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Federal Deadline Hobbling eHealth IT Rollout
Lucas123 writes "A federal deadline that begins next year and requires hospitals to prove they're meaningfully using electronic health records will lead to technical problems and data errors affecting patient care, say politicians and top IT professionals responsible for the deployments. Physicians and hospitals have until the end of 2011 to receive the maximum federal incentive monies to deploy the technology. If not deployed by 2015, they face penalties through cuts in Medicare reimbursements. 'I think we have nontechnology people making decisions about technology,' said Gregg Veltri, CIO at Denver Health. 'I wonder if anybody understands the reality of IT systems and how complex they are, especially when they're integrated together. You're going to sacrifice quality if you increase the speed [of the rollout].'"
'I think we have nontechnology people making decisions about technology,' said Gregg Veltri, CIO at Denver Health. 'I wonder if anybody understands the reality of IT systems and how complex they are, especially when they're integrated together. You're going to sacrifice quality if you increase the speed [of the rollout].'
You know what, Gregg? Suck it up. Man up and get your system production ready. I am so tired of excuses from the IT department.
Maybe I'm being unfair here, but my experience with IT managers is that their development plans look something like this:
1. Promise the impossible
2. Get buy-in to develop an expensive system based on (1)
3. Essentially let people play with themselves until the time is up.
4. Realize what you have is not even close to (1)
5. Try to rebaseline the schedule, and GOTO 1.
Instead of telling us what you can't do, how about telling us what you can do. Meaning what functionality you can deliver (production-ready) by the deadline. Otherwise, you are just whining.