I raised the following question on Twitter:  Who blieves the current approach (PR, EMR, EHR, Rhio, to NHIN) will actually work in 3, 4, or 5 years?  Will you state why.  I do no think it will.

I raise it here as well.  Can you make an agrument to help me understand what needs to happen for this to possibly work?

• 400 vendors
• 300-400 RHIOs–some home made
• a few hundred standards groups
• a few hundred thousand instnaces of EHRs
• 300 million patients

The combinatorics alone of getting my PR up the food chain and back down to the right place should be enough to bring it to the idea to its knees.

Remember that ice-breaker kids play at parties where they sit in a circle?  A phrase is whispered in the ear of one child, and each child in turn whispers the phrase to the person next to them.  By the time the phrase returns to the originator, it sounds nothing like to original.

A colleague whose opinion I respect wrote that I’d get better responses if I explain the acronyms, so that why we’re here.

The offending terms are:

PR–Patient Record

EMR–Electronic Medical Record

EHR–Electronic Health Record

RHIO–Regional Health Information Organization

NHIN–National Health Information Network

Does anyone know of a link to a good healthcare IT/EHR acronym glossary?

My work here today is done.