Marc Probst Takes Aim at Meaningful Use in Interview at CHIME

One of the must read interviews coming out of the CHIME Fall Forum is Mark Hagland’s interview with Marc Probst. We know that Marc Probst had a growing dissatisfaction with meaningful use after he said he would love to kill meaningful use during National Health IT Week. He keeps on that same trajectory during this great interview by Mark. Although, I think Marc is just representing the feelings of many hospital CIOs.

Here are a few excerpts of the interview for those who don’t want to read the whole thing:

So what is meaningful use for you, as an IT pioneer?

Well, it’s a pain in the neck! We believe we were already some of the most meaningful users, in the broader sense of the term, in healthcare IT, prior to the meaningful use program. But meaningful use has imposed rigid functions that you have to do, and I don’t think it’s added any additional value to what our clinicians do, but only to add tasks. So it hasn’t been all that helpful. I sit on the [federal] IT Policy Committee, so I have a little to do with meaningful use, but nonetheless, it hasn’t been [satisfying].

Nice to see that Marc Probst is taking a little bit of accountability for meaningful use. Although, if you’ve ever sat on a committee you know that you can only do so much if the committee is against you. I think the thoughts above are the opinions of many in healthcare. Although, this simple quote from Marc Probst sums up what many would like to see done:

“I honestly think we should now declare victory and move on.”

Although, Marc Probst also offers this sobering reality that many healthcare CIOs will face:

But I think that a fair number are going to say, look, if I haven’t done it this year, I’ll get the penalties anyway if I haven’t yet attested to Stage 2. I think many will focus instead on ICD-10 and data security, because meaningful use is so frustrating and they don’t control the variables; and security, they can control some of the variables. And the penalties are much harsher for breaches than for meaningful use failure.

I’ve never seen someone compare the meaningful use penalties with the penalties for breaches. It’s a very interesting comparison. However, they are hard to compare since the meaningful use penalties are guaranteed to happen if you don’t attest to MU. The breach penalties only happen if you have a breach occur…or I should say if you have a breach occur and you realize it happened (or get caught). That’s likely why more people are concerned with the meaningful use penalties than security and privacy in their organization.

I think this type of sentiment about meaningful use will grow stronger and be heard from more areas of the country. Marc Probst and Intermountain are really powerful figures in the healthcare community. No doubt, Marc’s decision to speak out on this subject will embolden many others to do the same.

Go and read the rest of Mark Hagland’s interview with Marc Probst. Many more good perspectives in the full interview. I’m glad that people like Marc agree with me that we should Blow Up Meaningful Use and focus on interoperability.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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