By Andis Robeznieks |
March 08, 2010
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Print Magazine Subscription Though some tried to change the subject, “meaningful use” of health information technology—and the billions of dollars in federal stimulus-law subsidies that are attached to that term—dominated discussions at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society annual conference and exhibition March 1-4 in Atlanta. FULL STORY »
February 08, 2010
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Print Magazine Subscription Scribe. The word might conjure up images of an ancient, white-bearded man, bent over papyrus scrolls, scratching away with quill pens. And we know the profession has to be older than Methuselah. Today, however, healthcare organizations are looking to new generations of scribes to help advance the use of electronic health records. FULL STORY »
By Jessica Zigmond |
January 11, 2010
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Print Magazine Subscription As healthcare providers digest HHS' “meaningful use” regulations, the rural health community expressed concern last week that the definition lacks clarity for critical-access hospitals. Meanwhile, a coalition of rural and health information technology leaders offered recommendations to help rural providers manage perhaps an even greater problem: health IT workforce challenges. FULL STORY »
By Jessica Zigmond |
December 14, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription As public health experts continue to emphasize the unpredictability of the H1N1 flu virus, federal agencies and healthcare companies alike are developing a host of surveillance systems to better understand the deadly strain and its effect on the American public—as well as open new business lines. FULL STORY »
By Joseph Conn |
December 07, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription A new federal privacy breach law has revealed flaws in the healthcare industry’s ability to keep healthcare data private. FULL STORY »
By Gregg Blesch |
November 09, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription The CMS is hard at work creating a giant, all-knowing repository of claims and payment data from all federal health programs. It's a tool the government believes will help rein in the massive amounts of money spent on claims that are wasteful or flat-out criminal. FULL STORY »
By Jean DerGurahian |
October 12, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription Nearly a year ago, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality began implementing regulations for its patient-safety organization program—touted as a way for providers to share information and learn from problems. So far, however, the technology has not been finessed enough to really enable that sharing, according to the PSOs. FULL STORY »
By Joseph Conn |
October 05, 2009
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Basic Web Registration For more than two decades, speech-recognition software has held bright promise for busy physicians looking for a better way to get what was in their heads onto a printed page or into a computerized health record. FULL STORY »
By Joseph Conn |
August 10, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription It is an odd way to start a magazine story, by recommending that readers rush out and read books. And yet, that is precisely what Newsweek suggested a couple of weeks ago in its article, “Fifty books for our time.” It is a recommendation repeated here for book No. 4 on that list, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, by Nicholas Carr, first published last year. Newsweek said all of the books on its list “open a window on the times we live in.” In the case of The Big Switch, at least for healthcare information technology,... FULL STORY »
By Joseph Conn |
July 27, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription The Veterans Affairs Department has put on hold 45 information technology projects, most of them involving software applications for healthcare, while it subjects the projects to internal review and the strictures of a new project-management scheme. FULL STORY »
By Elizabeth Gardner |
July 13, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription Getting a healthcare institution to embrace meaningful clinical automation takes dedication, drive and deep knowledge of what clinicians need. For the past 10 years, the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems has recognized outstanding achievement in applied medical informatics. FULL STORY »
By Elizabeth Gardner |
July 13, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s hospitals had a clinical computer system from one vendor that they really liked. More than half its physicians used a system from another vendor that they really liked. The two did not work together, which stymied the development of a unified electronic health record. FULL STORY »
By Elizabeth Gardner |
July 13, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription The Fallon Clinic in Worcester, Mass., has managed to lick a problem that defeats many a clinical computing effort: getting many disparate computer systems to talk with each other. FULL STORY »
By Elizabeth Gardner |
July 13, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription The health information technology professionals most interested in integrated health system Kaiser Permanente's enormous electronic health-record system tend to be from outside the U.S., says Andrew Wiesenthal, associate executive director of the Permanente Federation, the organization of the Permanente medical groups, and point man for KP HealthConnect. FULL STORY »
By Elizabeth Gardner |
July 13, 2009
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Print Magazine Subscription Of all the ways clinical computing can improve medical care, built-in practice guidelines are one of the most powerful, as a recent computerized physician order-entry project at WellStar Health System made abundantly clear. Under the direction of Jonathan Morris, WellStar Kennestone Hospital added practice guidelines for the prevention and treatment of sepsis—one of the most stubborn and deadly diagnoses among hospital patients FULL STORY »
