make doctor’s lives better.

I should also clarify that no, I’m not a doctor.

The TEPR conference is going on right now in beautiful Palm Springs, CA.  One of the highlights for people attending this conference is to find out which EHR, PHR or EMR wins the TEPR awards.  You can see the full list of TEPR awards finalists on Healthcare IT News.  The winners were also announced, but honestly it doesn’t even matter who won the awards.  I don’t want to rehash why these awards don’t mean much.  Although, I think the fact that only 700 people attended the conference says a lot.

Minus the vendors and the speakers who probably outnumbered the attendees and we have a conference (and therefore awards) that’s in real trouble.  I’m sure the economy played its own part, but you sure have to wonder how long TEPR will be around after such poor attendance.

Considering the situation, I wondered how I would fashion an EMR/EHR award.  Here’s some thoughts on what I’d do if I were to create an EMR or EHR award contest.

• Every EMR or EHR vendor would be welcome to enter at no cost.  You have to have every EMR eligible to be part of the award or the award doesn’t mean anything.  Once you charge you’re ruling out a ton of EMR companies that don’t want to pay for the award contest.
• Award categories should exist for the various specialties.  Anyone that thinks that one EMR or EHR is the best EMR or EHR for every specialty hasn’t seen enough EMR systems.
• Special Awards should be given to EMR companies that might have an exceptional feature that’s worth noting.  By doing this, hopefully other EMR companies can learn about great features and implement them in their own EMR software.
• Judges should not have any financial interest in one EMR or another.  It’s impossible to find a judge that doesn’t have biases.  We all have biases  However, there are people like myself that have no financial interest in the success of one EMR or another.
• The criteria for judging and the results of the judging should be published for each EMR system.  This would allow those investigating an EMR to hear the full story.  Otherwise, an award with no information has little meaning.
• Judges should have access to an actual system.  Not just receive a demo of the system perfectly setup and showing only basically a sales demo of the best feature in an unrealistic environment.

I’m sure there are things I’m missing.  I’d love to hear your suggestions on how you’d set up an EMR, EHR or PHR award.

Do you think that EMR and HIPAA should create an award competition?