Features

Features

• Solo doc's meaningful use attestation mostly pain-free

  Fueled by enthusiasm for technology, government-wary upstate New York family medicine doc becomes early stage 2 meaningful use attestation success story.  Continue Reading

• Nuance moves into medical image sharing

  Nuance Inc., after acquiring medical image sharing cloud Accelarad, is trying to marry the substantial customer bases of both companies.  Continue Reading

• Mobile EHR drchrono needs no desktop, server PCs

  Physicians looking to ditch their keyboards, laptops and servers have a meaningful use stage 2 certified mobile EHR that can be used on iPads in drchrono.  Continue Reading

• Patient portals create interoperability puzzles

  How mobile operating systems, EHR vendor interaction and health system implementations complicate patient portal interoperability.  Continue Reading

• New Jersey urologist passes stage 2 attestation

  A New Jersey urologist and athenahealth customer negotiates the meaningful use stage 2 attestation maze without undue pain.  Continue Reading

• Doc takes time out for meaningful use stage 2 requirements

  Stasia Kahn, a physician in the Chicago suburbs, spent 100 hours attesting to meaningful use stage 2 requirements. Many were easy. Some were hard. She feels it was worth the work she invested in it.  Continue Reading

• Who are the top EHR vendors in your state?

  Our interactive, color-coded map of the U.S. EHR vendor landscape ranks the top five companies, state by state, according to CMS meaningful use attestations.  Continue Reading

• Mobile health devices may reduce lengths of ER visits

  Learn how by securely receiving patient information on their mobile devices, emergency physicians could speed up treatment and diagnosis.  Continue Reading

• Usability, security tests part of healthcare app development

  Our expert shares lessons learned from the early days of healthcare app development and explains how they apply to today's sophisticated processes.  Continue Reading

• Physical therapy mHealth app logs compliance

  A smartphone mHealth app drives patient engagement at home for physical therapy rehab patients, teaches exercises and logs compliance between visits.  Continue Reading

• Social data a new source for disease surveillance

  Healthcare researchers mine unstructured data from nontraditional sources such as social media to detect disease outbreaks and predict pandemics.  Continue Reading

• Next for Direct: Apps to enable health data exchange

  Getting patients involved in Direct(ing) exchange of health data is coming in 2015, when developers finish their applications.  Continue Reading

• Q&A: DirectTrust CEO David Kibbe, M.D., on future of Direct exchange

  One of Direct exchange's leading advocates discusses its future prospects for the HIE protocol, and how it supports meaningful use compliance.  Continue Reading

• American EHR: Where docs blast, praise EHR vendors

  At American EHR, physicians register unfiltered, anonymous swipes and compliments at EHR vendors. Out the back door, the site sells leads to vendors.  Continue Reading

• Ransomware program fuels health data extortionists

  A harmful new hacker tool, ransomware, haunts healthcare CIOs. Learn what providers need to do to shore up health data security and HIPAA compliance.  Continue Reading

• SMS doesn't translate to secure messaging in healthcare

  Strict healthcare privacy rules make SMS messaging a tough sell to care providers. More secure messaging is needed to meet their expectations.  Continue Reading

• ONC's Joy Pritts on the privacy risks of mobile health apps

  The ONC's outgoing Chief Privacy Officer Joy Pritts granted us an exit interview, and pulled no punches discussing very real health data security risks everywhere, including mobile health apps.  Continue Reading

• Joy Pritts: Health data security features must be usable

  We sat down with outgoing ONC Chief Privacy Officer Joy Pritts, who may surprise you with perspectives on health data security, patient privacy and her next act, post-ONC.  Continue Reading

• Clinical decision support tools still underused by clinicians

  A major challenge facing today's physicians is learning how to complement their wisdom and experience with clinical decision support technology.  Continue Reading

• Provider reveals plans for telemedicine center at 2014 ATA show

  At this year's American Telemedicine Association conference, Intermountain Healthcare shared some of its plans for rolling out telemedicine gear and services.  Continue Reading

