Category: EHR

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT covered a lot of ground during this week’s meeting on the agency’s patient data matching initiative announced in September. Speakers from ONC provided updates on patient identification and matching, ways to improve patient match rates, emerging ideas and an opportunity for discussion among stakeholders. What I…

The healthcare industry already has experienced several unintended issues related to electronic health records, many of which involve patient safety and upcoding. But as implementation of EHRs begins to mature and providers step up integration in response to health reform, there will be additional unanticipated operational and business problems involving EHRs that will arise. Health…

Matching patients to their electronic data is a high priority but a challenge for the industry according to officials with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, reporting on their initial findings of their patient matching initiative at a meeting/webinar held Dec. 16. read more …read more

Manny Jones, health care solution manager at LockPath, recently sent me 5 tips to consider in order to meet HIPAA guidelines. It addresses some of the following questions: What does the HIPAA Omnibus rule mean for me? How do I know if I’m compliant? Where do I even begin? This list of 5 tips are…

The vast majority of ambulatory organizations have either implemented EHRs or in the process. There are different challenges for large organizations and small practices. In talking with a couple of my peers in the physician lounge over the last few weeks, one challenge is the same: determining whether EHR projects should be clinical, operational, or…

I wrote weekly editorials for a boutique industry newsletter for several years, anxious for both audience and income. I learned a lot about coming up with ideas for the weekly grind, trying to be simultaneously opinionated and entertaining in a few hundred words, and not sleeping much because I was working all the time. They’re…

Funding legislation agreed to by the House and Senate this week mandates that the U.S. Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense present a plan for building either an interoperable or single electronic health record by the end of January. read more …read more

With system upgrades taking shape across the country, IT is no longer just another another department in the hospital. More than ever, it’s integral to how healthcare organizations work and get paid. But you don’t always see this shifting landscape reflected in hospitals’ leadership structures or practices. That’s unfortunate. Getting the most out of the…

The CommonWell Health Alliance–a group of competing electronic health record vendors that came together last March for a stated goal of interoperability with one another–on Wednesday announced participating regions for its first rollout. Chicago; Elkin and Henderson in North Carolina; and Columbia, South Carolina all will serve as initial test beds for CommonWell’s interoperability services.…