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Josh Seidman is in charge of Meaningful Use at the Department of Health and Human Services. (Meaningful Use refers to the guidelines for how providers should use electronic medical records.)  He wants input from us – that’s you:

ONC is eager to get as much public feedback as possible on its initial thoughts on a critical element of its strategic plan—empowering consumers to better manage their health through HIT.  Can you urge e-patients.net readers to check it out and add their input?

URGE, hear that?  Your tax dollars at work, asking what you want. Speak up – do you agree with these objectives? And do you have any suggestions?

  1. Objective A. Engage consumers in federal health IT policy and programs.(My thought: are you kidding? How long have we been waiting for government to listen to us, for healthcare to listen to us?)
  2. Objective B. Accelerate consumer access to electronic health information For instance, should we all have access to the “Blue Button” download tool that’s now available to veterans? 85,000 of them have already done it in the first month.
  3. Objective C. Foster innovation in consumer health IT: The Health 2.0 Developer Challenge produced dozens of innovative tools in jsut a few months – much faster than we’d seen before this creative HHS-driven program was announced. Want more? Got specific ideas?
  4. Objective D. Drive consumer-provider electronic communications. So many providers still resist communicating online, despite evidence from Kaiser, Geisinger, and around the world that it lowers costs and improves consumer satisfaction. If you do (or don’t) want government to promote this, speak up.

Again, this is about health IT.  Please go express yourself in the comments there- be an empowered, engaged patient, not just in your own healthcare but in Federal policy. It’s a short post, easy to read.

I’m on my way now, via mile-high wifi.

(Thanks, Josh, for asking!)

 

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