The always interesting and insightful John Moore from Chilmark research has a post up that asks a very good question. The question is whether it’s time for the government to get out of the EHR regulation business and let the market forces back in so they can innovate. I love this section of the post which describes our current situation really well:
But as often happens with government initiatives, initial policy to foster adoption of a given technology can have unintended consequences no matter how well meaning the original intent may be.
During my stint at MIT my research focus was diffusion of technology into regulated markets. At the time I was looking at the environmental market and what both the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act did to foster technology adoption. What my research found was that the policies instituted by these Acts led to rapid adoption of technology to meet specific guidelines and subsequently contributed to a cleaner environment. However, these policies also led to a complete stalling of innovation as the policies were too prescriptive. Innovation did not return to these markets until policies had changed allowing market forces to dictate compliance. In the case of the Clean Air Act, it was the creation of a market for trading of COx, SOx and NOx emissions.
We are beginning to see something similar play-out in the HIT market. Stage one got the adoption ball rolling for EHRs. Again, this is a great victory for federal policy and public health. But we are now at a point where federal policy needs to take a back seat to market forces. The market itself will separate the winners from the losers.
His points highlight another reason why I think that ONC should blow up meaningful use. In my plan, I basically see it as the government getting out of the EHR business. I do disagree with John Moore’s comments that the government should step away from interoperability. If they do, we just won’t have interoperability. I guess he’d make the argument that value based reimbursement will force it, but not in the same way that the rest of the EHR incentive money could force the issue.
I have learned that to really get out of this game or even do what I describe will take an act of congress. HHS can’t do this without their help. Although, they could get pretty close. Plus, maybe they could exert their influence to get congress to act, but I won’t be holding my breathe on that one.