Introduction
Since the first days of Barack Obama’s presidency, healthcare reforms have become one of the country’s top priorities. More often than not, Barack Obama is considered as the source and main inspirer of the giant leap forward in the nation’s health care system. The figure of David Blumenthal remains one of the most meaningful in the advancement of the national health care priorities: the former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, he envisions the future of health care in the U.S. as highly innovative and necessarily technology-based. This vision is further supported by the Leapfrog Group, whose main goal is to support giant steps forward in the affordability and quality of the nation’s health care. The focus of this paper is David Blumenthal, his biography and contribution to the healthcare reform, as well as the most popular criticisms of the meaningful use concept. The paper also provides a brief insight into the nature and contributions of the Leapfrog Group to the recent improvements in healthcare.
Since the first days of Barack Obama’s presidency, healthcare reforms have become one of the country’s top priorities. More often than not, Barack Obama is considered as the source and main inspirer of the giant leap forward in the nation’s health care system. The figure of David Blumenthal remains one of the most meaningful in the advancement of the national health care priorities: the former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, he envisions the future of health care in the U.S. as highly innovative and necessarily technology-based. This vision is further supported by the Leapfrog Group, whose main goal is to support giant steps forward in the affordability and quality of the nation’s health care. The focus of this paper is David Blumenthal, his biography and contribution to the healthcare reform, as well as the most popular criticisms of the meaningful use concept. The paper also provides a brief insight into the nature and contributions of the Leapfrog Group to the recent improvements in healthcare.
David Blumenthal: A Biographical Sketch
David Blumenthal has a long history of professional success. Since his earliest years in medicine, he sought to advance the vision of technology-based health care and greatly contributed to the implementation of several important healthcare reforms. His professional career began at Harvard, where he received his undergraduate, public policy, and medical degrees (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). His internal medicine residency was completed at Massachusetts General Hospital (HHS). Dr. Blumenthal first worked as a primary care physician, followed by a director’s position at the Institute for Health Policy and Professor of Health Policy at the Massachusetts General Hospital System (HHS).
Years spent in primary care have become one of the main sources of ideas for Blumenthal. Those ideas he later used to initiate the minor and major improvements to the U.S. health care system. His contribution to health care research can hardly be overstated: the author of more than two hundred professional publications, Blumenthal is also known for his seminal works on the adoption of IT in health care (HHS). The most remembered and popular was, probably, Blumenthal’s appointment as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology under Barack Obama (HHS). “In this role he was charged with building an interoperable, private and secure nationwide health information system and supporting the widespread, meaningful use of health IT” (HHS).
David Blumenthal, a New Commonwealth Fund President
One of the most important events in the U.S. health care system was the decision to make David Blumenthal the next President of the Commonwealth Fund. Blumenthal is to become the Fund’s next president on January 1, 2013. David Blumenthal is described as one of the most experienced information technology experts in the field of health care (The Commonwealth Fund). He is a thought leader known for his professionalism and commitment to health care improvements. While announcing the decision, one of the Fund’s board chairmen admitted that Dr. Blumenthal would take the wheel of the Commonwealth Fund at times of the most crucial changes (The Commonwealth Fund). Dr. Blumenthal is claimed to be ideally suited to advance and carry out the Fund’s mission and improve the performance of the entire health care system (The Commonwealth Fund). He has the experience, position, reputation, leadership capabilities, and decisiveness to encourage and support the widespread use of information technologies in health care (The Commonwealth Fund).
In this position, Blumenthal is to replace Karen Davis, who has been heading the Fund since 1995. One of the major tasks facing David Blumenthal as the President of The Commonwealth Fund is to preserve and expand the contribution Karen Davis has made to systemic improvements in health care during her years as President. According to Dr. Blumenthal, his main goal will be to honor Davis’s leadership achievements and motivate further performance breakthroughs in health care (The Commonwealth Fund).
Blumenthal’s Ideas
David Blumenthal is well-known for his views on the adoption and use of information technologies in health care. The use of IT in health care and its potential contribution to systemic improvements have been his top research and practice priorities for many years. In one of his interviews, Dr. Blumenthal highlights his position on the most contentious health care issues, including the role which health care providers are to play in the future IT revolution. Blumenthal is confident that health care providers are to become part of the future of IT in health care (Wachter). Most of what health care providers can do to improve their functions and operations revolves around technologies (Wachter). Despite the difficulties facing health care entities today, Blumenthal hopes that, in the next 2-3 years, between 70 and 80% of primary care physicians will use electronic health records (Wachter).
However, one of the primary factors of success is encouraging greater competition in the IT field, as it is incorrect to have a few IT vendors serve the needs of the largest health institutions (Wachter). Of even greater importance is the role of the legislative and executive government branches: Blumenthal claims that they are to play a primary role in fostering the creation of an IT network in the health care sector (1). Actions the federal government can take to meet these goals range from changing the existing regulations to providing funds to support small providers in their movement to health technologies (Blumenthal 1).
