Why Medical Device Data is the Best Way to Fill Meaningful Use EHRs and Conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER)

I will be presenting at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCon) in Portland at the end of the month. As an avid reader of dozens of O’Reilly’s technical books over the years I was excited when they reached out to ask if I would talk about open source in the healthcare world. While open source isn’t a major force in the healthcare IT ecosystem right now, that will be changing over the coming years and should be able to change the medical world in the same way that open source has improved enterprise IT and made the consumer web possible.

My presentation on Thursday July 28th at OSCon is on why medical device data is the best way to fill meaningful use EHRs and how open source technologies and open architectures can make that possible. I was interviewed by O’Reilly’s Andy Oram about this subject and the podcast is available.

What I told Andy during the interview was that “Meaningful Use” is all about data, not about EHRs — the government needs data for cost comparisons, health professionals need data for treatment research and chart management, and patients need data for choosing the right providers and treatments. EHRs are just a vehicle, not the end goal.