Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)
To say that John Glaser has had a front-row seat in the health IT arena over the past 10 years -- and the 10 years before that -- would be wrong. He's been in the trenches, sleeves rolled up. Glaser contemplates not only the past, but also what to expect going forward.
When you walk the floor at the HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition, it's easy to be distracted by the largest booths from the big EHR and medical equipment providers.
The healthcare IT industry just marked the 10-year anniversary of then President George W. Bush's call to action -- in his 2004 State of the Union address -- to finally transform a paper-mired healthcare system into a digital-age industry. CIOs and other industry insiders speak to the progress and look to the future of health IT.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill again expressed concern over the botched development and higher-than-expected price tag of creating a seamlessly integrated electronic health record between the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, ultimately tacking on project funding restrictions in the House's Omnibus Appropriations Act passed Jan. 15.
Karen DeSalvo, MD, appears to have the right background to understand the challenges facing the healthcare system. Beginning with her childhood experience as a public health clinic patient and including work as an internist managing a hospital's medical records committee, she has direct experience with the system at all levels.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has released what it calls Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience guides: nine toolkits to help providers make safer use of electronic health records and other technology.
As far as Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, is concerned, the $34 billion health IT and electronic medical record incentive program was a grave misstep for the healthcare industry -- but not necessarily for the reasons one might think.
Electronic health record incentive payments to eligible docs and hospitals continue to climb into the new year. The "inexorable progress" of the federal EHR incentive program continues, with payments to providers moving ever closer to $20 billion.
Health IT is where the money's at -- at least in 2013, which saw venture capital funding nearly double from the previous year, according to a new industry report released Monday.
Edward W. Marx, senior vice president and chief information officer at Texas Health Resources, one of the largest faith-based, nonprofit healthcare delivery systems in the U.S., has been named the 2013 John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year, an award given jointly by CHIME and HIMSS.