Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)
Here's the good news: Seventy-seven percent of free-standing physician practices have an ambulatory electronic medical record system installed, and a robust 90 percent of hospital-owned providers are up and running with EMRs. But there's not-so-good news, too.
Providers have begun to make targeted use of leading-edge technologies to optimize their electronic medical records, but the vast majority don't yet have the IT capacity to make full use of advancements such as big data and the cloud.
Stage 2 of meaningful use is supposed to be about interoperability of data, with electronic records flowing securely between sites as needed to help hospitals and doctors provide better care. But the number of attestations to Stage 2 has been anemic, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting true interoperability is a long way off.
Health IT infrastructure has made significant progress in recent years, with EHR adoption among hospitals and physicians growing. However, the development of health information exchanges and interoperability - needed to provide more effective care - still has a long way to go.
It's official. The Louisiana-based health system has become the first Epic EHR shop to integrate its electronic health record with Apple's HealthKit, making for seamless data exchange between clinicians and their patients.
Arguing that the current up-in-the-air regulatory climate is hindering innovation in health information technology, an array of vendors and industry groups have called on Congress to clarify its plans for patient safety rules.
RTI International has landed a contract with the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to develop a roadmap for a national health IT safety center.
It may not come as any surprise: Electronic health record vendors don't play well with others. At least that's according to healthcare providers who say, in the lion's share of cases, their EHR is not interoperable with others.
When announcing his company's seismic $1.3 billion acquisition of Siemens Health Services this past summer, Cerner CEO Neal Patterson noted the deal was meant, in part, to help the electronic health record giant chart a course for the "post-meaningful use" era.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will reopen the submission period for meaningful use hardship exception applications.