While this is a US specific issue.... similar challenges have or are about to crop up elsewhere as countries seem to mimic each others policies and initiatives a great deal when it comes to health IT. Our UK friends are quite familiar with this....and we are starting to see similar patterns here in Canada.
At last weeks townhall meeting the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) announced the pricing and payment model (slide 22, http://www.cchit.org/files/CCHIT_Town_Call-20060309_v1.1.pdf) for meeting the EHR criteria they are developing. The intent is to create a self sustaining CCHIT organization by charging vendors to certify their products. The pricing model in this case is based on sales of a product with an initial certification cost of $25-35 k. The fact that the design of this model is based on the legacy software business model creates some serious issues for open source alternatives, no the least of which is the initial cost of certification. CCHIT is soliciting comments on its plans....I strongly urge both potential adopters and developers of open source EHRs to voice their thoughts and opinions on this potential roadblock to innovation. http://www.cchit.org/publiccomment4.htm Joseph Director, WorldVistA Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
