Health IT committee needs voice of independent doctors

At the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC) meetings, which take place a few times a year in Washington, independent doctors are conspicuously absent. While several hospital-employed doctors sit on this high-octane panel, they and most of the other HITAC members primarily represent corporate healthcare: hospital systems, large insurers and big IT companies (Sutter Health, Anthem Blue Cross, Accenture, Epic, to name a few.) A Washington-based organization, HITAC makes recommendations to the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology about what health IT should be implemented, how and when. While independent doctors are removing gallbladders, reading x-rays, and working on their EHRs, those working in corporate healthcare sit on the penthouse level of a Marriott determining how many more hours a day doctors will have to spend entering data into their EHRs if they want to be paid.