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HHS Extends HITSP Contract, Pushes Ahead With EHR Adoption

The Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel has extended its contract with HHS through April 30, 2010, the panel announced Tuesday, Healthcare IT News reports. The panel and HHS have collaborated to expand the adoption and interoperability of electronic health records since HITSP’s creation in 2005, according to Fran Schrotter, HITSP’s project director and senior vice president and chief operating officer of the American National Standards Institute, which administers HITSP. During [...]

 

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Catholic Healthcare West Boosts Electronic Health Record Budget to $1B

Catholic Healthcare West announced plans to increase its system-wide budget for electronic health records to more than $1 billion, the San Francisco Business Times reports. CHW’s board of directors originally allocated $590 million to implement acute-care and ambulatory information systems at all of its 41 hospitals over the next seven years. However, after successfully implementing EHR systems at eight California locations, CHW decided to increase spending by $419 million to [...]

 

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Certified Medical Software – Why does it matter?

Certified medical software can help doctors increase profit and improve patient care. But how do you know if software is “certified”, and why does it matter?? For one thing, if medical records are going to go digital, it’s essential for state and federal governments to develop sensible, well-defined regulations. The idea is ostensibly to encourage the adoption of electronic medical record (EMR) software systems that provide highly reliable, efficient recordkeeping, [...]

 

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Medical Transcription System: Offering a Helping Hand to Improve Healthcare Services

Medical transcription system has become an indispensable part of the medical industry. The user friendly mode and the features of the transcription system have made it highly preferred by healthcare centers and physicians. The prime role of a medical transcription system is to convert a voice recording into a text format which can later be stored and retrieved whenever necessary as per convenience. It manages the entire cycle of transcription [...]

 

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Obama administration awarding $975 million to advance electronic medical records

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration announced $975 million in grants to help states, doctors and hospitals move from paper to computerized record-keeping. Studies show electronic medical records help reduce medical errors and improve the quality of patient care. The grant money comes from the economic stimulus passed by Congress last year and is part of a push to get health care providers to adopt electronic record-keeping. The White House says [...]

 

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36.1 Percent EHR Adoption Rate in Physician Offices

Here’s some interesting data from a market research report generated by SK&A: “36.1 Percent EHR Adoption Rate in Physician Offices” I’m sure this number will dramatically change over the next few years. According to SK&A, the adoption rate is much higher (over 70%) in physician groups that have 26 or more physicians. What’s somewhat surprising is that over 28% of solo physicians are currently using an EHR. By Number of [...]

 

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Anesthesiologist’s Guide To Electronic Medical Records Systems

Many of today’s modern anesthesiologists have relied heavily on electronic patient records for quite some time. From medical histories during pre-op, to intraoperative hemodynamic monitoring, the accuracy and reliability of these data systems are paramount for delivering high quality anesthesiology care. The sophisticated technology is undermined, however, if the pieces of the anesthesiologist’s record systems aren’t integrated into a comprehensive Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system. ANESTHESIOLOGY-SPECIFIC EMR’S Unless you’re in [...]

 

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The Benefits of Outsourced Billing: Save Time for Medical Practices

Most industries grew more competitive in the current economic situation that the country and the rest of the world is facing , and the same is true for the medical professionals, providers, organizations and institutions that comprise the healthcare industry. Similar to any other industry, health professionals such as physicians and surgeons are responsible not only for the health and well-being of their patients, but also for every aspect of [...]

 

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No Clear Leader in Physician EMR Market, Says Report

Despite the presence of well-known companies such as IBM, 3M, Delland Wal-Mart, no single company dominates the market for electronicmedical records (EMR), according to a report from healthcare marketresearch publisher Kalorama Information. The report, “EMR 2010(Market Analysis, ARRA Incentives, Key Players, and ImportantTrends),” a survey of EMR markets in the year since the U.S.government announced incentives for physicians who implement and useEMR in their practices, presents a market that is [...]

 

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Obama releases $950 billion health

The Obama administration this morning released a roughly $950 billion health reform proposal that tracks closely with the Senate’s already-passed bill, but would increase coverage subsidies, require greater accountability for health insurance companies and direct the federal government to pick up most of the tab for a deep expansion of Medicaid. Advertisement | View Media Kit The package, however, does not contain a government-backed insurance option despite some momentum on [...]

 

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Docs face frustrations in search for IT, article shows

Doctors who have shopped for healthcare software have sometimes come to regret their purchases, according to a new story reported by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund. In her feature, Emma Schwartz finds that physicians are often frustrated with their switch from paper to electronic medical records – spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on software programs, only to find that the new systems are faulty or ineffective. Sometimes, the software [...]

 

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Eligible Provider “Meaningful Use” Criteria

Healthcare IT News in this article published the list of 25 meaningful use objectives that professionals and hospitals must meet in order to receive stimulus funds from the government provided through Recovery Act. This list was taken from the proposed rule: “Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Electronic Health Record Incentive Program. [1] Objective: Use CPOE Measure: CPOE is used for at least 80 percent of all orders [2] Objective: Implement drug-drug, [...]

 

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Eligible Provider "Meaningful Use" Criteria

Healthcare IT News in this article published the list of 25 meaningful use objectives that professionals and hospitals must meet in order to receive stimulus funds from the government provided through Recovery Act. This list was taken from the proposed rule: “Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Electronic Health Record Incentive Program. [1] Objective: Use CPOE Measure: CPOE is used for at least 80 percent of all orders [2] Objective: Implement drug-drug, [...]

 

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Ambulatory survey shows slight uptick in EHR use

By, Andis Robeznieks A government survey indicates there was an 18.7% increase in the use of electronic health-record systems in physician offices to 41.5% in 2008 from 34% in 2007, but preliminary results for 2009 show only a slight increase up to 43.9%. Doctors were asked, “Does this practice use electronic medical records or electronic health records (not including billing records)?” with options for answering “all electronic,” “part paper and [...]

 

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Incentive Payments for E-prescribing

In its attempts to widely disperse and advocate the use of electronic prescribing (or more popularly known as e-prescribing), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has begun providing incentive payments of up to 2 percent to eligible physicians and other health care providers using this technology for the year 2009. According to the Medicare E-prescribing Incentive Program, prescribers using a qualified e-prescribing system began receiving payments from Medicare [...]