At HIMSS, I listened carefully to payers, providers, patients, developers, and researchers. Below is a distillation of what I heard from thousands of stakeholders. It is not partisan and does not criticize the work of any person in industry, government or academia. It reflects the lessons learned from the past 20 years of healthcare IT implementation and policymaking. Knowing where we are now and where we want to be, here are 10 guiding principles.
health IT usability
See the following -
A Public Health Perspective on ONC's Strategy to Reduce Burden on Physicians
On November 28, 2018, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released a draft Strategy on Reducing Regulatory and Administrative Burden Relating to the Use of Health IT and EHRs for public comment. The strategy aims to reduce the time and effort and improve the functionality of electronic health records (EHRs) for clinicians, hospitals, and other healthcare organizations. This strategy was developed primarily through the efforts of ONC-convened workgroups in response to requirements laid out by Congress in the 21st Century Cures Act (Section 13103). The report itself does not identify who exactly served on these workgroups and what organizations were represented.
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Can Open Source EHRs Offer a New Path for Health IT Usability?
In an article published in JMIR Medical Informatics, researchers from the University of California-Davis decided to explore the small but intriguing world of open source EHRs, which may fit very neatly into the growing interest in application programming interfaces, FHIR, and other open data standards that encourage customized mix-and-match health IT development without the historical pitfalls of proprietary systems. Using data from 2014, the researchers identified 54 open source projects that met the HHS definition of an electronic health record. At the time, four of those packages had achieved Certified EHR Technology status from the ONC.
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Connect for Care
On Tuesday, I spoke at the Bipartisan Policy Center about our vision for the near future where electronic health information is unlocked and securely accessible to achieve better care, smarter spending, and healthier people.It was inspiring to see so many of our partners in the health IT community come together to talk about a future where we have a learning, connected health care system that leverages technology just as well and just as easily as the latest apps we all have on our phones for hailing a ride or paying our bills...
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Fax Technologies Take Center Stage at HIMSS19 Exhibition
One of the most surprising developments at HIMSS19 is the large number of companies exhibiting their Fax Technologies. Long derided by reporters, health IT consultants, and EHR vendors, fax technologies have been growing in leaps and bounds while EHRs continue to fail to deliver interoperability. Just a couple of years ago faxes were used in around 75% of medical records exchanges. Latest numbers indicate that faxes are now used to exchange more than 85% of medical records. Most people would react in horror to such figures. How could physicians and medical personnel rely on antiquated paper technologies like faxes? The real story to be found on the exhibit floor at the HIMSS 2019 conference is that what we are seeing is a rapid transition to digital fax technologies and platforms. And this transition is taking place because physicians and medical staff have figured out they work!
- The Future Is Open
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Halamka's Next Steps for the National Healthcare IT agenda
2018 ONC Annual Meeting
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will hold the 2018 Annual Meeting November 29-30, 2018 at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC. The 2-day meeting will gather approximately 1,200 health IT partners and will include a combination of plenaries and breakout sessions each day. The plenary sessions will include keynote addresses and panel discussions.
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