Image by taberandrew via Flickr I have been spending a lot of time in Washington, D.C., meeting with government officials at White House Forums and on college campuses, doing interviews, and speaking with members of health care panels; the trends in the industry are becoming readily apparent. Patient-centered care, supported by technology, is all the [...]
HIMSS wants a roll in the EMR certification process
May 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Image via Wikipedia The trade organization HIMSS — Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society — is lobbying to play a central role in determining the certification requirements for electronic health records. According to the Washington Post, the HIMSS group wants a say in what dictates “meaningful use” for electronic health records, or EHRs, through advocacy [...]
Forbes interview with Citizens Memorial Hospital CIO
May 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Image via Wikipedia Shifting health care from paper to electronic records could be one of the most important efficiency gains in our lifetimes, affecting everything from how quickly we can check into a clinic or hospital to how many specialists are available to monitor patients. Yet this presents some complex questions: What exactly is involved [...]
Maryland approves bill requiring health plans to offer EMR incentives
May 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Image by ExperienceLA via Flickr Maryland has approved a bill making it the first state to require commercial health plans to offer doctors incentives for adopting electronic medical records. Starting in 2011, when physicians adopt EMRs, health plans will have to pay them higher reimbursements, pay out a lump sum incentive or offer in-kind services [...]
CCHIT Reveals 2009-10 Certification Plans
May 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology has approved final 2009-2010 criteria for a number of its EHR certification efforts. But it will delay launching its inspection programs using the new criteria until the federal government prepares a draft rule for carrying out the economic stimulus EHR incentives. CCHIT has approved new criteria for certification [...]
ONC releases operating plan and timetable
May 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Image via Wikipedia The ONC released an eight page operating plan and timetable for itself and other federal agencies for issuing reports, rules and guidelines for federal healthcare IT programs under the stimulus act. The document fails, however, to provide a definition of “meaningful use” of electronic health-record systems or a deadline when that definition might be [...]
Experts say HIT Standards must include privacy safeguards
May 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Image via Wikipedia The Obama administration’s drive to implement electronic health records (EHRs) should have strong identity management tools to ensure privacy and security of the records, members of a panel of providers, vendors and policy experts said today. The coming health information technology policies and standards are to include protections for patient [...]
Does the public have EMR fears?
May 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment
A lot of the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) regarding Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) and Personal Health Records (PHRs) seems driven by an assumption that people don’t understand the trade-offs involved in creating and accessing online records. Those fears are overblown, according to a study to be published in next month’s Journal of General Internal Medicine. [...]
Picis ED PulseCheck Achieves CCHIT Certification for Emergency Department EHR Criteria
May 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Picis, Inc. announced today that ED PulseCheck version 4.0, part of the CareSuite family of high-acuity solutions, is now a Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) Certified 08 Emergency Department Electronic Health Record. This product certification provides an objective set of criteria for measuring health information technology products, enabling many buyers to narrow their [...]
Maryland law will allow state to put stimulus cash toward electronic health records
May 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Image via Wikipedia Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley will sign legislation Tuesday that provides incentives for health care organizations to implement electronic health records. House Bill 706 allows the state to make use of federal stimulus dollars available for electronic health records and coordinate those efforts with the state’s own plan to create a state wide [...]
