Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)

Mayo Clinic is on the cusp of one of the biggest and most expensive EHR go-lives in history.

Issues with data standardization and the differences in regulations inhibit their potential.

With the new acquisition, the virtual care company says it's building out its platform to better handle interoperability and data management continuity for small physicians practices and multi-hospital systems alike.

Health IT professionals offer their opinions about what the project might be able to accomplish for patient engagement and consumer-mediated exchange – and how ready smaller providers might be to someday try it themselves.

While the Defense Department has hailed the pilot stage of its Cerner EHR implementation as successful, Sen. Patty Murray outlined a list of concerns over tech issues.

Using the company's "Happy Together" tool, UNC was able to document 12 percent of A1c test completions and 8.1 percent of flu shot completions from external data sources.

By replacing two Cerner systems, the North Carolina health system aims for a broader view, helping its physicians, nurses and IT staff work more collaboratively to serve patients with what it described as a comprehensive health record.

Providers still struggle to put clinical data to use.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services effort to reduce regulatory burdens are being warmly received but the industry appears less excited about price transparency and patient access to EHR data stipulations.

As ambitious as consolidating onto a single electronic health record platform is, there’s even more to Mayo Clinic’s plan that took nearly five years to complete.