Can you keep your deadlines straight, let alone involved entities and acronyms? The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) needs to approve "meaningful use" of health IT recommendations by the Health IT Policy Committee, which providers must achieve to receive funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. ONC's recommendations are expected by the end of the year. The Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, however, will deliver its final rulemaking on requirements in the spring of 2010.

Meanwhile, the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) recently held a town hall-style online conference to discuss and gather input on new paths to certification on electronic health record (EHRs) systems. Earlier in August, the Meaningful Use workgroup of the Health IT Policy Committee recommended having around 10 to 12 certification bodies in addition to CCHIT. Later, it was announced that CCHIT would be the sole certification body through December.

Are you still with me? So, federal officials have stated that providers would have to decide whether to follow CCHIT's "modular" certification, which is a modular inspection program developed around compliance with ARRA requirements, or wait for the final rulemaking. On the one hand, what if the modular certification and final rulemaking aren't aligned? On the other hand, can providers afford to wait until spring of 2010 before choosing a product? Depending upon the system and size of the provider, implementing an EHR system requires significant clinical and administrative workflow reengineering on top of training. And to have all that in place in time to gather data to comply with meaning use criteria?

Let's have a show of hands of how many physicians are following these parallel universes. Luckily, there are plenty of resources to help providers if none of the above makes any sense. On this site, of course. The HIMSS EHR Association comprises EHR companies, but don't necessarily hold that fact against it in terms of trust. All information is helpful, no matter the source.

I recently spoke with Bruce Taffel, MD, CMO of Shared Health, which won a contract last month from the State of Mississippi's Division of Medicaid to provide an EHR system and e-prescribing solution for the state's approximately 600,000 Medicaid beneficiaries. Shared Health, a public/private health information exchanged out of Tennessee, has been working with the Delta Health Alliance (DHA), which is helping some 900 providers in the Mississippi Delta region with EHR technology through its Electronic Health Records project. DHA is a partnership founded by Delta State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi Valley State University, University of Mississippi Medical Center and Delta Council. Shared Health itself is trying to be a resource of information for physicians on the importance of EHRs.

Physicians are busy. Most of you don't have time to tease out the intricacies of ARRA, meaningful use and all those deadlines. If have a good resource that you go to for education and expertise, if you have a good source that you trust, let us know about them. You can help out your neighbor by sharing information, which incidentally is the beauty of EHRs.