Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)

Whether Americans see Edward Snowden as a hero or a traitor, the ongoing story of his deliberate leak of classified security information has caused some to sit up and take stock of all matters related to information technology, data and privacy.

Developing an effective framework for driving healthcare quality improvements proves a multifaceted, complex endeavor, and although EHR systems can play a positive role in the task, much of the technology still misses the mark. This was just one of several concerns put before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance June 26.

Tenet Healthcare's $4.3 billion acquisition of Vanguard Health Systems is likely to bring more business athenahealth's way, Piper Jaffray analyst Sean Wieland concluded in a note he issued June 24, even as he offered up other possible scenarios, such as a MED3000 business win, or a boon for Cerner.

Citing insufficient training, system shortfalls and the hospital's failure to involve direct-care nurses in the implementation process, RNs at the 266-bed Affinity Medical Center in northern Ohio have asked hospital officials to delay the rollout of its new Cerner electronic medical records system.

Hill Physicians Medical Group CEO Darryl Cardoza credits the group's successful ACO arrangements, improved efficiencies and the health information technology that supports it all for not only improving patient care, but also lowering costs. And, he's bullish on alignment.

SNOMED was so important to healthcare's switch from ICD-9 to ICD-10 medical coding, ONC Chief Farzad Mostashari, MD says, that he was willing to support the one-year delay to achieve the necessary crosswalks. This system of nomenclature can lay the groundwork and foundation for much better, more granular clinical documentation, he said.

ONC has a real understanding of the importance of consumer engagement, the head of the ONC's Office of Consumer eHealth, says. When ONC was originally created and even when HITECH passed, there was a lot of emphasis on providers and hospitals. But it's only in more recent years that it's become more generally understood that patients and consumers play a critical role, too.

Farzad Mostashari, MD, the national coordinator for healthcare IT, asserted today there would be no extension of the deadline for switching from the ICD-9 medical coding system to ICD-10. The deadline for conversion would remain Oct. 1, 2014, Mostashari said in a keynote delivered this morning at the HIMSS Media ICD-10 Forum in National Harbor, Md.

There's a commonly held perception that healthcare is a process in which doctors take care of patients. But increasingly healthcare stakeholders are figuring out that, at times, a more effective way to help patients get healthy is to show them how to take care of themselves.

At the Government Health IT Conference and Exhibition in Washington this week, chief information officers from the Military Health System and the U.S. Navy offered candid discussion about the way they make their IT decisions -- most notably with regard to the EHR system DoD is looking to acquire.