Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)
Healthcare system takes on $1.5 billion project in 18 states
It’s one week into summer, and healthcare professionals across the country are anxiously awaiting the final definition of meaningful use. To say they are eagerly waiting would also apply, but anxiously seems more precise because there is plenty of anxiety in the waiting.
Christopher Longhurst, MD, has been named chief medical information officer at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. In his role, Longhurst will focus on ways to extend digital data to patients and families to improve the continuum of care, he said.
Clara Maass Medical Center, a 445-bed hospital in Belleville, N.J. will provide emergency medical services at Red Bull Arena, a new 25,000 seat soccer stadium in Harrison, N.J. The medical center will use its emergency department electronic health record on-site to ensure secure exchange of patient information from the arena's medical center to the hospital when needed.
Six healthcare organizations have been named as finalists for the 2010 HIMSS Davies Ambulatory Care and HIMSS Davies Public Health Awards of Excellence, recognizing their use of electronic health records.
Many vendors, of course, are benefiting from the stimulus, with scores of hospitals scrambling to install EMR and CPOE systems in hopes of drawing a portion of the billions of dollars from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
"I think open source is the right thing to do the same way I believe science is better than alchemy," software pioneer Linus Torvald, who developed the "kernel" that's the basis of the Linux operating system, has said. "Like science, open source allows people to build on a solid base of previous knowledge…. It's just a superior way of working together."
The key to healthcare reform, say some experts, lies in collaboration. But how does one get hospitals and physicians to work with each other?
Technology is always promising something and the iPad is no exception with some seeing it as a “game changer” for healthcare, and physicians in particular.
Health information technology will top the agenda at the Mayo Clinic Thursday morning at a news conference led by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.