I’m writing from the second annual RHIOhio conference at OhioUniversity in Athens, Ohio. Brian Phillips, the CIO of the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine has taken on the task of organizing this conference the past two years, and has put together a very good program.
I wrote a while back about our RHIO efforts in Appalachian Ohio. The challenges that we face include all the issues of governance and misaligned incentives that you are likely to see in any of these federated efforts, plus the uniquely rural problems of poor infrastructure (e.g. inadequate broadband availability) and a serious shortage of IT talent.
Heather Dimeris, the Associate Director of the HHS Office of Rural Health Policy, recognized those concerns when she noted that her agency had identified their 2008 priorities as workforce issues, quality improvement, and HIT in general.
Here are a few other miscellaneous observations:
I plan to share more as we go. Any thoughts you’d like to contribute?