Monday, March 2, 2009

A Do it Yourself Board Presentation

President Barack Obama officially nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as HHS Secretary and named former HCFA administrator Nancy-Ann DeParle as Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office for Health Reform.

Now that national healthcare leadership is imminent, hospitals, provider groups, payers, vendors, and patients are anticipating action on the next steps outlined by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Every IT professional in the land is being asked to present an overview to their Board summarizing the possibilities.

As a public service, I have created an overview presentation which summarizes all the healthcare IT provisions of the Act and outlines the incentives and penalties for physicians and hospitals.

You have my permission to use this presentation for your organization without attribution or copyright restriction . I did my best to interpret the Act accurately, but cannot guarantee that every word is precisely right (it's long and complex legislation).

Over the next few weeks, I will outline some of the steps we're taking in Massachusetts to prepare for the work ahead. For example, tomorrow's blog will describe BIDMC/BIDPO and Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative efforts to create quality data warehousing based on healthcare information exchange. Given the number of times that quality measurement and healthcare information exchange is mentioned in the Act, it seems prudent to get this started and empower all our local stakeholders by meeting those stimulus incentive criteria.

It's an exciting time and I believe all healthcare IT organizations will benefit from enhanced collaboration - "all for one and one for all". Hence I will be especially transparent about our plans, sharing the presentations I am preparing so they may be leveraged by all stakeholders.

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