The Washington Post on Saturday reported on how the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) exerted its influence on the Obama administration and Congress to promote healthcare information technology.
The article, by staff writer Robert O'Harrow Jr., is headlined: "The Machinery Behind Health-Care Reform" and subtitled "How an Industry Lobby Scored a Swift, Unexpected Victory by Channeling Billions to Electronic Records." O'Harrow is a reporter for the financial and investigative staffs.
The article quotes HIMSS President H. Stephen Lieber and Blackford Middleton, a physician at Partners HealthCare in Boston who serves as chairman of the Center for Information Technology Leadership. It details the connections among the center, Partners HealthCare, HIMSS and the Obama Administration, including the Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare Information Technology, now headed by David Blumenthal, MD.
"It was perhaps a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make something happen," Lieber is quoted as saying. President Barack Obama "identified the vehicle that he could use to move his policy agenda forward without the crippling policy debate."
The article and many of the comments posted online raise questions about whether electronic health record technology is ready for adoption.
"Six months after the 'upgrade' we are left with a clinical software package that is barely functional. It has four bugs which expose us to legal liability," one comment offered. "No one at the company has responded in a way which gives us assurance that they will fix what is broken. A faulty upgrade, inadequate tech support, non-responsive management: it now appears our only option is to scrap the system and return to paper records."
The article mentions that HIMSS runs a trade show and publishes a technology newspaper.
Healthcare IT News is published by the MedTech Publishing Company in partnership with HIMSS, but HIMSS exercises no control over its editorial content.
