Stimulus package - healthcare IT provisions

system · February 11, 2009, 12:14am

hecardo wrote on Wednesday, February 11, 2009:

I also have been reviewing the senate version of the bill.

you down load it at

If you look at SEC. 4206 located on page 718 of the senate version of the bill. It states

11 SEC. 4206. STUDY ON AVAILABILITY OF OPEN SOURCE
12 HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYS
13 TEMS.
14
15 (1) STUDY.—The Secretary of Health and
16 Human Services shall, in consultation with the
17 Under Secretary for Health of the Veterans Health
18 Administration, the Director of the Indian Health
19 Service, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of
20 the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality,
21 the Administrator of the Health Resources and Serv
22ices Administration, and the Chairman of the Fed
23eral Communications Commission, conduct a study
24 on—

Page 719

1      (A) the current availability of open source
2 health information technology systems to Fed
3 eral safety net providers (including small, rural
4 providers);
5      (B) the total cost of ownership of such sys
6 tems in comparison to the cost of proprietary
7 commercial products available;
8     (C) the ability of such systems to respond
9 to the needs of, and be applied to, various pop
10 ulations (including children and disabled indi
11 viduals); and
12   (D) the capacity of such systems to facili
13 tate interoperability.
14 (2) CONSIDERATIONS.—In conducting the study
15 under paragraph (1), the Secretary of Health and
16 Human Services shall take into account the cir
17 cumstances of smaller health care providers, health
18 care providers located in rural or other medically un
19 derserved areas, and safety net providers that deliver
20 a significant level of health care to uninsured indi
21 viduals, Medicaid beneficiaries, SCHIP beneficiaries,
22 and other vulnerable individuals.
23 (b) REPORT.—Not later than October 1, 2010, the
24 Secretary of Health and Human Services shall submit to
25 Congress a report on the findings and the conclusions of

I am not sure how this will be looked at or by who! It looks like a opening for the World Vista folks.

There are 2 different sections of the bill

Title XIII Health and Information Technology page 230 to 371

Title IV - Health and Information Technology pages 665 to 731

There is a bunch of stuff in here CCHIT is not mentioned but HIT is.
The HIT committee has 2 years to determine what the standards are for a EHR.
Including interoperability with other systems.

If we can work on the import/export capabilities of OpenEMR to fulfill the interoperability requirements, this could be an excellent opportunity to increase the awareness & adoption of open source healthcare software.

They also have put some teeth in HIPAA.

The word meaningful is used a lot.
In order for anyone to get a check they must prove their system is being used in a meaningful way and can exchange data with other systems.

I have created pdf files of these 2 sections if anyone would like them drop me an email.

system · February 15, 2009, 4:46pm

voipbound wrote on Sunday, February 15, 2009:

World Vista is CCHIT certified but is now becoming a more costly solution. It has been around longer but is not as functional for the small practice and cost-challenge medical groups out there. They have a bunch of companies that are available to cash in if one were to want different modules/plug-ins. After millions of dollars pouring into this Vista project, they do not have a user friendly install, scheduling, billing, reports, etc…

I have moved over to OpenEMR and am dedicating time and money to get it CCHIT certified and cost effective for us small folks. The question is how does OpenEMR get some of the money for further development and CCHIT certification from this bill. It is still a wonder to me as to why it takes $35000 for CCHIT certification? At this price point, only the big firms are able to compete with each other and leaving us little guys out on the sideline.

system · February 16, 2009, 2:11pm

drbowen wrote on Monday, February 16, 2009:

I spoke with Dr. David Hunt of the Department of Health and Human Services in the Health Information Technology (HIT) section on January 16th, 2009. It was very clear from Mr. Hunt that the HIT would not provide any support or funding without the CCHIT certification.

Sam Bowen, MD

system · February 17, 2009, 2:29pm

cfapress wrote on Tuesday, February 17, 2009:

Dr Bowen,

Thank you for your continued diligence in the CCHIT certification area. I propose we place an advertisement on the home page of oemr.org asking for contributions to certify OpenEMR. Something simple that links to a page with more details of the benefit to having this open source project certified.

For example, the home page could have a small graphic related to CCHIT and text like this:

[graphic]
Donate to Certify.
Why Certify?
- Medicare incentive $$
- Consistent interface
- Reliable data

Then the linked-to page could elaborate on the bullet points and provide links to CCHIT, show a graph of where we stand with contributions, and relevant quotes from the stimulus bill.

Also, is OpenEMR registered as a 501c3? Or just a non-profit?

What do you think?
Jason

system · February 17, 2009, 5:34pm

drbowen wrote on Tuesday, February 17, 2009:

Dear Jason,

To much to do and not enough time.

My current priorities list:

Upgrade the CMS on oemr.org.
Upgrade the wiki on oemr.org.
Install Paypal for donations.
Upgrade the downloads section on oemr.org to count downloads / hits / etc.

I am contacting:

Barbara Pullen-Smith, Director of the North Carolina Office of Minority Healthcare and Healthcare disparaties who is interested in referring me to the Office of Rural Health. Both of these offices are potential sources of grants.

I am also trying to apply for grants with:

Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust
BCBS Foundation of North Carolina
GSK (Glaxo Smith Klein) Foundation of NC

I am writing a letter to CCHIT to simply ask them to lower their fee. We are an all volunteer organization with no income, no paid employees and $3,067.15 in our checking account. What CCHIT is asking ($32,000 application and $6,000 in the first year maintainance fee, I asked) and what the federal government is doing with the new stimulus bill is simply guaranteeing that there will be no cost effective solution.

I expect that they will turn us down but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Write a letter to all my Senators and Federal representatives asking for help with CCHIT.

I am also trying to raise the funds to pay for the CCHIT fee outright in case all else fails. Yes, our accounting allows us to track the CCHIT funds separately. This is mandatory in not-for-profit accounting. It has to do with keeping all the grants

I need to count the installations of OpenEMR and I need to tally up the amount of free time and software that we receive. These help with the grant writing projects.

I have an increasing number of volunteers contacting me privately that want to help either by programming, IT administrators, and "just want to help".

Also, is OpenEMR registered as a 501c3? Or just a non-profit?

OSMS is currently a not-for-profit corporation chartered in the State of North Carolina. I have applied for the 501(c)(3) status in March of 2006. I enlisted the aid of my US representative, Patrick McHenry, and have been diligently pursuing the 501(c)(3) since. The application has been on the desk of Laurie Thrasher, IRS, in the Washington office since September of 2007.

And of course there is my day job that keeps getting in the way. My wife is funny about wanting to pay the bills ;-).

If you are interested, I would be glad to have some help. The web stuff in particular.

Sam Bowen, MD