We're still waiting for a final definition of "meaningful use" of electronic health records, but with a proposed rule out there for more than a month now and a good sense of where the industry is headed, it's probably not a bad time for healthcare organizations to review their IT strategies and contracts.

Jeffery Daigrepont, senior VP at health IT consulting firm Coker Group, suggests that providers need to take this time to make sure vendor contracts are aligned with the proposed rules for meaningful use so they stay on the right path toward earning federal stimulus money. "Many vendors offer a money-back guarantee if their product does not comply with stimulus," Daigrepont says in an interview with Healthcare IT News. "Every contract should have a warranty that requires a vendor to correct defects at their expenses and under NO circumstances should you ever sign a contract without being entitled to future upgrades and new releases."

Daigrepont also offers a list of five health IT decisions to avoid: buying defective software; buying software that isn't certified for meaningful use or otherwise doesn't meet national standards; not seeing "the writing on the wall" that a vendor is discontinuing or refusing to upgrade a product; buying a "one-off" solution to mollify a specific individual or department; and implementing a system that hasn't been fully developed, tested and validated.

"Not acting or refusing to accept the obvious is only delaying the unavoidable reality of having to rip out and replace your system," Daigrepont says.

To read the complete list:
- see this Healthcare IT News story

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