HISTalk did a great job summarizing what this writer found about the new health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle’s ties to healthcare.

According to this writer, new health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle has some deep financial ties to the healthcare industry she’s supposed to reform: (1) she is a managing director for an advisory firm whose affiliate converted a non-profit Idaho hospital to a for-profit; (2) as a Cerner board member, she was paid $195K in stock and cash and held around $1 million of CERN shares at the end of 2007; (3) she was on the board of Triad Hospitals and made $1.4 million on its sale; (4) she’s on the board of medical device maker Boston Scientific, paid $160K and holding $400,000 of stock at the end of 2007; (5) she’s on the board of dialysis vendor Davita, paid $194K and holding $1.8 million in shares in 2007; (6) she was on the board of specialty pharmacy vendor Accredo, now Medco; (6) she made money by selling Guidant shares when it merged with Boston Scientific; (7) she was on the board of Specialty Labs, Inc. and got 38,500 shares, which she sold. Maybe she can reform the system, but so far her talent seems to be in profiting from it. Not exactly the anti-insider that Obama said he wanted all around him.

I should mention that DeParle has resigned from Cerner’s board.  Smart decision.  I’m not really sure what to think of this list.  However, just reading through it gives me that kind of sick feeling that something doesn’t feel right.  Reminds me of my previous post aboutAllScripts CEO as Obama’s Healthcare advisor.

We’ve discussed before the voice recognition software Dragon NaturallySpeaking (Medical and Preferred) and the microphone options and even announced when Dragon NaturallySpeaking Medical first came available. It’s enough to say that we’re big fans of voice recognition software and Dragon NaturallySpeaking in particular. It’s a great companion to an EMR or EHR implementation.

Today, I came across the Sony Digital Voice Recorder with Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software and I wondered if any of my readers have used this before. It seems like it could be an interesting way to replace a transcriptionist.

Basically, the doctor would record his notes on this device and then the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software would convert it to text and could be easily placed in the EMR. For $150, that seems like a bargain.

Really, the only question is how good Dragon NaturallySpeaking is at converting the recorded voice into text. I imagine it’s at least as good as doing it in real time. Does anyone have experience with it? If I hear some good reviews, then I’ll add it to my list of EMR technologies. This seems like it could be a really good solution for that doctor that doesn’t want to give up his/her transcribing ways.

As most people know, I’m always open to guest posts from everyone and anyone that can provide a thoughtful perspective on a subject.  In the following guest post, Charlie Jarvis, AVP at NextGen, shares some of his thoughts on the HITECH act’s impacts.  I don’t necessarily agree with everything in this guest post, but I do believe that Charlie’s description of the “ambivalent” EMR buyer seems to be pretty accurate.  This will be a major challenge we need to overcome.  I’m hoping to follow up this post with an interview of Charlie.

Thanks Charlie!

As the national debate over the economic recovery plan and specifically the entire stimulus package continues, the HITECH sections of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) may be “relatively” less controversial to the American public than other sections of this law But HITECH may wind up being just as important as other more visible pieces of this law-and central to the discussion around health care reform. HITECH will drive EMR adoption as we all know. But what does this really mean, beyond the sheer massive amounts of money being thrown at this effort?

I contend that HITECH is going to “stimulate” the following actions in our health care sector, beyond the obvious ones of job creation and expanded health care automation:

• the evolution of coordinated care (among independent doctors), around the individual patient- a concept known as patient –centered care
• a focus on true quality of care outcomes, and the necessary paradigm shift in physician behavior to a focus on the health care outcomes of patients rather than simply the results of individual treatments or procedures
• the necessity of independent small (1-5) physician practices to either consider joining with their hospital, creating larger independent groups, or affiliating with an IPA or other such organization that can support their technology needs going forward; their ability to remain independent will suffer dramatically (an after many economic activities in the past have failed to unite doctors, this one appears to be able to have that effect)

All of these actions are going to challenge the medical practitioner to adopt a new view of their practice and indeed of medicine in general. And all of us who support physicians are likewise challenged with the responsibility to support physicians through this potentially overwhelming process. Our job is to focus not on independent opportunity for success in this new model but rather to understand and accept our role in helping reform care achieve its intended goal- the improved health care service to the patient, at a price they or their insurance carrier can afford.

While there is a great deal of excitement among many with the availability of incredible amounts of money to support HIT adoption, we must remember that a large portion of the medical community is viewing this “technology explosion” as something being forced upon them rather than an action that they enthusiastically embrace. And in an environment where the right EHR product is not always obvious (the government’s definition of certified HIT products and issuance of a certified HIT product list is not ready yet although everything points to CCHIT remaining their certifying body), we have a potentially disenchanted and ambivalent “buyer”.

And this purchasing “ambivalence” does not even begin to address the concern most doctors have over the fact that how they will be judged as caregivers in the future, will be largely dependent on reports of data which they will be required to capture and report. (And finally, if that is not enough, their ability to automate successfully will be published on the government’s health website for all the population to see.)

This may be an exciting and tremendously opportunistic time for America to reform its health care system- but the automation plan is going to have it’s challenges. We had better be up to it as a team!!

Charlie Jarvis
Assistant Vice President Health Services and Government Relations
NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc.