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NewsMaker Interview with John Glaser: 11 months as adviser to ONC chief David Blumenthal

By Bernie Monegain

Why this change in your career and why now?
I’ve had the opportunity to work with this division closely for the last couple of years because of the work their doing at Partners – A big revenue cycle project we have, service oriented architecture work that we’ve done.

It was pretty clear to me that this is an organization of significant talent, an awful lot of resources and a real commitment this area. I thin it has done and continues to do some really remarkable things in this field. So it’s a very attractive place for lots of different reasons.

What is your proudest achievement at Partners?
There is an organizational competency of significant proportion that has been created at partners – competency in using the technology wisely and when to apply it, when not to apply it. That kind of wherewithal and know-how is a contribution that others and I will have made that will last for a very long period of time. Whether I come or go or 27 other people come or go, that organization knows how to apply IT. So it will do smart things a year from now, smart things five years from now because it’s just learned how to do that. If there’s any single thin I’m proudest of it’s that. We’ve grown to be good at it.

What do you bring to the table at Siemens, and how do you expect your work there to contribute to your own growth?
I have a lot to learn about them, both the individuals in the organization, the organization as a whole, the products and the services they have now and aspire to have and how one brings all of that together to take existing customers and potential customers and help them do the kinds of things they’d really like to do as they take on their care processes and make them better and better. So what I hope to do it just to really learn a lot and to really understand and to be effective at guiding and leading an organization that has a different set of activities and a different set of ways that it organizes than the one that I’m coming from.

What are your thoughts about the speed with which meaningful use is being applied today?
There will be a chunk of organizations that will say, ‘I can’t do it by 2011.’ Some of them will say, ‘I think 2015 might be a stretch for me.’ You have to realize that when Congress put this together, it was not the intention that 100 percent of the organizations be there by 2011. It’s fully expected that this would take multiple years for organizations to move, Hence you see a long incentive period and a long penalty period knowing that you wouldn’t move 100 percent in a year or to, or even a longer time. What you can’t do is say ‘I can’t make in 2011,’ and throw up your hands, and say, ‘well, there you go.’ So what will it take to be there in 2012, 2013 or 2015, and do so in a prudent way? You know what happens when you push these systems in too fast, you risk disaster.

What was the your best advise to David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health information technology, during your 11 month stint as adviser?
What was helpful in that conversation was to have real experience with putting these systems in and to talk about what some of the hot buttons might be. It probably was not a single thing. It was probably a series of discussions with the ONC staff, but al so with the members of the policy and standards committee. Rather than one big thing, it was probably hundreds of little things.”

What are you reading?
“Sh*t my Dad Says,” by Justin Halpern (a Father’s Day gift from my daughter); “The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing,” by Lori Alford; and “Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil,” by Michael C. Ruppert.