“It’s the deep breath before the plunge.” This is what the great Ian McKellan says as Gandalf, the wizard in Lord of the Rings, as the characters are on the eve of battle. You may not be a big Lord of the Rings fan, but this election cycle feels like J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the transcript that everyone is acting out on television. For both parties this summer, it is exhausting; there are insanely long speeches by ridiculous characters, there are elders and new heroes, there is anger and resiliency, and a strong sense of good waging war against evil. And now that the conventions are over, there is the deep breath before the plunge; everyone take a minute before the next ten weeks of epic battles. As luck would have it, health IT policy is also taking a deep breath before the next set of battles — not just with Epic. (See what I did there?) More about the journey to Mordor in the One Thoughtful Paragraph.
Some news this week, not about Epic:
- PCORI awarded over $27 million in grants to three research projects comparing the effectiveness of telehealth versus in-person care for managing chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, substance use disorder, and chronic back pain.
- Walgreens announced a partnership with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority’s (BARDA) D-COHRe program to improve decentralized clinical trials and research efficiency, especially during public health crises.
- Trilliant Health released a free version of its Provider Directory, including information on more than 2.9M providers that was corrected or updated using machine learning models. Trilliant cited to CMS’ recent proposal for a national provider directory, due to the struggle to get accurate and up-to-date information.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is self-serious and fully dramatic, but every once in a while, there is comic relief. Gimli, the grumpy but likable dwarf character, asks our will-be-King-soon hero to throw him into the center of the battle. He says: “I cannot jump the distance, you’ll have to toss me.” It is a rare admission from the prideful dwarf that he needs help. We noticed that Epic, the dominant electronic records company, is making a rare admission of its own. After fighting against efforts (repeatedly and for many years) to open up its proprietary, closed model to interoperability standards, Epic announced last Friday that it plans to transition its customers to TEFCA (the federal government’s framework for nationwide medical record exchange) by the end of 2024. Wow! Chalk up one more accomplishment for President Joe Biden – he once gave Judy Faulkner (Epic’s CEO) a hard time for blocking patients’ access to their health information – which directly impacted Beau Biden when he was being treated for brain cancer. Given Epic’s 40% share of the hospital E.H.R. market, it is good that the company has finally decided to come to the interoperability party. Just like in the Lord of the Rings, when Gandalf, the great Wizard, arrives late to a party, he explains: “A wizard is never late… Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.”
