Meaningful Use (MU)

See the following -

The 4 Lessons Gleaned from SSA's NwHIN Project

Gerard Reeder | Government Health IT | October 5, 2011

One of the most high-profile ARRA NHIN contracts, the Social Security Administration's (SSA) effort to gather medical evidence in support of disability claims over the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN) and expand the Exchange's Participant list to a more national coverage is finally realizing tangible results as a number of contractors have moved their systems into go-live productio Read More »

The Cost-Benefit Calculation Of Electronic Health Records Systems

Gienna Shaw | FierceHealthIT | August 19, 2013

It's discouraging to read that more than half of physicians say the costs of electronic health records systems outweigh the financial benefits. But it's also heartening to see that, in the survey of 1,200 employed and independent physicians, most agree the benefits to patient care do justify the investment. Read More »

The Costly Darkside Of EMR Implementations

Edmund Billings | HIT Consultant | January 3, 2013

Dr. Billings explores the costly darkside of EMR implementations significant maintenance, development and consultancy costs after implementing an EMR system Read More »

The EHR Debacle: Has Organized Medicine Failed Us?

By now, it should be no secret that physicians in the United States, although largely receptive to the idea of electronic health records (EHRs), are widely dissatisfied with the current state of the art, and with the way that EHR adoption is being implemented.[1] Indeed, Congress[2] has shown continuing – but sometimes seemingly perfunctory – interest in the concerns of physicians and other health care providers, and I am at this point pessimistic about seeing any results of its efforts in the near future unless a more fundamental change is made in our approach. As Einstein noted, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.”

Read More »

The EMR Use Rule: An Open Letter To Massachusetts Physicians

Hayward K. Zwerling | The Health Care Blog | May 27, 2013

Last summer, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted legislation that will fundamentally alter the physician-patient relationship by giving politicians the right to specify the processes that must occur during an office visit. The relevant law is Section 108 of Chapter 224 of the Acts of 2012, which reads as follows: Read More »

The Era of Epic

John D. Halamka | Life as a Healthcare CIO | July 24, 2013

In the Boston marketplace, Partners Healthcare is is replacing 30 years of self developed software with Epic.   Boston Medical Center is replacing Eclipsys (Allscripts) with Epic.   Lahey Clinic is replacing Meditech/Allscripts with Epic.  Cambridge Health Alliance and Atrius already run Epic. Read More »

The Golden Age Of Health Informatics?

Mark Braunstein | InformationWeek Healthcare | November 19, 2013

So much attention is paid to the problems in the trenches that it is easy to forget just how far we've come in the past few years. It was only 2008 when the oft-cited DesRoches NEJM survey showed that 4 percent of physicians had a clinically active electronic medical records system (my term for what they called fully functional EMRs). [...] Read More »

The Healthcare IT Applications Of Google Glass

John D. Halamka | Healthcare IT News | July 17, 2013

Last week I had the opportunity to test Google Glass. It's basically an Android smartphone (without the cellular transmitter) capable of running Android apps, built into a pair of glasses. Read More »

The Importance Of Usability In Healthcare Technology

Mike Butler | Hayes Management Consulting | July 22, 2013

Patients use technology to manage and coordinate their care now more than ever before. As Meaningful Use stages 2 and 3 approach, this will only increase. Patients will be using patient portals, for example, to glean information from their records and make informed decisions regarding their health. They will view, question and validate provider remarks, thus improving accuracy, awareness and patient /provider relationships. Read More »

The IT VistA Gets Larger

Joseph Conn | ModernHealthcare.com | January 15, 2012

The 24th meeting of the WorldVistA community wrapped up a three-day run Sunday at University of California Davis. WorldVistA is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2002 to promote the use of an open-source version of the VistA system outside the Veterans Affairs Department, where the VA has been developing the EHR for more than 30 years. Read More »

The ITDotHealth Conference

John Halamka | Life As A Healthcare CIO | September 11, 2012

Today, I participated in the ITDotHealth Conference in Boston, discussing one simple question with a selection of the nation's EHR and PHR experts : How we can best innovate/change our EHRs while also operating them to transact daily patient care? Read More »

The New Health IT Arms Race Between The US And EU

Nicole Fisher and Ben Heubl | Forbes.com | March 10, 2014

If you were to ask anyone in the United States what “health access” meant to them, you would get a different answer. In the UK, for most people, it means the ability to access National Health Service (NHS) amenities.

Read More »

The Next Generation: A Comprehensive Electronic Health Record

Katie Lutts | 5AM Solutions | October 12, 2012

The Network for Public Health Law is holding their 2012 Public Health Law conference this week in Atlanta, focusing on the Practical Approaches to Critical Challenges in Public Health Law, and I have been in attendance...But what struck me, was how little we really take time to think about the impact the work we are doing has upon our individual lives and those of our families. Read More »

The ONC Reorganization

Many people have asked me to explain the recent reorganization at ONC, reducing 17 different offices to 10...Simply, the era of stimulus has ended and ONC no longer has the operating budget to do as many projects as fast as during the era of ARRA... Read More »

The OSEHRA Value Proposition

Keith McCall | Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent (OSEHRA) | July 18, 2013

This post is a follow-up to a presentation made at the OSEHRA lock-down and provides various updates in an attempt to engage dialogue supporting or rebutting various value elements of OSEHRA and the challenges OSEHRA has in becoming a successful organization. Read More »