HIMSS a lobby for proprietary Health IT vendors

Today, I recieved a letter in my mailbox regarding HIMSS take on the recent legislation proposed by Stark.

HIMSS Stephen Lieber and Charles E. Christian, president and chairman of HIMSS respectively, write:

 However, HIMSS believes the legislation has negative consequences, including discounting the current efforts of “AHIC 2.0” and the development of an open source “health information technology system” by the federal government.  Specifically, HIMSS has concerns with the following provisions in this legislation:

(other stuff)

Development of an open-source “health information technology system” through the auspices of the ONC: The legislation directs the National Coordinator to provide for coordinating the development, routine updating, and provision of an open source “health information technology system” that is either new or based on an open source health information technology system, such as open source VistA. The system is to be made available to providers for a nominal fee.

The private sector makes significant investments in research and development for healthcare IT products. Healthcare IT is available via a competitive market in which vendors compete on the basis of price, quality, and functionality of a product. The development, routine updating, and provision of an open source “healthcare information system” is not the role of the federal government and such product development should remain in the private sector.

First of all, I do not think the Federal Government should support just *one* open source EHR system, and you really cannot guarentee a fee for Libre/Open Source software.

But the spirit of Starks proposal is right-on and it is time to do something about HIMSS.

HIMSS is anti-Open Source and pro-propretary software. They allow us “Open Source” guys to give talks and even have working groups because they would be violating their charter if they did not. But they do not like us. They are terrified of us, and they should be. HIMSS lives off of the fat in Healthcare IT. Mature proprietary EHR systems have been around for decades, and they still have 5%-15% penetration. Why? They are too expensive and too risky. The doctors recognized that the vendor lock-in that they painfully experienced with Practice/Hospital  Management systems would be much worse with EHRs, and they have no intention of taking out extra mortages to make that happen.

HIMSS charges proprietary vendors obscene amounts of money for space at the their conferences. Open Source vendors cannot afford it to go, because they are service companies who cannot charge for products. Medsphere is the only all-FOSS company that had a booth last year, and they only reason why they can do this is because they have VC funding. The other top vendor, ClearHealth, has so-far not seen the value in buying a booth.

Even if they did see the value. There is no way that Medsphere, or ClearHealth or any other FOSS vendor is ever going to buy a half-acre plot at HIMSS. To afford that you need to be able to lock-in your customers.

Ahh.. but you want facts to back up my accusation. Ill give you two.

• First, lets deal with ‘The development, routine updating, and provision of an open source “healthcare information system” is not the role of the federal government ‘. The Federal government already releases a “open source compatible” EHR: the VA VistA. VistA is really, really good. So good in fact that WorldVistA was able to achieve CCHIT ceritification using it, and a Medsphere client (Midland) is one of only nine HIMSS Stage 6 healthcare facilities in the United States. (yes…. the same HIMSS) The cool thing about the Midland accomplishment? It cost less than any of the other nine stage 6 winners. So apparently, the federal goverment is just as capable of doing this, as anyone else. The private sector is supposed to be competing on “price, quality and functionality” yet VistA is cheaper, better and more functional. Nonetheless, HIMSS is writing letters.
• Second, the HIMSS EHR vendor association is proprietary-only. Take a look at the requirements to join EHRVA. For those who do not want to read a pdf, I will record the relevant section here:

The HIMSS Electronic Health Record (EHR) Association chartered this effort to ensure equal, fair and consistent criteria for Membership into the EHR Association. The EHR Definitional Model includes an operational EHR definition, key attributes, essential requirements to meet attributes, and measures used to assess the extent to which companies design, develop and market their own proprietary Electronic Health Record software application.

HIMSS is not interested in seeing vendor lock-in and the other fundemental problems with proprietary health applications go away, rather they exist solely to perpetuate these problems. HIMSS defines itself as “HIMSS is the healthcare industry’s membership organization exclusively focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of healthcare IT and management systems for the betterment of healthcare.”

In reality, HIMSS in in current form, is just a lobby for the very proprietary vendors who have failed move our nation into the age of digital healthcare information.