health information technology (HIT)

On Tuesday, July 9, Health Affairs will host a briefing to report latest trends in health information technology adoption among US health care providers and hospitals.

The event will feature remarks from Farzad Mostashari, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the US Department of Health and Human Services, and coincides with the release of three Web First papers from Health Affairs, as well as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s annual report on HIT Adoption. Read More »

The issue of rising income inequity is one of global concern. Health researchers have shown low-income countries contribute 56% of global disease burden, but account for only 2% of global expenditure on health (Mathers, 2006). In addition, there is great inequity within most countries. Among adults in the US with chronic conditions, 45% of those with below-average incomes reported going without needed care because of costs, compared with just 4% in the Netherlands (Davis, 2010).

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Luis Ibáñez, one of the best known advocates of open source solutions in healthcare will be interviewed Thursday, May 1, by Fabian Lopez in the popular vxJourney weekly webinar. Ibáñez a contributing author to Open Health News as well as other publications, in particular Opensource.com, will talk about the VistA course that he has been teaching at the State University of New York at Albany.

This article, written by Ibáñez outlines the backround and story behind the course. The interview will provide a golden opportunity for those who wish to learn more about the SUNY project. Read More »

Join InformationWeek Radio on Tuesday, July 1, at 2:00 PM EST for a discussion with Scot M. Silverstein, M.D., a consultant and professor in the Drexel University informatics program who is a leading critic of the claims made for EHR systems and researches the pitfalls of the software and the way it is implemented. He blogs at Health Care Renewal as InformaticsMD. One of the issues he highlights is that there is no systemattic tracking of medical errors associated with functionality or usability issues of EHRs, making it hard to judge whether their net effect has been positive or negative. Yet there are troubling signs, in everything from academic studies to malpractice claims, that the risks of EHRs have been underestimated and the rush to implement these systems may be misguided. Read More »

The OSEHRA Open Source Summit on Global Collaboration in Healthcare IT on September 3 – 5, 2014, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center outside Washington D.C.  OSEHRA, the Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance, is an emerging leader in the advancement of open source electronic health record (EHR) software and related health information technology. OSEHRA will bring together the best and brightest from healthcare and various major open source initiatives including the VistA and RPMS EHRs. 

Keynote speakers this year include:

• Stephen W. Warren-Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
• Doug Fridsma, M.D., Ph.D.-Chief Science Officer and Director of the Office of Science and Technology in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Jim Whitehurst-President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Hat

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Connecting California to Improve Patient Care is an annual conference featuring presentations on electronic health records (EHR) and on the use of national technology standards to establish interoperability for electronic patient healthcare data. Conference presenters will explain practical solutions for securely sharing electronic clinical information between computer systems at unaffiliated health care facilities, such as outpatient practices, hospitals, laboratories, imaging centers, long term care, home health, public health, payers, patient engagement portals and mobile apps. Conference attendees will learn about best practices in health informatics. Speakers will discuss the current status of health information technology in California, national software road maps for data standards, interoperability, patient safety, and emerging tools and opportunities for physician and patient engagement. Read More »