David Blumenthal: Criticism
A figure as public and distinguished as Dr. Blumenthal cannot avoid criticism. The meaningful use of the IT concept is one of the most frequent objects of public and professional criticism. It should be noted, that “meaningful use” is the concept that underlies most IT initiatives proposed by Dr. Blumenthal, which defines the boundaries of technology use in health care organizations. Several health organizations have called Blumenthal’s meaningful use policies too aggressive (Enrado), whereas others have suggested that the meaningful use project implementation will encounter major barriers in rural territories (Roney).
However, Dr. Blumenthal is convinced that no excuse can justify delays in implementing EHR by hospitals (Oh). In his meaningful use claims, Blumenthal relies on the results of more than 4,000 studies, which confirm that EHR does improve the quality of health care (Oh). Dr. Blumenthal recognizes that adopting electronic systems in health care is neither easy nor cost-free, but thousands of health care providers have already adopted meaningful use systems and experienced considerable improvements in the provision of quality health care.
Leapfrog Group
While individuals like Dr. Blumenthal work hard to promote their mission and vision in health care, organizations further support the implementation of systemic improvements in health. The Leapfrog Group was initiated in 1998, by a group of large employers who decided they wanted to influence the quality and affordability of health care (Leapfrog Group). The Leapfrog Group was, probably, the first organized effort to admit the existing misbalances in the health care field (Leapfrog Group).
In 2000, the Leapfrog Group was officially registered. Today’s mission of the Leapfrog Group is to “trigger giant leaps forward in the safety, quality and affordability of health care”. The Leapfrog Group is an entirely voluntary, not-for-profit organization that uses employers’ purchasing power to inform the giant steps made by the health care system toward wiser utilization of its limited resources. The Leapfrog Hospital Survey has already become the golden measure of a hospital’s compliance with the most vital standards of quality care (Leapfrog Group).
Leapfrog Group and Healthcare
The Leapfrog Group is well-known for its quality measurement efforts. As previously mentioned, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey is claimed to be the gold standard in measuring hospitals’ compliance with the basic measures of quality care (Leapfrog Group). The Group has achieved considerable prominence in its quality assurance strategies, but the main question is whether these policies and efforts have had any tangible impacts on the quality and safety of patient care. In the middle of 2012, the Leapfrog Group graded hospitals, based on their performance in terms of patient safety measures (Walker).
Unfortunately, there is still little information about hospitals that are claimed to have adopted measures to improve patient safety (Jha, Orav, Ridgway, Zheng & Epstein 318). The Leapfrog Group does not provide full information on the hospitals it targets and the relation of its quality measures to other, commonly accepted quality criteria (Jha et al. 318). Leapfrog is criticized for being focused on patient safety only, which fails to account for the broader factors affecting the quality of patient and hospital care in the U.S. (Jha et al. 318). Additionally, as a group that relies on employer-based resources and initiatives, the Group will continue facing considerable barriers to improving the quality of the nation’s health care (Galvin, Delbanco, Milstein & Belden 228).
Works Cited
Blumenthal, David. “Health Information Technology: What Is the Federal Government’s Role?” The Commonwealth Fund, 2006. Web.
Enrado, Patty. “Blumenthal: Stage 2 Meaningful Use on Track.” Healthcare IT News, 2011. Web.
Jha, Ashish K., E. John Orav, Abigail B. Ridgway, Jie Zheng, & Arnold M. Epstein. “Does the Leapfrog Program Help Identify High-Quality Hospitals?” The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 34.6 (2008): 318-325. Print.
Galvin, Robert S., Suzanne Delbanco, Arnold Milstein & Greg Belden. “Has the Leapfrog Group Had an Impact on the Health Care Market?” Health Affairs, 24.1 (2005): 228. Print.
HHS. “David Blumenthal, M.D.” U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2011. Web.
Leapfrog Group. “About Leapfrog.” Leapfrog Group, 2012. Web.
Oh, Jaimie. “National IT Coordinator Quells “Meaningful Use Complaints.” Becker’s Hospital Review, 2011. Web.
Roney, Kathleen. “6 Biggest Meaningful Use Challenges for Rural Hospitals.” Becker’s Hospital Review, 2012. Web.
The Commonwealth Fund. “David Blumenthal Named Next Commonwealth Fund President.” The Commonwealth Fund, 2012. Web.
Wachter, Robert. “In Conversation with… David Blumenthal, MD, MPP.” Web M&M, 2012. Web.
Walker, Emily P. “Leapfrog Group Grades Hospitals on Patient Safety.” Medpage Today, 2012. Web.
