Cerner

See the following -

The Pentagon Contract That Could Shape EHRs For Years To Come — Epic Pays Out To Win Friends And Influence Congress

Arthur Allen | Politico.com | October 17, 2014

GENTLEMEN (AND WOMEN) START YOUR (INTEROPERABLE) ENGINES: The Department of Defense’s $11 billion, 10-year contract for a new electronic health records system won’t just shape military health for the next decade, reports Ashley Gold, it could very well predict the future of electronic health records and their handling of interoperability. Read More »

The Right Way to Modernize VA's VistA EHR: Shift Development to the Private Sector and the Cloud

While changes to VistA are warranted and necessary, trashing the entire system because one component may be flawed makes little sense from technological or financial perspectives. The VA scheduling scandal was the product of an agency overwhelmed by veterans returning from two theaters of war. In that scenario, the scheduling system became a scapegoat for organizational and human resources challenges that were bound to manifest in one way or another.The VA should not heed calls to replace VistA for these key reasons...

Read More »

The Strengths and Weaknesses of the HL7 FHIR Messaging Standard

It has been several years since we reviewed the progress of the HL7 FHIR standards adoption rate. Health Level Seven's (HL7) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) is an emerging standard that has rapidly captured the mind-share of the Health Information Technology (HIT) standards community. FHIR is a standard that enables healthcare data sharing between systems in a manner that is more easily implemented and more expressive than previous HL7 standards such as HL7 Version 2, 3 and Clinical Document Architecture (CDA). Regardless of the version of HL7 standard used, the purpose of these standards is to send clinical data in messages, whether to a party inside or outside your organization. HL7 devises flexible message formats so the receiver of the message can open it up, know who sent it and why, and break it down into understandable segments and data fields.

Read More »

These Graphs Show How Fast Hospitals Are Adopting Computers -- And How Far They Have To Go

Matthew Herper | Forbes | July 10, 2013

On Monday, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation published its annual report on health information technology in the United States. [...] Read More »

This Algorithm Accidentally Predicted Which Hospital Patients Were Most Likely To Die

Stephanie M. Lee | Buzz Feed News | September 19, 2016

Sepsis is one of the biggest hospital hazards you’ve maybe never heard of. When the body overreacts to an infection, it can trigger widespread inflammation that can in turn cause tissue damage and organ failure. It causes one-third to one-half of all deaths in US hospitals. But because sepsis’s symptoms, like fever and difficulty breathing, sometimes look a lot like other illnesses, it can be hard to detect, especially in the early stages. So a team at Banner Health, a hospital system in Phoenix, Arizona, turned to computer science for a solution...

Read More »

Trump Says VA’s EHR Woes Are Finally Fixed. Not Quite

Evan Sweeney | Fierce Healthcare | July 28, 2017

To hear the President of the United States tell it, the Department of Veterans Affairs' frequently maligned EHR system has been fixed in just a few short weeks. During a speech on Tuesday in Ohio, President Donald Trump praised the work of Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin in reforming the agency responsible for providing medical care to the nation’s veterans. He specifically underscored the efforts his administration has taken to improve the VA’s EHR system...

Read More »

U.S. Coast Guard Seeks Ideas for Its Own EHR System

Samantha Ehlinger | Fed Scoop | April 24, 2017

The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for a solution to digitize its electronic health records that would be more interoperable with Defense and Veterans Affairs’ systems. The service is looking for a “computerized, integrated Electronic Health Record Acquisition” that would be more interoperable with both departments’ systems, according to a Request for Information published Sunday. The solution would replace the agency’s “manual paper health records,” and would need to protect personally identifiable information and personal health information, according to the RFI...

Read More »

UnitedHealth Recalls Digital Health Record Software

Jordan Robertson | Bloomberg | September 10, 2013

UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) has recalled software used in hospital emergency departments in more than 20 states because of an error that caused doctor’s notes about patient prescriptions to drop out of their files. Read More »

Upsurge in Emergency Department Information Technology Replacements, 72% of Hospitals Dissatisfied With Interoperability & Usability Finds Black Book

Press Release | Black Book Market Research | October 28, 2015

Black Book surveyed 738 emergency department administrative and nursing managers, and 1,104 ED physicians (over half are members of the American College of Emergency Physicians). 89% of ED leaders believe their hospitals rushed to purchase new EHRs and ED systems between 2010 and 2013 for meaningful use dollars, just to see productivity fall, liability rise and connectivity stall. Read More »

US Defense Think Tank Calls for DoD to Adopt the Open Source VistA EHR and Avoid Closed and Proprietary EHRs.

One of the most prestigious U.S. defense think tanks, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), issued a white paper Thursday calling on the Department of Defense (DoD) to replace their existing dysfunctional “vendor-lock” medical records system with an electronic health records system (EHR) that is "extensible, flexible and easy to safely modify and upgrade as technology improves and interoperability demands evolve." The white paper warns that a "closed and proprietary" commercial EHR - such as the ones offered by Epic, Cerner or Allscripts - will lead to "vendor-lock” and isolation of health data. Read More »

US hospital takes legal action against Cerner - why it matters to the NHS

Tony Collins | Computerworld UK | June 29, 2012

Small Kansas hospital in legal action against e-patient record supplier Cerner. The Girard Medical Center’s story illustrates "the risks for organizations of all kinds when they attempt to innovate by bringing in new, and unfamiliar, technologies and vendors." Read More »

US Senate Releases Draft Future Pandemic Preparedness Plan - Asks for Feedback

On June 10, 2020 the US Senate released a white paper titled "Preparing for the Next Pandemic" under the signature of Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. The white paper has five recommendations to address future pandemics based on lessons learned from COVID-19 and the past 20 years of pandemic planning. "The five recommendations...along with a series of questions at the end of this white paper, are intended to elicit recommendations that Congress can consider and act on this year," Senator Alexander said in a statement, adding that "I am inviting comments, responses, and any additional recommendations for the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to consider. This feedback will be shared with my colleagues, both Democrat and Republican." This feedback from the public will be accepted until June 26, 2020... Read More »

VA and VistA: Can they be fixed?

Aisha Chowdhry | FCW | July 27, 2016

pivoting away from VistA, the agency's homegrown electronic health record system, would be a major shift for the VA. Former VA CIO Roger Baker said VistA is the only EHR designed by doctors, not technologists. "That is the real power of VistA, and it remains the real power of VistA," he added. The system, rooted in 1970s code, is designed to assist doctors in their daily work. Providers at the various VA medical facilities nationwide customize it for their specific needs.

Read More »

VA and VistA: Can They Be Fixed?

Aisha Chowdry | FCW | July 27, 2016

The Department of Veterans Affairs is rushing to make changes to its IT infrastructure and systems before the next administration enters the White House. And skeptical lawmakers, oversight bodies and outside experts are cautiously optimistic about the eventual outcomes. The key words, though, are "cautiously" and "eventual"...

Read More »

VA Edges Closer to Rollout of New Health Record Platform

Chase Gunter | FCW | May 17, 2016

The Department of Veterans Affairs is edging closer to full deployment of a web-based modular electronic health record platform that promises to build on improvements in interoperability within VA and between VA and the Defense Department. Officials hope to have the Enterprise Health Management Platform up and running by the end of this summer. EHMP is a dynamic, web-based way to organize, display, search, filter and share patient data from VA's open-source VistA health record. EHMP provides a virtual space to develop and deploy specialized health and wellness applications for use by VA providers...

Read More »