This post is a bit different from most of the policy points, institutional cases and reports of technical innovations that I’ve been reading on THCB in the past months. I want to pose the above Question to the readers of this blog, since many of you are uniquely positioned help answer it in your comments. And I have a hope that your responses to this Question will help nuance the technical and policy debate over EMR adoption.
First, let’s unpack the Question:
1. THE JOB. In the past several years, a number of public and private initiatives, most recently ABMS’s Improving Performance in Practice (a project with which I am affiliated) and NCQA’s Patient Centered Medical Home, have been making fitful progress toward a new post-reform model of primary care: patient-centered, accessible, care-coordinating, population-focused, prepared, proactive, and the rest. These collaboratives and demonstration projects have all stressed the importance of computerized ‘registry functions’ as the foundation for these progressive capabilities. One, the Health Disparities Collaboratives run by HRSA, went so far as to commission a registry program and provide it free to participating clinics.Continue reading…
