Has a Turning Point Been Reached on M.D. Acceptance of the New Healthcare?

Jeffrey Rose, M.D., vice president of clinical excellent at Ascension Health, the vast, St. Louis-based nationwide health system, says he believes that a turning point has been reached with regard to physicians coming to accept the inevitability of providing accountable, transparent, evidence-based care (he and his colleagues have partnered with the Los Angeles-based ZynxHealth to disseminate and customize evidence-based order sets into CPOE throughout their 67-hospital system).

But he says that physicians, in order to fully participate in the new world—and accept such norms as evidence-based order sets in CPOE, multidisciplinary, collaborative care improvement, and value-based purchasing arrangements, need to feel helped and supported, and to see concrete rewards (such as HITECH-related incentives or pay for performance), as well as real results within their organizations, in order to fully buy in. The sense one gets here at HIMSS this year is that the meaningful use requirements under HITECH, the value-based purchasing and other mandates under federal healthcare reform, and other reimbursement and regulatory changes, really are finally changing the landscape, and with them, the perceptions of practicing physicians. But there’s still a tremendous amount of work to be done, and convincing to be accomplished, and leaders like Dr. Rose know this more than anyone.