NAHIT to shut down

The National Alliance for Health Information Technology is shutting down Sept. 30, citing massive changes in health IT.

“In a few short years, NAHIT has accomplished its mission: HIT has moved front and center in efforts to reinvent and reinvigorate the U.S. health system,” NAHIT Chief Operating Officer Jane Horowitz says in a press release. “Going forward, the action is shifting from NAHIT’s focus on educating, advocating and building common ground to planning, implementing and using HIT to improving care, safety and efficiency.”

Horowitz says that other groups are in a better position to help with HIT implementation now. “In particular, the American Hospital Association (AHA) has close ties with hospital chief executive officers while the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is the leading industry association for chief information officers,” Horowitz says. “They are devoting substantial resources for helping their members realize the potential of HIT and ensuring HIT is embedded in health care reform initiatives. We know that the AHA and CHIME will continue to advance the adoption of HIT.”

I suppose the demise of NAHIT was inevitable when founding CEO Scott Wallace left more than a year ago. NAHIT never did name a permanent replacement.

The group was successful in publishing a list of definitions of HIT terminology, something that certainly has informed health IT policy decisions since, including the current push to define meaningful use.

NAHIT also was a co-founder of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology.