Thinking about the role healthcare providers and the creators of HIT systems will play in transforming the contemporary medical practice model

Right now we, healthcare providers, as well as the creators and vendors of health information technology systems, are in an exciting position. We have the opportunity to positively impact the American medical practice model in ways that have literally never been possible before.

Following the signing of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), which was itself a significant portion of the larger American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), by the President in February of 2009, a national dialogue about the ways information technology can better support the delivery of quality healthcare in the United States began.

Under the leadership of David Blumenthal, MD, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, groups of thought leaders from around the country translated the best of that dialogue into an initial set of policies and standards that will serve as both a blueprint for HIT adoption and “meaningful use” in the short term, and a road map to creating a truly interoperable national health information network during the next several years. Dr. Blumenthal and everyone who contributed to this effort are to be commended for what they have achieved.

Now, it is our turn to accept a challenge.

The first part of that challenge involves the actual implementation of the certified, technology-based systems that will help physicians and hospitals accomplish the workflow-related activities described in the sequential phases of “meaningful use.” The scope of work is enormous, the timeframe, ambitious, and the need for communication and cooperation between the healthcare delivery and information technology communities, greater than ever.

The second part of our challenge involves focus, because “meaningful use” is, in itself, not the goal. The implementation of certified HIT systems is not, in itself, the goal. Even the broad adoption of HIT systems across the country, as critical as that might be, is not, in itself, the goal.

In the same way that “meaningful use” can only be accomplished when clinicians adopt the tools provided by certified HIT systems as a part of their daily workflow, our goal must be to transform the contemporary healthcare delivery model into a real world environment in which all these secure, technology-based tools are used to their best, coordinated advantage to ensure that every patient gets the right care, at the right time, from the right provider in the most cost effective manner.

So we must all maintain our focus on enhancing our patients’ clinical outcomes by creating a transformed medical practice model in which no clinician will ever need to make a treatment decision with anything less than all of a patient’s pertinent information; no patient will ever have to serve as their own, personal medical historian; and medical researchers and physician scientists will have the tools they need to analyze vast amounts of searchable treatment, outcomes and other types of data to discover the answers to the questions that will make tomorrow a healthier day for us all.

C. Martin Harris, MD, is CIO and chairman of the IT division at the Cleveland Clinic, a member of the federal Health IT Standards Committee and chairman of the HIMSS Board of Directors.