Some comments I wrote to ahier.blogspot.com’s posting of the ONC’s 2010 budget.

Their mission, “ONC leads, coordinates, and stimulates public and private sector activities that promote the development, adoption, and use of health information technologies to achieve a healthier Nation” although offering nice sentiments, for $61 million, ought there not be a way to measure whether or not they achieved the mission? How does one know if they led, coordinated, and stimulated, and if so to what degree?

Who certifies their work? Who determines if their work resulted in Meaningful Use? Before anyone gets excited by what they plan to do in 2010, let’s look at what they did in 2009.

1. What did the ONC accomplish, complete, put to bed?

2. What did they complete that facilitated the HIT work required of the providers?

There are no standards. There is no believable plan to obtain standards anytime soon. There is no viable national roll-out plan for EHR.

Instead of HIT/ARRA handouts, and HIE’s designed by hundreds of independent groups, and RECs designed by inexperienced appointed committees, why not use the $61 million to state that by such-and-such a date there will be a written and executable plan stating when we will have standards and a workable and believable roll-out plan?

They continue to promise funds to support an ill-conceived plan trying to get everyone on board, an approach that yields to the notion that “There must be a pony in there somewhere.” Ladies and gentlemen–there is no pony.