Meaningful Use
See the following -
Money Dries Up For HIEs, RECs
Although about 90 percent of New Hampshire's providers are using EHRs, "the use of that EHR and the amounts of structured data elements that are accurately being recorded is still a little bit disparate across the state," Loughlin said. Bridging that gap with a statewide network is the NH HIE, which has signed up 60 organizations on multi-year contracts...
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Moving Past the EHR Interoperability Blame Game
As a researcher who studies electronic health records (EHRs), I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been asked “Why can’t the systems talk to each other?” or, in more technical terms, “Why don’t we have interoperability?” The substantial increase in electronic health record adoption across the nation has not led to health data that can easily follow a patient across care settings. Still today, essential pieces of information are often missing or cumbersome to access. Patients are frustrated, and clinicians can’t make informed decisions...
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Navigating the Challenges of International Teamwork
I started my open source work from Oregon, USA working on a project in the "Republic" of Texas. While that, at first glance, does not sound international in nature, I can assure you that Oregon and Texas might as well be different countries. I experienced both the joy and frustration of working with users from both places that had big cultural differences, as well as overlapping needs. This early experience laid the groundwork for the future, where I got to work at the international level on OpenEMR, an electronic healthcare records system...
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Not So Fast: CMS Says Meaningful Use Not Dead, New Incentive Program Will Take Time
One week after Andy Slavitt said meaningful use would be replaced soon, the acting Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator and national coordinator Karen DeSalvo made it clear that the changes would take time and that providers must still follow the current program. Slavitt and DeSalvo in a blog post Tuesday afternoon explained the new regulatory framework would move away from measuring clicks to focusing on care...
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Obama and Biden Blast EHR Vendors for Data Blocking
As they are winding their terms in office, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden dropped a stink bomb on the health IT industry. Speaking at different events on Friday, January 9th, the President and Vice President both criticized proprietary electronic health record (EHR) vendors as the primary obstacle to the success of their administration’s health care strategy. This is the highest level acknowledgment so far of the serious impact that “lock-in” EHR software vendors are having on America’s medical infrastructure and the ability of physicians to provide medical care.
On the Need for a Universal Health Record
The current path of progress of the EHR, with its concentration on “meaningful use,” and an intellectual property regime that does not fully exploit the capacity for innovation by end-users is approaching an evolutionary dead-end. It is time to treat the EHR as what it should be: an integral part of medical care that has limitless potential for maximizing the use of information acquired in the provision of health care, and not an impediment to optimal care and a bugaboo for the physician. Read More »
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OpenEMR Community Responds to HRSA Call for Advanced EHR Solutions for Community Health Centers
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is taking major steps to help Community Health Centers across the US tackle the devastating opioid epidemic by providing funding for substance abuse services and modern EHRs. OpenEMR, a modern, customizable, open-source and ONC Certified EHR is the best solution for high impact and cost-effective information technology solutions for Community Health Centers
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OSEHRA 2012: DSS, Inc. Sponsors the First Annual Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent Summit
Document Storage Systems, Inc. (DSS) is a proud platinum sponsor of the 1st Annual Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent (OSEHRA) Summit supporting the VistA Open Source community. The Summit is organized to share the work of the OSEHRA community and continue to chart a bold new course for EHR platforms that will embody the passion and inventive power of open source developers, clinicians, and policymakers. As a key member of OSEHRA, software development and systems integration company, DSS, will give a vxVistA presentation and host breakout sessions to exchange ideas and promote Open Source EHR projects related to VistA. View the conference agenda here.
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Population Health in Crisis: The Blind Leading the Blind
Everything you may know about Population Health (PH) is wrong. I wrote about the complexities associated with PH in the ACO Survival Guide (the Guide). The Guide describes the moving parts necessary to succeed using the accountable care model including data analytics, care coordination, quality metrics and, of course, a deep understanding of HHS' evolving reimbursement regulations. Certainly, any knowledgeable observer could review the Guide and conclude that the ACO model was fraught with complexity and there were plenty of opportunities for false starts and outright failures, potentially costing an organization tens of millions of dollars...
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Post-EHR Era: Bunk Buzzword or Here Before Long?
Electronic health records certainly enjoy their share of controversy and criticism. The software is hard for clinicians to use, the data therein more often than not is difficult to exchange with other systems and it appears there is little relief in sight. So it's not entirely surprising that even while EHRs are storming toward near-ubiquity among healthcare providers many forward-looking health IT professionals are already predicting the post-EHR era...
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Say No To Bureaucrats And Yes To Direct Care
Yes, it really is time to revoke the health care mandates issued by bureaucrats who are not in the profession of actual healing. Daniel F. Craviotto Jr. writes in the Wall Street Journal, “In my 23 years as a practicing physician, I’ve learned that the only thing that matters is the doctor-patient relationship.”...
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Stage 2 Meaningful Use An Ongoing Challenge
Ever since Stage 2 meaningful use was finalized in 2012, critics have decried the strenuous requirements, especially those tied to patient engagement and transitions of care. Despite objections and relatively low attestation rates in 2014, many eligible hospitals and providers now appear to be on target to attest by the end of 2015...
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Stimulus dollars pour into health IT industry, driving growth
Epic Systems Corps., another company in the health IT industry, has also fared thanks to this deal. In fact, the CEO, Judy Faulkner, who happens to be a major donor to President Obama, was put on the seat to determine how best to spend the allotted $19 billion. The Washington Examiner writes: “Faulkner and her company oppose the president’s vision for health IT, but Epic employees are massive Democratic donors. They’ve given nearly $300,000 to Democrats since 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.”
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Study: EHR-Related Safety Issues Linger Long After Implementation
Patient safety issues stemming from electronic health record systems continue long after implementation, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Modern Healthcare reports...
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The Best Way to Share Health Records? An App in Patients’ Hands
Much has been written recently about information blocking—the inability or unwillingness of hospitals and doctors to share electronic data from our health records with one another. Lack of technical interoperability and regulations protecting security, privacy, and confidentiality are often blamed. But the reality is that technical barriers are falling. The same technology that enables your smartphone to pull sensitive financial data from your bank to pay your taxes or a taxi driver can be applied to your health care records. More importantly, the regulatory path to health records sharing is now open—the rules are already on the books.
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