To continue MEDITECH's efforts to stay at the forefront of national health care regulations, President and COO Howard Messing and Vice President of Marketing Hoda Sayed-Friel recently met with President Obama's National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P., at his headquarters in Washington, D.C. The focus of the meeting was to discuss customer-oriented approaches to the adoption and deployment of health information technology.

"We wanted to represent our 2,000-plus customers and share the successful strategies we've learned with them over the past 40 years," says Messing. "We're doing everything we can to ensure that our customers achieve the outcomes required by the federal government. The meeting was an important extension of this broader effort." Messing and Sayed-Friel provided deployment suggestions that would be suitable for the community hospital space.

During the meeting, Sayed-Friel also offered her interpretations of the impact the Meaningful Use "matrix" will have on clinical software systems. She followed up with written correspondence she prepared for the National HIT Policy Committee. "It's been rewarding to participate in this process. I appreciated Dr. Blumenthal's time and willingness to hear our contributions to the conversation, as we act on behalf of our large customer base," she says.

"In fact, everyone whom I've spoken with in Washington with regard to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has been tremendously open to listening to ideas. They are truly committed to the cause of improving health care."

After speaking with MEDITECH's executives, Dr. Blumenthal attended a health care I.T. (HIT) roundtable, hosted by MEDITECH customer Mount Sinai Hospital (Chicago, IL). The panel discussion, led by Vice President Joe Biden, included several Chicago-area health care workers who voiced their support of the federal government's new HIT program. The event also provided a platform for the Vice President's announcement that nearly $1.2 billion of ARRA funding will be allocated for hospital modernization and health care information systems.