Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)
CommonWell Health Alliance announced this week that Mobile, Ala.-based CPSI and Tucson, Ariz.-based Sunquest Information Systems are the two latest vendors to sign on to the interoperability organization.
In a report, released July 25, the American Hospital Association calls for "redirecting" the existing requirements for digital clinical quality measures. As it stands, the process raises costs and effort for providers, AHA said, without leading to accurate data.
Following last week's call from Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to pause the meaningful use program and determine whether "the bar is too low," a federal hearing Wednesday included testimony from providers and a tech vendor who recommended expanding the timeline because the next phase is overly-prescriptive and threatens to hinder hospitals.
2013 has been billed as the year of EHR dissatisfaction, with up to 23 percent of physician practices reporting they were trading in their current EHR system for a new brand altogether and, according to a new Black Book Rankings report, there were a handful of vendors that came out on top.
Providers are increasingly using electronic health records, both to manage their patients' care and to provide more information to those patients, according to new data published Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
"Location, location, location" is a phrase that's long been associated with real estate, but in recent years it's also played a role in attempts by healthcare professionals to track disease. Now, some are putting health IT to work in adding location information -- where patients have lived -- into their EHRs.
As we reach the "tipping point" of electronic health record adoption, the Office of the National Coordinator has issued a mark for EHRs and other health IT products that's meant to serve as visual proof that they can offer functionality, interoperability and security.
National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, MD, told members of the Health IT Policy Committee on Tuesday to remain steadfast, bask in the progress made over the past four years, but continue to "react and respond to the world as it is, while striving to make the world as it should be."
The HITECH Act has had its desired effect so far, according to the latest annual report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which finds heartening adoption levels of health IT across the board, from small physician practices to academic medical centers, over the past three years.
Healthcare, which has always been based on the doctor-patient interaction, is nearing the end of Stage 1 meaningful use, and as the industry increases its reliance on electronic health records, it faces a new challenge. That conundrum, says Nick van Terheyden, MD, and CMIO at Nuance Communications, is how to reconcile the need for standardized structured data capture with the importance of narrative in patient-doctor interactions.