By William Hersh MD – One of the aspects of medicine that struck me as a medical student was its imprecision. I was surprised, sometimes shocked, at decisions that were made based on vague symptoms reported by patients, ambiguous findings detected on physical examination, and even variation in “hard” measurements such as laboratory results.
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By Karen B. DeSalvo & Brandon McBride – In late 2011, the President announced a White House Rural Council initiative lead by the HHS and USDA to invest in rural health and link rural doctors and hospitals to financing for health IT. The initiative was designed to address the need for financing to support the adoption of health IT systems in rural communities.
By John Halamka MD – Every technology has an adoption journey. The classic Gartner hype curve travels from a Technology Trigger to the Peak of Inflated Expectations followed by the Trough of Disillusionment. It often takes years before organizations reach the Slope of Enlightenment and finally achieve a Plateau of Productivity.
By Jon White MD & Steven Posnack – Spring has arrived in Washington and it is the season of change. In our ongoing pursuit of agile and effective public service, we turn our attention today to how we get timely and effective public input.
By Bonnie Cassidy – The ICD-10 transition deadline is six months away and HIM teams are working around the clock to ensure a smooth switch over. But how much do you know about the history of this new code set? Take a break from the preparation work for a few minutes and play ICD-10 Jeopardy!
By William Hyman – Alert fatigue as it is now described arises from the excessive or otherwise ineffectual presentations of advisories while using an EHR. Alert fatigue parallels another common problem which is audible alarm fatigue from medical devices. In both of these more is not necessarily better, and might be worse.
By John Halamka MD – The May 2015 HIT Standards Committee focused on an in depth review of the ONC NPRM, with the goal of providing guidance to ONC by June as to which standards should be included in final rule, which should not be included, and which should be identified as directionally appropriate for inclusion in future regulation.
By Mike Semel – When we think Cyber-Security we logically think about technology tools to block North Korean or Chinese hackers from breaking into our networks. Those breaches make the news because they are so unique. What is much more common are users doing stupid things that neutralize your investment in security tools.
By Sarianne Gruber – HITEC studied the association between the usage of an HIE system post-discharge and 30-day same cause hospital readmissions among patients in Rochester, NY.