Meaningful Use (MU)

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The Politics of the EHR: Why we’re not where we want to be and what we need to do to get there

By Bruce Wilder | October 1, 2013

By now, it seems abundantly clear that the vast potential offered by universal adoption of electronic health records (EHR) has not been achieved. Indeed, the fulfillment of that potential seems a long way off. Unsolved problems with interoperability, usability, safety, and security, to name a few, remain, and continue to pose barriers to universal adoption. There is ample evidence in the medical literature, of the unsolved problems of the EHR. Indeed, two recent reports that offer (probably inadequate) solutions highlight the difficulties that exist with the EHR. The proliferation of these problems has only increased with the increase in adoption of the EHR by physicians and institutions. The Texas Medical Association has asked the (at the time) ONC, Farhad Mostashari, MD, to establish a health IT patient safety czar.1 Read More »

The Promise of a Little Blue Button

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...despite some shortcomings, the event was focused around what may be the government’s (VA & CMS) finest contributions to promoting patient engagement – the Blue Button.
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The Promise of Electronic Health Records

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Last week, Don Berwick completed his 17 month tenure as administrator of Medicare and Medicaid. The nation should be grateful that such a visionary was at the helm. The nation should be frustrated that he was never confirmed. Read More »

The Roles I Play

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As 2014 begins, I marvel at the evolution of the CIO role from 1997 to 2014. Gone are the days when my role was to serve as technical expert, configuring web servers, optimizing data bases, or simplifying code. [...] Here are a few examples of the roles I play today from the past few weeks: Read More »

The Staggering Cost Of An Epic Electronic Health Record Might Not Be Worth It

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...[B]ecause it is no small task to deploy [Epic, Judith Faulkner] is there all the way to hand-hold jittery CIOs, and help them get millions of dollars in government subsidies by showing meaningful use of her EHR. Her not-for-profit clientèle will need every penny of those taxpayers’ dollars, but they won’t cover anywhere near the staggering cost of an Epic EHR. Read More »

The State Of HIE As 2012 Comes To A Close

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Although medical professionals may have been using the phrase "health information exchange" for centuries, the health information sharing organizational arrangement used today was first mentioned in the popular media by the Canadian Press in 1977, according to Google's archives, when Canadian health officials agreed to set up an inter-provincial HIE for studying coronary bypass surgeries and occupational health trends. Read More »

The Third Health Constant

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At least two health phenomena are common to all humanity: the experience of health (or illness), and the continual need for health vigilance. In spite of these constants, healthcare has historically been “delivered” in a series of isolated events rather than integrated into daily life and shared between patients and doctors. Read More »

The Top 7 Free And Open Source EMR Software Products

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As a doctor you may not be able to completely avoid burdensome healthcare regulations or government EHR mandates, but you can at least minimize the cost of those mandates by implementing one of the many free Electronic Medical Records software options. Read More »

The Unfulfilled Promises Of Health Information Technology

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[...] Realizing that the cost savings and improvements in healthcare delivery are nowhere near what was optimistically predicted in 2005, RAND recently commissioned a new study to take a fresh new look at the state of health information technology. The new study paints a very different picture... Read More »

The Unhealthy Side Effects of Meaningful Use

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There are also no established EMR implementation strategies for medical practices. Implementing a complex EMR system into a busy medical practice is like replacing an aircraft’s engines while it is still flying. During implementation there can be no reduction in patient volume and no errors in patient care. Information technology is the only medical technology that has been given a “free pass,” with apparently no need to prove itself the way we prove the worthiness of new drugs, medical devices and surgical procedures.
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The Words Healthcare CIOs Don't Want To Hear

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No matter what your job, there are certain phrases – whether said by bosses, colleagues or clients – that are just plain unwelcome: words that foretell frustration and added workload at best, panic and red-alert crisis response at worst.

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This EHR Mess We’re In

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Dr. Matthew Hahn blogs about the current state of today’s EHR’s and rightly points out many of the same reasons that I have identified in my previous posts...There are several other important concerns that have been left unanswered by our current Health IT offerings...The solution Dr. Hahn proposed is one that hinges on the hope that government will abandon MU (unlikely given this political climate), and create a whole new EHR development program based on a national competition and then for the government to subsidize the cost of that winner EHR for physicians to use...

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Time to Extend my Extension Idea

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You should put together the success story of the health IT extension program and take it to Congress. Tell its members the country needs this program and should fund it going forward. Read More »

Today's 'Meaningful Use' Standard for Medication Orders by Hospitals May Save Few Lives; Later Stages May Do More

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The federal government is currently offering bonus payments through Medicare and Medicaid to hospitals, physicians, and other eligible health professionals who meet new standards for “meaningful use” of health information technology. Whether these incentives will improve care, reduce errors, and improve patient safety as intended remains uncertain. Read More »

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