IT and politics shouldn't mix

I have no political clout whatsoever, but you do—all of the industry readers of this blog.

You can call on your members of Congress and your organizational leaders, and they will listen.

So I just want to put this out there. You've got a good thing going. Don't mess it up with politics.

Remember when President George W. Bush's 2004 executive order created the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology? I do. And I also remember it enjoyed bipartisan support.

Remember when Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) asked for a few billion dollars for healthcare IT? I do. And I don't recall either of them being attacked politically for making the bipartisan effort.

Now that there's $30 billion in federal money to spend on health IT, what I've read and heard lately makes me wonder whether our eight-year period of grace, of bipartisanship and of peaceful support of our federal effort IT, isn't under threat.

I've heard and read recently some politically oriented sniping, and I'm sure you have, too.

Critics who wouldn't know a KLAS ranking from Santa Claus have made unproven insinuations that Epic Systems' CEO Judith Faulkner has somehow parlayed some personal campaign contributions into federally engineered unfair competitive advantages for her company.

Now, sadly, the American Medical Association is appealing to Speaker of the House John Boehner to put the kibosh to ICD-10.

Pulling the plug or staying the course on ICD-10 shouldn't be a politicized decision. The AMA's letter should have gone to HHS, whose rule-makers set the Oct. 1, 2013 compliance date for ICD-10 and who also have demonstrated an admirable willingness to listen and be flexible.

The ICD-10 opponents have some reasonable arguments. One of them is that since we've waited this long, we might as well hold off and be the first in line for ICD-11 rather than the last to adopt ICD-10, performing this big lift just once in a decade, not twice. At a logical, policy level, that makes some sense. But so does going forward with ICD-10, now that the wheels are already in motion.

What I think is wrong with the AMA's approach is—given that it's an election year—it risks politicizing what should be a nonpartisan discussion.

The healthcare IT community doesn't need to wade through political rhetoric, distracting everyone from the hard tasks at hand: buying, implementing and maximizing the use of health IT systems in the shortest time possible.

So, what I want to put out there is this: Don't politicize health IT. Keep a good thing going. Protect and nurture the bipartisan support that healthcare IT has enjoyed thus far, even if it's the only thing that won't be drawn into what is already shaping up to be an extremely nasty 2012 campaign.

Follow Joseph Conn on Twitter: @MHJConn.