By Gregg Blesch and Joe Carlson March 08, 2010 The pressure is on to plug in. The federal government put billions of dollars on the table for physicians and hospital officials to digitize all patient records in their offices in the next four years. Those who start late get less money. ... FULL STORY
By Linda Wilson January 25, 2010 Does the medical-school curriculum adequately prepare students to diagnose and treat patients using an electronic health record? ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn November 23, 2009 The Indiana Health Information Exchange is debuting its year-old quality improvement and patient data-monitoring service for the first time outside of the greater Indianapolis area, the exchange announced. The Indianapolis-based regional health information organization calls the service Quality... ... FULL STORY
November 09, 2009 Policymakers in Washington are going to take a second look at two areas that are vital to the nation's effort to convert to electronic health records: the proposed national health information network and patient privacy. ... FULL STORY
October 26, 2009 In a boost to the open-source electronic health-records movement, Robert Kolodner, M.D., former head of HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, joined Open Health Tools, Asheville, N.C., as chief health information officer. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn October 12, 2009 For more than two decades, speech-recognition software has held bright promise for busy physicians looking for a better way to get what was in their heads onto a printed page or into a computerized health record. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn September 28, 2009 HHS officials in charge of setting up a national extension service to aid office-based physicians and other providers in the deployment and “meaningful use” of health information technology fleshed out details of the $694 million program during a Web-and-telephone conference. ... FULL STORY
August 10, 2009 A little over a year after the merger of the two largest electronic prescribing exchanges, SureScripts and RxHub, the merged for-profit company is in line to benefit from the federal government's financial push for physicians to e-prescribe. ... FULL STORY
By Elizabeth Gardner July 13, 2009 Getting a healthcare institution to embrace meaningful clinical automation takes dedication, drive and deep knowledge of what clinicians need. For 10 years, the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems has recognized outstanding achievement in applied medical informatics. ... FULL STORY
April 27, 2009 The CMS’ recent announcement that it will scrap the second phase of a physician EHR subsidy pilot program will require some deft maneuvering by physicians who were planning to participate. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn April 13, 2009 Physician practices’ need for information technology and the federal government’s willingness to pay for it finally are in sync. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the government might pour as much as $38.3 billion into healthcare IT support through 2015. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn March 23, 2009 Making the connection between information technology and improved patient care appears to be the impetus behind President Obama’s choice of David Blumenthal, M.D., to become the third national coordinator for health information technology at HHS. ... FULL STORY
By Jennifer Lubell March 09, 2009 When Edward Murphy, M.D., president and chief executive officer of the Carilion Clinic system, Roanoke, Va., decided to orchestrate one of the largest patient-data conversions ever conducted by a health system, his motivations went beyond health information technology goals. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn January 26, 2009 Physician groups earlier this month won a much-sought-after two-year delay in implementing the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, coding system. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn November 17, 2008 Lines are being drawn between physician organizations, such as the MGMA and AMA, and other healthcare groups over how quickly the industry should adopt a new coding system for inpatient procedures. ... FULL STORY
November 03, 2008 The not-for-profit e-Health Initiative released a guide with the clear aim of boosting the use of e-prescribing. But the guide points to a number of obstacles the industry faces before e-Rx takes hold. ... FULL STORY
September 22, 2008 In a move that may signal an effort by the medical-device industry to stave off gift-disclosure requirements, Medtronic voluntarily published all charitable contributions made to customers since May. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn with Jennifer Lubell September 08, 2008 A rule book used by the federally supported Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology to test electronic health-record systems and the policy manual of the American Medical Association to guide doctors are in apparent conflict over whether it’s a good thing to put a patient’s... ... FULL STORY
August 25, 2008 A new Massachusetts law mandates the implementation of healthcare information technology systems and governs consulting deals between medical-products companies and providers. ... FULL STORY
July 21, 2008 The CMS is also proposing allowing physicians to bill for follow-up inpatient consultations delivered via telehealth, a move that could spur health insurers to do the same. The idea is such visits would be strictly for follow-up inpatient visits, and not subsequent hospital care, according to the... ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn, Matthew DoBias and Andis Robeznieks June 23, 2008 June may well be remembered as put up or shut up time for physician practices when it comes to incorporating IT in their operations. An embarrassing report in the New England Journal of Medicine says that only 4% of doc practices have fully functional EHR systems. Meanwhile, the public and... ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch June 09, 2008 Although still cautious with their money, not-for-profit hospitals and systems have proven more comfortable subsidizing EHRs for staff physician practices since the Internal Revenue Service sought to remove itself as an obstacle. In May 2007, the IRS declared that helping physicians pay for... ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn May 19, 2008 A prominent Massachusetts doctor is going to bat to protect the privacy of patient information used as part of physician disciplinary hearings. Although the immediate matter is limited to hearings within the state, the issue has broader implications for the use of patient information... ... FULL STORY
By Rebecca Vesely March 24, 2008 E-prescribing—using computer technology to write and transmit prescriptions between physicians and pharmacies—has the potential to revolutionize medicine by reducing errors and improving the monitoring of patients’ responses to treatment. It also has the potential to save insurers big money by... ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn March 10, 2008 The quest for computerized physician order entry has been one of fits and starts—mostly fits—since 1972, when aerospace contractor Lockheed Corp. and El Camino Hospital teamed up to develop what is generally regarded as the first CPOE system in America. Twenty-eight years later, the Business... ... FULL STORY
February 19, 2008 Electronic health-record systems are firmly entrenched within the academia of family medicine. However, the quality of the systems still leaves much to be desired. ... FULL STORY
By Jay Greene December 03, 2007 The Ann Arbor (Mich.) Area Health Information Exchange, a 4-year-old HIE still in its formative stages, is accomplishing what many voluntary consortiums of independent medical groups have only dreamed of doing: earning pay-for-performance dollars and improving patient outcomes by sharing clinical... ... FULL STORY
October 04, 2007 Microsoft used a forum in Washington to launch a consumer-focused, secure personal health-record platform designed to reach families in their homes, physicians in their communities and providers worldwide. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn October 01, 2007 Grant writing can wait for this RHIO. The startup Harris County (Texas) Health Information Cooperative is looking to build its own war chest to raise funds for a countywide, open-source electronic health-record system in the Houston metro area. The short-term goal of the not-for-profit is to raise... ... FULL STORY
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