The HHS Health IT Policy Committee (HIT PC) held its first meeting last week under the direction of (our friend) David Blumenthal, formerly of Partners and Harvard and now Obama’s National Coordinator for health IT in HHS. The HIT PC is going to develop policy recommendations and health IT dollar-distribution strategies for those who show "meaningful use" of an EHR.

That’s $20 billion worth of power theoretically, but only $2 billion of the funding is actually in Blumenthal’s direct oversight. Blumenthal wants to spend at least $300 million training health care workers in how to deploy health IT. He will also deal with privacy insecurity issues, and hire a chief privacy officer; but he seems open to standing up to the bludgeoning he may experience by suggesting a unique patient identifier (UPI) is needed to help track patients in the chronic disease continuum. We strongly agree, David.

The big coming arguments of the HIT PC will be around what the "meaningful use" definition actually means. They have a workgroup to help define that, as well as workgroups on privacy and safety, and another one on interoperability standards. Keep in mind that if your practice isn’t deemed 'meaningful,' you ain't gettin' any money here. It’s worth paying attention to. Believe me, we will not miss those meetings or fail to get involved with the workgroups Blumenthal is forming.

***Image from Flickr (Prasan Naik)***