Preface
Thousands of computer experts seek to enter the field of healthcare information technology (health IT or HIT), and they are needed. In December 2009, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated that computerization just within the healthcare industry will add a need for 50,000 new IT staff.[1] These recruits to healthcare will bring valuable lessons learned through work in online commerce sites, financial institutions, or large corporate and university campuses, but they will be fundamentally bewildered during their first year or so at a hospital or clinic.
Meaningful use is the focus of this book because it is the term used in the Health Care Reform and Health IT Stimulus Act (HITECH, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) to encompass a vision of improved healthcare through computerization and digital networks. There’s a great deal of nervousness among U.S. healthcare providers about meaningful use. Can they push their organizations into the twenty-first century vision it represents? Will their IT systems really support it, and even if certified for meaningful use this year, will the systems support it in the future? And even if hospitals and clinics adhere to the letter of the law, will they really reap the benefits promised by health IT?
So meaningful use, for us, stands for much more than a set of requirements in a particular set of U.S. regulations. It represents a form of care that empowers the patient, that does not harm her, that ...