As you may know, I am on the CCHIT Child Health Workgroup.  My participation is related, I believe, to my criticism of the certification and it’s misuse.  But if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, so there I am on the workgroup itself.  I think I am the only committee member who hasn’t missed a meeting, so I can at least say that I’ve shown up and put in my $.02.

For the last six months or so, my esteemed colleagues and I have fought - though nicely - over line-item after line-item in the new criteria for CCHIT Child Health certification.  Are we forcing vendors to do too much?  Is this a feature that a small, private-office pediatrician needs or want?  Sure, we all know how important growth charts are…but where can we get “official” data?  How about tricky items like dosing and age calculation?

Without editorializing, our group poured a lot of effort into these questions and I, at least, was a bit surprised at the results.  The combined knowledge of life in an ambulatory pediatric office within our group is profound, yet the commissioners (some of whose expertise I question) felt we didn’t get it right and amended some of our requirements at the last minute.  The process itself is definitely bad, in this instance, but I can’t say that the results are.  Yet.

But don’t take my word for it.  Time for the public commentary is now, so head here or, specifically for Child Health, here.  There are instructions at the bottom of the page for your feedback and I know, from personal experience, that your feedback has a profound impact.  Without directing you to one position or another, I would specifically love to know from practicing pediatricians (with or without EHRs) whether tracking a patient’s age in hours or even minutes is ever important?  How about body-surface dosing?  These are the issues we debated (at every meeting, literally) and I am fascinated to get some feedback.  And it’s your chance to help direct the pediatric focus within EHRs.  If you don’t add your $.02, it’s harder to complain later.

Edit: Just received this timely link via PedTalk.  A great read.  Short on the budget, but it hits the mark for me with most of the comments.