iHealthBeat: Leavitt on Health IT under ARRA

In a guest column on iHealthBeat, CCHIT Chair Mark Leavitt, MD, PhD, offers his opinions on the impact of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA).

While the funds associated with ARRA are garnering the attention, he states, it is the message the investment sends to the health care industry that is even more important:

But more important than the money itself is the message implicitly conveyed along with it. Will incentives be perceived as an intrusive, carrot-and-stick manipulation of health care providers’ business decisions? Or will health care providers interpret ARRA as the correction of a reimbursement anomaly, welcoming the opportunity to modernize their information management and transform the care they deliver.

So how should the health IT community respond? Leavitt calls for trusted leadership and creative solutions to address the issues. He also outlines how CCHIT is changing its certifications to better support the ARRA-fueled transitions in the HIT environment. Finally, he calls upon the HIT community to join the effort:

How ARRA will play out is not up to ONC alone, nor will it be determined by the choice of interoperability standards. The choice lies within the larger health IT community because collectively we set the standards that matter.

For more of Leavitt’s insights on the dynamically changing HIT enviroment, read “Health IT Under ARRA: It’s Not the Money, It’s the Message.”