Interoperability
Healthcare, which has always been based on the doctor-patient interaction, is nearing the end of Stage 1 meaningful use, and as the industry increases its reliance on electronic health records, it faces a new challenge. That conundrum, says Nick van Terheyden, MD, and CMIO at Nuance Communications, is how to reconcile the need for standardized structured data capture with the importance of narrative in patient-doctor interactions.
Whether Americans see Edward Snowden as a hero or a traitor, the ongoing story of his deliberate leak of classified security information has caused some to sit up and take stock of all matters related to information technology, data and privacy.
At the Government Health IT Conference and Exhibition in Washington this week, chief information officers from the Military Health System and the U.S. Navy offered candid discussion about the way they make their IT decisions -- most notably with regard to the EHR system DoD is looking to acquire.
There has been some buzz lately about how interoperability is a non-issue. I beg to differ. With increasing pressure from federal initiatives like Meaningful Use Stage 2, there is growing need for information exchange across the industry.
More than a third of physician practices plan to purchase, replace or upgrade ambulatory EHR systems, according to HIMSS Analytics' newest Ambulatory Electronic Health Record & Practice Management Study. Meanwhile, nearly half of physician groups say they'll join an HIE.
If you were a healthcare provider and all you did was read press releases, you'd be tempted to think that transitioning to a new EHR involved little more than opening the package and plugging in the contents. Naturally, things are a little more complicated than that.
As the Department of Defense looks for a new EHR system and aims to improve information sharing for veterans with lifetime digital health records, there are also several key patient privacy questions to consider.
Everyone expects a hospital to be ready to jump into action when disaster strikes. But what about when the disaster devastates the hospital itself? Turns out, it helps a lot to have an electronic medical record system in place. At least that was the case at Moore Medical Center in Oklahoma, a small hospital right in the path of the tornado that ripped through the suburbs of Oklahoma City.
Ever since the updated HIPAA rule took effect last March, some hospital IT departments see themselves as "the HIPAA police," clamping down in ways that the rule doesn't require, says one industry expert.
The American Telemedicine Association's 18th Annual International Meeting & Trade Show kicked off with a flourish on Sunday in Austin, Texas, as the trade organization works to drive adoption of distance-based care and prepare for rapid change as new virtual models are embraced.