Health Innovation

How Software Can Upgrade Trust in Hospital Halls and Clinics

By Dr. Ehab Hanna – Trust between patients and their doctors is central to better care; however, strong relationships between clinical and IT teams are also key. Support staff who do not have good relationships with their medical colleagues will face challenges with new implementations and technical adoption. Applying some simple Art of Medicine principles can help build trust between these teams.

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The Case for Quality

By Howard Sklamberg, J.D., Jeffrey Shuren, M.D., J.D., & Melinda K. Plaisier, M.S.W. – Across FDA, we are devoting tremendous effort, in collaboration with a variety of stakeholders, toward activities that drive–and increase–product and manufacturing quality.


Did You See These Lists?

Who doesn’t like a good list? Whether you are on it, know someone on it, or aspire to be on it, you always want to read the list. Here are some interesting lists I think deserve sharing, starting with The Joint Commission’s Annual Report and their thumbs up to 1,043 hospitals.


A Followup on the MU Path Forward

By John Halamka MD – After my previous post about my suggested path forward for Meaningful Use, I received a large number of comments. I thought it would be useful to summarize them and clarify some of my opinions. In general, 95% of commenters agreed that CMS should pivot the concept of Meaningful Use functional requirements into pay for performance rewards for achieving outcomes via MACRA.


Storage: Native or Standardized, That is the Question

By Rupinder Colby – Healthcare organizations are facing an increasingly important task when it comes to choosing the most effective methods for storing patient data across the enterprise. Before a single image can be effectively archived, however, there are a host of critical questions to be answered – will the data be stored in its native format or in a standard viewing format?


More Process over Substance

By William Hyman – Recently I addressed here the issue of physicians having to use certain functions of their EHR even if they didn’t need those functions to accomplish the desired outcome. Notably, it is required under Meaningful Use to have certain prompts occur whether or not those prompts are necessary.


Can Technology Transform Mental Health Care?

By Irv H. Lichtenwald – Any conversation focused on what’s great about America usually includes a mention of optimism, hopefulness or some variation on the theme. Americans generally still believe in a brighter future, and especially the ways in which technology can enable that future. But that sense of optimism contains a kernel of potential disappointment when we ask technology to do too much.



Green Eggs, Ham, and the Health IT Innovation Adoption Curve

By Joe Petro – My son recently picked Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” for his bedtime story. As we read it together, I was struck by how much the poem applies to health IT adoption. A few years ago, most healthcare organizations and physicians were extremely skeptical of the very technologies they now rely on each and every day to get the right information to the right place in a timely manner.