• Can you see me now? More providers make telemedicine investments

  Intermountain, Mercy make telemedicine investments as IT infrastructure. Plans encompass videoconferencing across many service lines, not one-offs.  Continue Reading

• Part two: Q&A with National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo

  National health IT coordinator Karen DeSalvo lays out the challenges facing public health and how data analytics can help conquer them.  Continue Reading

• Karen DeSalvo, M.D., discusses health data analytics, much more

  Exclusive: National health IT coordinator Karen DeSalvo, M.D., discusses health data analytics, meaningful use deadlines, public health and more.  Continue Reading

• Interoperability, EMR challenges in the way of improving patient care

  A reader shares his opinion on the value of healthcare interoperability and how more functional electronic records will benefit patient care.  Continue Reading

• Mobile technology aiding quality improvement in healthcare

  How physicians access data has been the center of mobile studies. Our expert says it's time to gauge the quality improvement aspect of mobile tech.  Continue Reading

• Interoperable data in cancer registries key to improving treatment

  Greater interoperability between EHRs will help oncologists spend more time on treatment and less on managing their cancer registries.  Continue Reading

• Mobile devices, apps and the patient health management revolution

  Healthcare is in the midst of a mobile transformation, and recent research indicates there's no end in sight to mobile technology use in patient care.  Continue Reading

• Studies show rise in oncology social media ahead of 2014 ASCO event

  Oncologists' use of social media is something to monitor when the 2014 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting commences in June.  Continue Reading

• Master patient ID system not a threat to patient privacy

  A reader, responding to SearchHealthIT's interview with the national coordinator for health IT, explains the need for a master patient ID system.  Continue Reading

• Healthcare review sites make physicians reevaluate online presence

  Today's Internet-savvy patients are doing research before scheduling a physician's visit. In turn, providers must be aware of their own online presence.  Continue Reading

• Smartphones can't displace the communications badge in healthcare

  Communications badge vendors find their products fill a crucial need in healthcare, as Vocera remakes itself as a device-independent platform.  Continue Reading

• Communications badges can mitigate trouble when staff gets in harm's way

  A health system in Detroit arms its hospital staff with communications badges. They've found them useful in treating potentially violent patients.  Continue Reading

• Next wave of physician crowdsourcing in healthcare: Treating patients?

  Crowdsourcing physicians' opinions online may be the future of patient care, but not before liability and reimbursement issues are settled.  Continue Reading

• Reimbursement outlook not slowing health IT implementation

  A healthcare CIO explains the challenges his organization faces while sticking to its health IT implementation plan and keeping under budget.  Continue Reading

• Five common cloud myths preventing healthcare deployment

  Separating fact and fiction when it comes to the cloud isn't a one-step process. Here are a few tips that can help you avoid popular cloud myths.  Continue Reading

• Implementing population health management as health IT budgets shrink

  How does a nonprofit hospital system implement population health management when its IT budget shrinks? Christus Health's George Conklin weighs in.  Continue Reading

• At HIMSS 2014, mHealth trends remain under focus

  A blast of new products and educational presentations at HIMSS 2014 highlighted some impressive trends in the growing mHealth market.  Continue Reading

• Teleradiology services improving healthcare access for rural patients

  The rise in teleradiology services affords access to subspecialists by rural patients, saving travel and expense.  Continue Reading

• Awareness of mHealth puts focus on patient engagement at HIMSS 2014

  This year at HIMSS 2014, look for presenters and vendors to stress patient engagement through mobile health technology and workflow.  Continue Reading

• ICD-10 support, EHR applications among clinical, financial upgrades

  Three provider reps go in-depth in sharing how they are readying their clinical and financial systems for ICD-10 and meaningful use stage 2.  Continue Reading

• ICD-10 support, 2014 ONC certification standards disrupt EHR rollouts

  From rip-and-replace to business as usual, providers differ in this year's EHR upgrades for ICD-10 support, 2014 ONC certification standards.  Continue Reading

