John Loonsk, former director of interoperability and standards at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and current chief medical information officer at CGI, calls for a "reboot" of HITECH efforts in a recent commentary for Healthcare IT News. Loonsk, who also is affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Center for Population Health IT, shares 10 priorities, which include increasing certification of systems and separately addressing provider adoption frustrations and vendor complaints about standards implementation.
"While it is reasonable that many health IT outcomes are still unfulfilled, the path forward seems murky," Loonsk says. "EHR adoption has surged, but much of what has been broken about health IT in the United States still remains. And the leverage of the HITECH funds is dwindling fast." Post