healthcare information systems

See the following -

Fax Is Not a Machine, It Is a Technology

Once more I am listening to a presentation on interoperability. These always get a little uncomfortable - especially in the early going - because I can almost predict where the presenter will go horribly wrong and do a complete disservice to the audience (generally somewhere between slides 3 and 8). This time it was slide 6 where the speaker inserts stock picture of a decrepit old fax machine with paper cascading off a desk and onto the floor. This comes along with the typical lecture on everything that is wrong with "fax". With the lemmings in the audience nodding/snickering along, the speaker proceeds to misinform and mislead the group. Cringe-worthy really. What's misleading? Pretty much everything he says.

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Health IT Interoperability Reimagined!

The evolution of fax from paper-based to cloud transmission and storage (CloudFax) is a key step that enables CloudFax providers to comply with HIPAA and other regulations. Further strengthening of CloudFax as a key component in Healthcare Information Systems (HIS) will be its evolution into a Direct Messaging platform that enables the seamless exchange of Patient Health Information (PHI) between the diverse data and document management systems used by labs, pharmacies, doctor's offices, hospitals, and billing providers. CloudFax will support and contribute to the goals of interoperability. Consider:

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Why do EHR Firms Own Patient Data When Other Software Vendors Don't?

There's a healthy debate going on about healthcare data interoperability and I think the more we discuss it, the better off we'll be. It's absolutely crucial that all healthcare information systems be able to talk to each other in a way that is useful to both physicians/clinicians as well as patients. The only way to have truly interoperable systems is to have free (but safe and secure) data interchange and exchange requires access rights and an understanding of ownership rules. One part of the discussion that many vendors of electronic health records (EHRs), a large portion of the health IT ecosystem, don't want to have is about the ownership of patient data stored in "their" EHR systems.

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