While many in the industry breathed a sigh of relief when the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced plans to delay Meaningful Use Stage 2 by a year, not everyone applauded the decision, contending that postponing critical components like interoperability comprises patient safety and healthcare delivery.

Characterizing December as an “exceptional” month for Meaningful Use registration, attestation, and payments, Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) officials recently announced that $2.5 billion in Meaningful Use incentive payments had been distributed as of December 2011. Additionally, Robert Tagalicod from CMS reported to the HIT Policy Committee at its meeting earlier this month
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Capturing the vast amounts of data available in biomedical devices for inclusion in an electronic medical record has been described as the Holy Grail of connectivity, and one hospital system’s quest is nearly complete as it readies itself for the first of its two go-lives later this month.

Size makes a difference when it comes to successfully attesting to Meaningful Use Stage 1, says the IT director of a Critical Access Hospital. “Bigger hospitals may have started before we did but they’re still working on meeting Meaningful Use,” says Craig Wells, IT director at George C. Grape Community Hospital in Hamburg, Iowa.  “In
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Health information systems are being implemented fast and furiously, driven by the prospect of Meaningful Use incentives. However, a growing concern among industry watchers is that when the HITECH dust settles, the outcome may be less than ideal.

With the rush to implement health information technology, it’s no wonder that everyone in healthcare feels overwhelmed.  Change, even in a less manic environment than today’s, is difficult and while pushback from users is something to be expected, there are strategies that CIOs can use to effectively manage change. 1.  Take a walk in a
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In a world where all certified EMR systems may be equal in terms of functionality needed to get organizations to Stage 1 Meaningful use, usability may be the differentiator that separates the good from the mediocre.  But how do purchasers know if the systems they’re buying are “usable?” Robert Schumacher, Ph.D., managing director of User
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  LOWELL, Mass., Dec 19, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — DiagnosisOne, the clinical decision support and analytics company, today announced a strategic agreement with Allscripts, the leading global provider of Electronic Health Record (EHR) and other technologies essential to creating a Connected Community of Health(TM), to integrate its industry leading smartPath healthcare informatics platform with the
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“Why don’t policy makers listen to doctors in the trenches when it comes to Meaningful Use?” is an oft-posed question these days. A newly formed nonprofit group hopes to bring physicians together via social media to share the “good and the bad” of  implementing and using health IT. Doctors Helping Doctors (http://doctorshelpingdoctorstransformhealthcare.org) is creating a
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Not knowing what you don’t know can be a risky proposition for physicians who are taking their first tentative steps toward an EMR purchase. No one wants to invest money something that’s supposed to help their patient and their practice, but ends up being a drain on limited time and resources.  Here’s some advice about
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