Brailer: Proposed meaningful use criteria 'feel right'

The "hand of thoughtful policy" created the proposed criteria for meaningful use, according to David J. Brailer, MD, former healthcare IT czar for the Office of the National Coordinator. "It would have been easy to be symbolic rather than meaningful," the founder and chairman of the San Francisco-based healthcare investor firm Health Evolution Partners said. He expected the criteria to "be looser, less meaningful." Instead, he said, "I'm pretty impressed." In the short term, the recently released criteria reflect the body of work and the broad consensus of the definition of standards from the private sector, quality agencies and forums, a product certification organization and the old AHIC (American Health Information Community), he said. As health IT chief, Brailer's philosophy was having government be a supportive agent of the consensus of the work being done by the private sector. "The meaningful use criteria are highly consistent with what we did," he said. "It feels right to me."