• Big data analytics make Lean methodologies leaner still

  Hospitals are on the right path, applying Lean and Six Sigma to reduce waste and errors. Big data analytics could improve the process even further.  Continue Reading

• Security is top focus in outsourced healthcare identity management

  Co3 drills data breaches; UPMC develops complex healthcare identity management system, offers it to other providers as a service.  Continue Reading

• India-based firm's geofencing protects clinical data storage

  Engaging third-party cloud providers is a leap for some providers. Others entrust an Indian IT outsourcing firm with clinical data geofencing.  Continue Reading

• Health IT infrastructure outsourcing puts rural providers on the grid

  Health IT infrastructure cloud providers enable backup, disaster business continuity and radiology image exchange for remote providers.  Continue Reading

• Small providers use cloud EHR, large groups warming up to outsourcing

  A few years ago, entrusting health IT to cloud services seemed unthinkable to providers. This series shows inroads to outsourcing firms have made.  Continue Reading

• Quality must be defined to establish pay-for-performance success

  Quality metrics and patient-focused care are the cornerstones for providers' plans as they switch to the ACO model.  Continue Reading

• Better quality measures, analytics needed for development of ACO models

  Providers are rapidly transitioning to accountable care models, but without better quality measures, these plans may have limited success.  Continue Reading

• Automated diagnostics: How supercomputers fit in radiology's future

  Imagine a supercomputer like Watson working in tandem with radiologists to deliver automated diagnostics. Our expert says it's already happening.  Continue Reading

• Hospitals offering software, other resources to independent physicians

  Hospitals are thinking out of the box and entering into partnerships with independent physicians to benefit both parties.  Continue Reading

• Case study: Print in a VDI environment with HIPAA compliance in mind

  The paperless physician is a pipe dream; get over it. How to print from virtualized desktops and maintain HIPAA compliance? There's an app for that.  Continue Reading

• Insurance exchanges' IRS Publication 1075 data compliance new to many

  Health insurance exchanges are subject to IRS Publication security compliance. Some healthcare providers and nonprofits might have to comply, too.  Continue Reading

• Not just another health IT term, telecare benefits the elderly

  Amidst a collection of remote patient monitoring terms, 'telecare' has emerged as a word describing proactive care for the elderly.  Continue Reading

• Self-monitoring, proactive alerts among applications of telehealth

  A remote patient visit is the best-known example of telehealth, but the technology's uses and types of patients it can reach are expanding.  Continue Reading

• How the definition of mHealth varies depending on uses cases

  The definition of mobile health has never been clear-cut, but it's more muddled than ever with the increased computing power of mobile devices.  Continue Reading

• Meaningful use stage 2 driving PACS integration, imaging strategies

  It's not a meaningful use mandate, but radiology departments are preparing PACS integrations to move images to physician EHRs and patient portals.  Continue Reading

• Ganguly: Strong patient data standards cure EHR interoperability flu

  CIO Neal Ganguly talks Farzad Mostashari, M.D., National Health IT Week and how stronger patient data standards will lead to EHR interoperability.  Continue Reading

• McCleese: Patient identifiers should top HIT coordinator's to-do list

  CHIME fellow Randy McCleese talks about National Health IT Week, patient identifiers and the challenges Farzad Mostashari's successor will face.  Continue Reading

• National Health IT Week preview: HIEs a challenge for next ONC head

  CHIME fellow Charles Christian talks about National Health IT Week, HIE implementation and challenges Farzad Mostashari's successor will face.  Continue Reading

• Provider CIOs pay tribute to Farzad Mostashari, M.D., look to future

  In a SearchHealthIT-CHIME interview series, we look back at the tenure of Farzad Mostashari, M.D. -- and ahead to his successor's toughest challenges.  Continue Reading

• Home health computing is the newest wave of healthcare reform

  Patients connected to home computers can better manage their health conditions by accessing personal health records.  Continue Reading

