The board responsible for overseeing electronic health information exchanges in the state has formed a new technology committee to address concerns raised about vendors of electronic health records (EHRs).
At the July KHIE, Inc. board meeting, leaders of the Kansas Hospital Association and the Kansas Medical Society urged the panel to do something to address hidden costs suddenly facing many doctors and hospitals as they move to adopt EHR systems.
At the board’s August meeting, medical society director Jerry Slaughter reiterated the urgency for the board to act on the matter.
“The vendors are adding no value to their product, they’re simply creating a toll gate for providers if they want to access” the health information exchange, Slaughter said.
“This is against our first principles: low cost, high utility,” Slaughter said. “If we don’t take a strong stand up front, we’re going to kill this. Many providers simply cannot afford this.”
At issue are so-called “hub” installation and monthly fees, as well as a general lack of transparency in pricing by vendors, said provider representatives.
Vendors have said that hubs are intended to be central connection points for a vendor’s customers. They would create a handful of connections to the state-wide exchange — instead of having hundreds of individual connections for every single doctor, hospital, laboratory and other linked provider.
Board member Dr. Joe Davison questioned why providers should have to pay $75 or more a month to a middleman rather than being able to connect directly to the statewide exchange.
“To me, this is a little dishonest,” Davison said.
In the coming weeks, the board’s executive committee plans to select members and create a charter for the new committee.
In other business the board also:
• Agreed to retain a recruiting firm to help with finding a chief executive officer for KHIE, Inc. The finance committee tentatively set aside $75,000 to pay for the services. Recruiting firms are typically paid 33 percent of the position’s annual compensation once the position is successfully filled. KHIE, Inc. has earmarked $175,000 in salary and $52,000 in benefits for its CEO.
• Approved in concept the language for notifying patients of their right to opt out of having their health records shared electronically.