Attention CCHIT critics

Dear Calvin Jablonski, Rocky Ostrand, Maggiemae Ph.D., or whatever your real name(s) is/are,

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Mark Leavitt, M.D., Ph.D., chairman of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, that organization you love to hate, has agreed to meet with the free and open-source software development community during next month’s HIMSS conference.

Healthcare FOSS guru Fred Trotter and Linux Medical News editor Ignacio Valdes, M.D., are leading the event, Monday, April 6, at 2 p.m. in Room 10d at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place at 22nd Street and South King Drive in Chicago. Trotter called the encounter “like offering to meet with the Rebel Alliance at the annual Death Star conference,”, but I imagine they intend for things to be civil.

That doesn’t have to be the case. Calvin, Rocky, Maggiemae and your ilk, you are hereby (unofficially) invited to join the festivities and create some fireworks. Unmask yourself or selves and make it more like Luke and Leia finding out the true identity of Darth Vader. Or are you not the evil one? Here’s your chance to prove it.

We await your reply.

Sincerely,

The Health IT Media and Blogging Communities

UPDATE 1 a.m. CDT: I just received an e-mail from Trotter informing me that two CCHIT sessions will be Webcast:

Date: Monday, April 6, 2009

Room 10d, Hyatt McCormick Conference Center, Chicago

Session #1 1:00 – 2:00 PM CDT

Interoperability 09 and Beyond: a look at CCHIT’s roadmap for the future

Session #2 2:00 – 3:00 PM CDT

Open Source Forum: a dialogue on certification for open source EHRs

Here is the link to register for the webinar:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/429901059

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing
information about joining the webinar. We will also be recording
these sessions, and plan to make the media files available on the web
for later downloads.

You have no excuse to miss it now.