Intelligent Healthcare Information Integration 1/8/10

“Eep!” said the EP

Yowser, yowser. Step right this way. Hear that mighty roar! The magnificent ONCHIT is bellowing his fearsome call. Step right up and see the most amazing, most awe-inspiring, most stupendous definer the world has ever seen! You’ve heard of that other great “decider.” Now, see the definer who makes all deciders tremble with uncertainty!

Yessiree, friends and neighbors, this is the chance of a lifetime. Never before has anyone experienced the awesome wisdom and magnificence of such a giant. In only 700 pages, the grand ONCHIT (Captain ONC to his friends) has laid out the biggest, boldest, most comprehensive plan ever to drive healthcare to the realm of tricorders, to help us all boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before. Watch out, Bones, here we come!

You, too, my dear friends, can join the crew of the Enterprise for EHRs. For a pittance, a mere trifle of an admission fee, you can join your colleagues and cohorts on the next great mission aboard the starship Meaningful Use. For just somewhere in the low- to mid-five figures, each of you can gain entry and join with us bold adventurers as we attempt to conquer earthbound HIT inertia. You, too, can walk about the bridge and watch as Scottie, Spock, and Sulu execute the mission plan of our courageous Captain ONC and effortlessly navigate the way from tellurian paper processes to Borgian interoperability and integration!

What’s that? What’s that you say? Oh, we have some bright comments from the peanut gallery? Speak up, youngster. Speak on up, kiddo.

Ahhhh…OK…This pint-sized opiner says that watching a bunch of overtrained actors move the mock controls of a Hollywood soundstage “starship” is not really equivalent to manually maneuvering the real gadgets and gizmos of busy medical practice’s “bridge.” He says that adding real deal technology to a hectic doctor’s office is as simple as taking a transporter to Honolulu compared to the foot-wearying Trail of Tears required to change entire workplace workflows. He says Captain ONC seems to have forgotten what life in the trenches is like, what an office staff of people who can barely navigate email are up against when told they have to become computer-faced in order to continue to provide health care. Workflow, says he, is the real Romulan Warbird.

Step aside, son, Ya’ bother me. Never you mind the miniscule lamenter, friends and neighbors. ONCHIT has spoken, almost definitively this time, and the word is wondrous! “Use” has never before looked so meaningful. Step right up, step right up. The show’s about to begin. Don’t miss your chance to join the greatest mission ever devised by medical minds anywhere, on this or any other planet. Climb aboard the Starship Meaningful Use. You, too, can become an Eligible Professional. You, too, can ride this HIT rocket to the stars!!!

(Heard from one anonymous Eligible Professional, or EP, who had just paid his entry fee and finally laid eyes upon ONCHIT’s magnificent starship, Meaningful Use: “Eep!”)

From the (useless?) trenches…

“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Dr. Gregg Alexander is a grunt-in-the-trenches pediatrician and geek. His personal manifesto home page…er..blog…yeh, that’s it, his blog – and he – can be reached through http://madisonpediatric.com or doc@madisonpediatric.com.