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This letter refers to the story, "New York City official: EHRs lack key features to improve patient care," which appeared on November 2, 2007.
The story concerned remarks by Dr. Farzad Mostashari, assistant commissioner of New York City’s health department, at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement.
Dear Editor:
We applaud the New York City Primary Care Information Project and Dr. Mostashari's leadership. We're glad that the Project was able to use CCHIT certification as a screening requirement before they began their final selection process for EHRs.
Dr. Mostashari has high goals for improving health care, goals that involve not just the adoption of EHRs but also a reform of health care payment and ultimately a transformation of health care.
We share and support those ambitious goals. We may not agree with some of his statements about what is currently available in certified EHRs, but we do agree that health IT systems need to keep getting better for a long time -- that's why we raise the bar for certification each year.
Mark Leavitt, MD, PhD
Chair
Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT)
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