Here’s a comment I made to John’s Blog, http://www.emrandhipaa.com/emr-and-hipaa/2009/09/12/preliminary-arra-certified-and-cchit-certified/.  Any time I need details,this blog is my first stop.

My 2 takeaways are the phrase to “justify meaningful use”, and the question about whether anyone should worry about any of this. Meaning no slight to those working on this, I think that with each new bit of information on Cert & Meaningful Use, the less likely it is that either will be relevant.

A word to healthcare providers who are implementing EHR. Do not use these benchmarks as your guidelines. Do not use ARRA as a business reason to implement an EHR. If you make an EHR decision as though Washington played no role in the decision, and make your selection of an EHR based on your actual business requirements, Certification and Meaningful Use will not matter. I believe we will learn that the only test that will matter is interoperability. The sooner we learn that under the present framework interoperability can’t happen, the sooner we will get to a solution that will work.

Here’s my take away.  Meaningful Use has no meaningful use.