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EHRs/PHRs

Is Hospital-Physician Integration Sustainable?

Reprinted courtesy of MCOL.

Perspectives on a Selected Key Topic |     April 2011/May 2011     |   Volume Three Issue Two

Will a material number of hospitals and their core medical […]

Part Deux: A Rebuttal to PHR Luddites

By now most people understand the promise of pharmaceuticals being customized to “YOU” based on your individual genetic code.  While this isn’t prevalent today, we understand that this will be possible in a few years.

Let’s take a minute to consider the mechanics of how this will occur. You’ve received a prescription, and it directs the pharmacist to tailor the medicine to YOUR genetic profile.

Consider two possible scenarios of how this transaction might happen. You’re on the phone with your pharmacist:

1) “OK, […]

A Rebuttal to PHR Luddites

Unlike some of my colleagues, I’m not losing ANY sleep over whether personal health record (PHR) systems ultimately will be adopted and used by patients.

In my mind, the issue isn’t WHETHER, but WHEN.

Yes, I know that adoption has lagged and that surveys suggest 7% or less of the U.S. population has used a PHR.

Stay with me on this one for a minute. You’d have to have two underlying beliefs to conclude that PHR systems won’t eventually emerge:

That health record data will persist […]

Doctors Love iPads. What Does it Mean? What Does it Mean?

After attending the largest annual health IT conference of the year — HIMSS 11 –  John Moore reported that “nearly every EHR vendor has an iPad App for the EHR [electronic health record], or will be releasing such this year.”

Doctors love iPads…not surprising? But, how might you explain this?

There are at least two different possibilities:

Coincidence Theory
Conspiracy Theory

The Coincidence Theory

So doctors want to access EHR software through the iPad…what’s the big deal?

Apple has built a great new hardware platform with the iPad. […]

Getting DIRECTly to the Point: The Role of the Direct Project in Fast-Tracking Health IT Interoperability

By Rich Elmore and Arien Malec. Rich Elmore is the Direct Project Communication Workgroup leader and Vice President, Strategic Initiatives at Allscripts.  Arien Malec is ONC’s Coordinator, Direct Project and Coordinator, S&I Framework.

A patient’s health records are no longer confined to a doctor’s office, shelved inside a dusty file cabinet. With the advent of the Nationwide Health Information Network, a framework of standards, services and policies that allow health practitioners to securely exchange health data, medical records digitized to be easily […]

Complimentary Webinar — An Impending Marriage: Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Care Management Software

Webinar Title: An Impending Marriage: Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Care Management Software

The presentation will be geared at practicing clinical case managers in health plans, hospitals, disease management companies, and similar organizations:

Describe market forces driving integration of EHRs and care management software. 
Review care management software survey data and stimulus funding for EHR adoption. 
Describe a 3 stage framework for the evolution of EHRs and care management software. 
Characterize benefits to patients and impacts on care manager responsibilities.

The event is sponsored by HealthSciences Institute […]

Updates on Proposed Stage 2 and 3 Meaningful Use Criteria

The Health IT Policy Committee has published proposed Stage 2 and 3 Meaningful Use Recommendations and they’re open for public comment until February 25.

I’ll share a couple of particularly useful and well written analyses and commentaries by colleagues.

Health IT guru and thought leader Dr. John Halamka writes about The Proposed Stage 2 and 3 Meaningful Use Recommendations in his blog.

This is a great article to get a thumbnail overview of all the proposed recommendations. John lists 38 criteria and provides a quick […]

Is Physician EHR Adoption Getting Past the Penguin Problem?

Remember the penguin problem described by economists?

No one moves unless everyone moves, so no one moves. 

Overcoming the penguin problem has a lot to do with creating expectations. A recent writing by Dr. James O’Connor in Physician Practice expresses a voice from the physician community that I’ve never heard before.  His essay is entitled “Meaningful Use — Doctors Have No Choice”.

Care Coordination Metrics: One Can of Worms that NEEDS to be Opened

“Track who is on a care team — and share info with the patient.”

That’s just one of the summary recommendations coming from expert testimony given in a recent public hearing on how to improve care coordination through the use of health information technology. The Meaningful Use workgroup and Quality Measures workgroups are now wrestling with how to translate this recommendation into meaningful use criteria for HITECH Stages 2 and 3.

Seems like […]

“Disease Management” RIP

The Care Continuum Alliance has mercifully and wisely rebranded it’s name and eliminated the initials “DMAA”. See its press release: Care Continuum Alliance Launches New Brand for Population Health Improvement. (As a reminder, DMAA originally stood for Disease Management Association of America.)

I for one say “hurrah, and good riddance”.

Where Did the Term “Disease Management” (DM) Trip Up?