The National Alliance for Health Information Technology, already reduced to less than one-third of its workforce from its peak in 2007, may shrink some more, but the final word won’t come until a board meeting later this month.
“The alliance board had formed a transition committee and they have met several times in the last six weeks or so,” said Jane Horowitz, NAHIT's vice president and chief marketing officer. “I don’t know what they are planning. We still have work to do. What I’ve heard from the transition committee is all very positive, but I don’t have any of the specifics. A plan will be presented to the full board on May 22.”
One telltale sign that the not-for-profit organization formed to promote IT in healthcare is not on top of its game can be seen on its Web site, which still lists Scott Wallace as its president and chief executive officer. Wallace
resigned, effective immediately, on March 26.
With Wallace’s departure, the NAHIT board named Neil Jesuele, executive vice president of leadership and business development at the American Hospital Association, to head up a reorganization effort for the NAHIT. At the time, Jesuele said he thought that work would be done by early May. The AHA was a co-founder of the NAHIT in 2002. At its peak in 2007, the NAHIT had as many as 80 organizations as members and 14 employees. It was down to five employees after the departure of Wallace.
In 2006, the most recent year for which the NAHIT submitted financial statements to the Internal Revenue Service, the organization reported a surplus of $236,525 on total revenue of about $3.4 million, but $900,000 of that came through its related foundation, including $400,000 from Johnson & Johnson and $500,000 from Pfizer and another direct contribution to the organization, not the foundation, by Johnson & Johnson of $101,303. A NAHIT spokesperson said those specific contributions were for special projects that NAHIT was coordinating.
In October, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS commissioned the alliance and BearingPoint, McLean, Va., to help the healthcare industry come up with consensus definitions on five common health IT terms: electronic health record, electronic medical record, personal health record, regional health information organization and health information exchange.
Final results from the definition project were submitted to ONCHIT on April 28, Horowitz said. It will be reviewed by ONCHIT staff and others at HHS first, but, “by the week of May 12, we should be able to publish that report,” Horowitz said. “The public comment period was exceptional and it really did provide some great direction and really did help the work groups to reach consensus.”
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