Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has big plans for Blue Button, the mechanism that enables consumers to securely download their health information, as part of an overarching effort to enhance patient engagement.
There it was -- the clear-as-a-bell prediction. Call it the "wow factor." Andrew Watson, MD, medical director of the Center for Connected Medicine at UPMC, made an assertion about the future of digital health at the mHealth Summit on Dec. 9 that sent a hushed "wow" rippling across the room.
"I'm surprised that we continue to see the status quo in revenue cycle management," says Sean Wieland, managing director and senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, adding that, "If any other industry had a revenue cycle like that, we'd all be living like the Amish."
A joint CMS and ONC blog post today divulges the government's intentions to extend the timeline for meaningful use Stages 2 and 3. Under the revised schedule, Stage 2 would be extended through 2016 and Stage 3 would begin in 2017 for those providers that have completed at least two years in Stage 2.
Cerner Corp., one of the top EHR vendors in the country, is teaming up with Claritas Genomics to advance personalized medicine by building tools and connectivity that will better integrate next-generation, sequence-based diagnostic testing into clinical practice.
As providers ready for meaningful use Stage 2 attestation and policymakers start designing Stage 3, CMS announced that the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs have paid out just shy of $17 billion to spur adoption thus far.
In opening its new, flagship hospital in the state capital last month, MaineGeneral Medical Center took a bit of a gamble promoting the $312 million Alfond Center for Health on Facebook.
A project at Carolinas HealthCare System to integrate data analytics across the enterprise for predictive modeling, individualized patient care and population health has seen encouraging early returns.
It's a hard knock life being a CIO in the healthcare sector. Federal regulations have shifted IT teams' priorities away from their typical laundry list of day-to-day tasks. But, as responsibilities pile up and overtime hours accumulate, this year as Thanksgiving nears, even CIOs have something to be grateful for.
Richmond, Va., gastroenterologist Michael P. Jones, MD, is not anti-technology. He just does not like electronic medical records in their current form. He's expecting the technology to improve, but for now, he's opted for paper charts.