IT community focuses on effects of reform

Members of the information technology community are still in the information acquisition mode about the possible IT implications of the healthcare reform bill.

Steve Waldren, director of the American Academy of Family Physicians' Center for Health Information Technology, said his focus has been on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus bill, and its meaningful-use criteria physicians must meet to qualify for their share of an estimated $14.1 billion to $27.3 14 billion in federal EHR subsidies. Waldren said he and the AAFP's Washington (DC) legislative experts will be combing through the final version of the legislation when it becomes available for the existence of any hidden IT nuggets. A companion bill with "fixes" to the original Senate version also passed the House on Sunday and is expected to come up for a final vote in the Senate in a day or so. "Now that it looks like it's going to be passed, we need to get in to make sure that's the case," Waldren said. Waldren said, based on reports about earlier versions, the legislation will contain a fix of the stimulus bill regarding the eligibility for subsidies of hospital-based outpatient physicians. In addition, Waldren said, "I'm pretty confident there are actually pilots for the medical home in the legislation. There are a lot of things in the medical home you need IT to facilitate and make it scale."