EHR vendors continue to use 'gag clauses' in their provider contracts

Despite concerns about adverse patient safety incidents occurring due to electronic health records, many vendors still include gag clauses in their contracts with providers, according to Politico, which conducted an investigation, obtaining 11 contracts of some of the largest EHR vendors through public record requests from hospitals and health systems in three states.

All but one contract contained a gag clause, including contracts with Epic, Cerner, Siemens (now Cerner), Allscripts, eClinicalWorks and Meditech. The article pointed out that there's little transparency, despite the fact that these systems are "taxpayer subsidized" referring to the Meaningful Use program. The article also noted that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has little power to deal with such gag clauses. Article