AMA And Almost 100 Physician Societies Sound Off To CMS On Health IT, Use "F" Word

In a remarkable development, the American Medical Association and nearly one hundred other physician specialty societies submitted a letter to CMS on Mar. 15 (in PDF at http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/399/meaningful-use-comments-15mar2010.pdf).

These organizations wish to prevent physicians from purchasing ill conceived and poorly designed HIT that does not support better practice. The organizations also express deep concern about ominous reporting requirements and overly aggressive timelines, the latter an issue I've written about repeatedly such as in my formal reply to ONC's "Proposed Establishment of Certification Programs for Health Information Technology" at this link.

The entire letter is available at the PDF link above and is quite lengthy, but the section of the letter that immediately caught my eye is this:

... Aggressive timelines and criteria during the initial stage of the incentive program will only serve to undermine this effort. Some government officials have relayed that complex measures and high reporting thresholds are needed to discourage EPs ["eligible professionals" eligible for ARRA money -ed.] from switching back to the use of paper during this transition to EHRs.

We are very troubled by this assertion. Physicians are deeply supportive of and committed to incorporating well-developed EHRs into their practices to improve quality of care delivery, enhance patient safety, as well as support practice efficiencies. [Some are - many are not - perhaps the medical specialty societies need to stop acting as if they speak for all physicians - ed.]

It is also very unlikely that after physicians make a significant up front investment in health IT and changes to their workflow that they will revert back to manual processes.

That assertion, in fact, is not quite true, as in "Failure, De-installation Of EHRs Abound" here. However, coercion through ominous reporting requirements is not going to improve adoption rates and will undermine HIT efforts as well, for example via physician fear of the uses to which the data will be put by a coercive, authoritarian-leaning government.

Now comes what I believe is the most critical passage where the "F" word ("failure") is used:

We believe that the larger concern should be deterring the purchasing of costly EHR products that fail to improve physician workflow, patient care, and practice needs. Industry experts have cited that such failures have adversely affected EHR adoption rates ranging from 50 to 80 percent. [Mission hostile health IT falls into that category - ed.]

Note the acknowledgment of healthcare IT failure.

The letter was a bit weak in the area of patient safety related to HIT. Further, it presented physicians as monolithic eager adopters of HIT (a characterization that is most assuredly false), and minimized the issue of the messiness and Murphy's Law nature of IT installation and maintenance that often make IT a nightmare.

The fact, however, that a letter from the major medical societies challenged the irrational exuberance and beliefs in technological determinism that surround health IT (i.e., that computerization 'automagically' fosters improvement), and used the "failure" word is itself somewhat astonishing.

I was not inventing anything when I began writing about HIT difficulties over ten years ago using the "failure" word, merely reporting the obvious (to those sober about IT) from observation and reports of many colleagues.

It's good to see the rest of the medical world start to catch up with common sense.

-- SS

Addendum: the letter was also signed by the following groups:

American Academy of Dermatology Association
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Academy of Home Care Physicians
American Academy of Neurology Professional Association
American Academy of Ophthalmology
American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery
American Academy of Pain Medicine
American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
American Academy of Sleep Medicine
American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists
American College of Cardiology
American College of Chest Physicians
American College of Gastroenterology
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians
American College of Osteopathic Internists
American College of Osteopathic Surgeons
American Academy of Pediatrics
American College of Physicians
American College of Radiation Oncology
American College of Rheumatology
American College of Surgeons
American Gastroenterological Association
American Geriatrics Society
American Medical Association
American Osteopathic Academy of Orthopedics
American Osteopathic Association
American Psychiatric Association
American Society for Clinical Pathology
American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy
American Society for Radiation Oncology
American Society of Anesthesiologists
American Society of Clinical Oncology
American Society of Hematology
American Society of Nephrology
American Society of Plastic Surgeons
American Thoracic Society
American Urological Association
Heart Rhythm Society
Infectious Diseases Society of America
Joint Council of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology
Medical Group Management Association
North American Spine Society
Renal Physicians Association
Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions
Society for Vascular Surgery
Society of Hospital Medicine
The Endocrine Society
Medical Association of the State of Alabama
Alaska State Medical Association
Arizona Medical Association
Arkansas Medical Society
California Medical Association
Colorado Medical Society
Connecticut State Medical Society
Medical Society of Delaware
Medical Society of the District of Columbia
Florida Medical Association, Inc.
Medical Association of Georgia
Hawaii Medical Association
Idaho Medical Association
Illinois State Medical Society
Indiana State Medical Association
Iowa Medical Society
Kansas Medical Society
Kentucky Medical Association
Louisiana State Medical Society
Maine Medical Association
MedChi, The Maryland State Medical Society
Massachusetts Medical Society
Michigan State Medical Society
Minnesota Medical Association
Mississippi State Medical Association
Missouri State Medical Association
Montana Medical Association
Nevada State Medical Association
New Hampshire Medical Society
Medical Society of New Jersey
New Mexico Medical Society
Medical Society of the State of New York
North Carolina Medical Society
North Dakota Medical Association
Ohio State Medical Association
Oklahoma State Medical Association
Oregon Medical Association
Pennsylvania Medical Society
Rhode Island Medical Society
South Carolina Medical Association
South Dakota State Medical Association
Utah Medical Association
Wisconsin Medical Society
Vermont Medical Society
Medical Society of Virginia
Washington State Medical Association
West Virginia State Medical Association
Wyoming Medical Society