Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)
National health programs have been, or are now, becoming electronic, just as health records are. Many of these programs will play major roles in either incenting or conflicting with efforts to advance the electronic healthcare infrastructure. And as with other industries, becoming electronic changes the way these programs can and should be carried out themselves. John Loonsk, MD, discusses how it might all shake out.
The Office of the National Coordinator's Health IT Standards Committee is urging ONC leaders to lean towards menu options and certification for use cases on Stage 3 meaningful use rather than core requirements, and to especially keep in mind that standards for a variety of clinical procedures are still evolving.
Leaders of healthcare policy encouraged the industry to move ahead faster during a keynote address at the National Health Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 4 "...help us speed up the rate of change," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius encouraged conference attendees.
EHR implementation, meaningful use and compliance are the top three healthcare CIO priorities for 2013, according to a study released Feb. 4 by Level 3.
After 10 years at the helm of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), high-profile leader Carolyn Clancy, MD, will step down as director. The agency is known for its research focused on outcomes and quality of care.
A central part of American hospitals, the intensive care unit (ICU) could benefit greatly from evolving health information technologies, offering clinical decision support, quality analysis and a new foundation for a critical care system changing with an aging patient population. Yet ICU triaging -- prioritizing of the most severe conditions -- has been underutilized and under-encouraged by the federal government, a team of medical researchers argue in a New England Journal of Medicine commentary.
The business value for providers and patients is what will drive health information exchange forward, even though most discussions typically center on the technology involved. And different uses for exchange will require different technologies.
"I would characterize this past year as an accelerating year," says John Hoyt, executive vice president of HIMSS Analytics.
Board members at the St. Paul, Minn.-based HealthEast Care System have unanimously approved a five-year $135 million budget to build a new electronic health record (EHR) system.
Healthcare's clinical community should view population health as a frontier for deepening understanding about the nature of disease, providing incisive clues about patient demographics, behavior patterns and physiological makeup. Large group samples hold the potential to unlock mysteries that physicians may not even realize exist, says Jonathan Teich, MD, chief medical information officer for Amsterdam-based Elsevier.