Uncategorized

Important: Input on consumer ‘Meaningful Use’ requested and required, Apr 20

Josh Seidman, now running the meaningful use program at ONC, but formerly of the Center for Ix Therapy writes with an important request:

The Meaningful Use Workgroup of the Health IT Policy/federal advisory committee that advises ONC) is holding a hearing on Tuesday, April 20 in Washington (open to the public in person and virtually) on patient/family engagement. This testimony and other public input will be critically important in laying out the foundational steps for the evolution of Stages 2 & 3 definitions of MU for patient/family engagement.

In addition to the hearing itself, we are now inviting public input in advance of the hearing and follow-up to it on the FACA Blog, and we’d love to get as much thoughtful input as possible.

It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it again anyway, that Josh’s shepherding of the meaningful use criteria plus his earlier lobbying of the process from the outside HHS was very instrumental in making the consumer such a big part of phase 1 of the meaningful use criteria. However, you can be assured that there are lots of people wanting to put the brakes on any expansion of the consumer-facing meaningful use criteria.

We’ve just come back form Europe where the Danes showed us that all their citizens already have access to everything we’re talking about in stages 2–3 of meaningful use. So I believe that we should be shooting for the stars here.

BUT unless the Health 2.0 crowd, the ePatients, and the consumer gets into the commenting mix, there are no guarantees. So please take the opportunity to get involved virtually and in reality if you’re in DC next week.

6 replies »

  1. Hello Matt,
    It’s Very Nice Article found here….
    Really it’s very helpful to me….
    keep posting I’m looking forwards to your new posts.
    Thanks again!
    James Woods, NY

  2. Hi, Matt:
    Who do *you* see as the “people wanting to put the brakes on any expansion of the consumer-facing meaningful use criteria”?
    I’m an editor over at HIT News (http://hitnews.inhealthcare.com/)…It would be great to use each other as resources.
    Thanks for the great blog, of course.
    Michele

  3. You can also share your thoughts/insights with patient advocates Dave deBronkart and Regina Holliday over at ePatients.net (http://e-patients.net/archives/2010/04/tell-hhs-whats-the-role-of-patient-generated-data-in-meaningful-use.html). They’re going to present a panel entitled “Incorporating Patient-Generated Data in Meaningful Use of HIT” and are asking for input on some specific questions in that area. I haven’t listened in on these workgroups for some weeks, but I definitely hope to hear this one: sounds like some important stuff will be discussed.

  4. Great call to action, Matthew.
    +1 re. it is up to us health 2.0 promoters to strengthen the voice of the consumer. that consumer voice has to compete with the amplified voice of industry.

  5. Whenever we hear about how great Denmark (or Sweden, Norway, etc.) is doing, I think, well the USA is much bigger and a lot more complicated.
    Denmark is comparable in many ways to Minnesota. About the same population, cold climate, low crime rate, relatively honest politicians, relatively homogeneous population, etc. Minnesota does have the healthiest population in the USA, so there (no, I am not from MN).