2. Senate White Paper
• The Senate paper “Reboot” questions several
aspects relating to the effectiveness of (HITECH) Act
and the incentives it introduced to boost Electronic
Health Records’ (EHRs) adoption and implementation
• AMIA observes that EHRs were first deployed almost
40 years ago but adoption was almost negligible as of
2009
3. Interoperability and Cost
• AMIA observes that achieving interoperability is not
dependant on technology alone. It has more to do
with creating standards and vocabularies that are
used uniformly industry-wide
• Although there have been reports of increased
billing, as the Senators have suggested in their paper,
some of it apparently resulting from the improper
practice of records “cloning” or homogeneity
4. Oversight and Patient Privacy
• AMIA agrees with Senators that total money spent
on adoption and implementation is not a measure of
success for the programs introduced under HITECH
• AMIA strongly believes that compared to paper
records, EHRs are much more secure and more
usable to detect data breaches, waste, fraud, and
different kinds of abuse
5. Conclusion
• AMIA has also asserted that government funding to
support EHR adoption and interoperability will not
be needed for a long span of time
• Once the deployment phase is over, AMIA foresees
that the second step for stakeholders would be to
use analytics and various tools to use the pooled
data effectively which will eventually enhance
patient care and minimize healthcare costs
6. Read more on blog.curemd.com
• To read more on this topic, visit:
• http://blog.curemd.com/amia-response-to-senatewhite-paper/