• How cellular signal-boosting indoor DAS networks benefit healthcare

  An indoor distributed antenna system can benefit a hospital's internal communications, but implementing a DAS network can be complex, CIOs explain.  Continue Reading

• Independent docs weary of meaningful use implementation tech

  A survey of 1,200 docs by athenahealth reveals trouble for independent physicians due to meaningful use implementations, ACOs and reimbursement cuts.  Continue Reading

• Telemedicine clinics make inroads into primary care

  Two approaches to telemedicine clinics, one where a vendor provides the doc, one where it doesn't, expand telehealth's reach into primary care.  Continue Reading

• Telemedicine clinics: Could they cannibalize primary care practices?

  Franciscan Health System is using Carena's doctors to provide patient care off-hours. It wasn't an easy sell at first, but so far, so good.  Continue Reading

• Copy and paste functions in EHRs have worth beyond medical upcoding

  Use of the copy and paste functions in EHRs remains controversial, but it may not simply be a tool for medical upcoding.  Continue Reading

• Integrating a best-of-breed enterprise content management system

  A desire for integration of all applications has scared some away from best-of-breed. But it can work for enterprise content management systems.  Continue Reading

• Many factors complicate data breach assessment and reporting

  Many security incidents may be obvious breaches that require reporting. But a number of factors can make breach assessment difficult.  Continue Reading

• SearchHealthIT original infographic: Federal health IT activity

  This original infographic illuminates the federal government's health IT activities, initiatives and policy updates for the first quarter of 2013.  Continue Reading

• Challenges, opportunities of HIE development: Insights from MAeHC

  The Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative suffered a data breach in 2010. Read this Q&A to find out how that incident changed their encryption policy.  Continue Reading

• Omnibus rule and business associate compliance: Q&A part 2

  In the second part of a Q&A, Micky Tripathi shares advice on how to monitor business associates and maintain HIPAA omnibus compliance.  Continue Reading

• Q&A: Challenges, benefits of implementing single sign-on in hospitals

  Seconds add up to hours when Chilton Hospital reduces login times through single sign-on technology. Learn about its implementation in this Q&A.  Continue Reading

• Pediatric care benefiting from the advantages of telemedicine

  Practitioners around the country explain how telemedicine technology has advantages that are improving pediatric care.  Continue Reading

• How health IT drives patient engagement, improves healthcare workflow

  Small physician groups improve workflow with health IT, such as tablets and patient portals, driving patient engagement for meaningful use stage 2.  Continue Reading

• Elizabeth Holland on meaningful use audits, part 2

  CMS's Elizabeth Holland on the meaningful use audit process and the bill before Congress asking for older physicians to be excepted from penalties.  Continue Reading

• Audits mostly random, some chosen through red flags

  Need to know documentation to have on hand for a meaningful use audit and who's likely to be audited? Here's the latest from CMS's Elizabeth Holland.  Continue Reading

• Consider identity theft when planning HIPAA breach prevention

  A reader shares an example of healthcare fraud and explains why ID theft must be considered as part of a HIPAA breach prevention plan.  Continue Reading

• Project portfolio management for meaningful use efforts

  Catholic Health Systems implemented a project portfolio management tool to streamline IT efforts. Read expert insight from the project in this Q&A.  Continue Reading

• Penn Medicine takes three-pronged approach to BYOD management, security

  Penn Medicine considers best practices for implementing and managing mobile devices, specifically BYOD devices, in this case study.  Continue Reading

• Cerner and McKesson’s CommonWell agreement has IT precedent

  A reader shares some past examples of interoperability in IT and offers his thoughts on Cerner and McKesson’s CommonWell announcement.  Continue Reading

• Compelling business need exists for interoperability among vendors

  A reader shares his thoughts on CommonWell interoperability agreement, and federal, private standards development initiatives.  Continue Reading

• Private practice wanes, physician employment shifts due to MU rules

  The meaningful use program may push some doctors out of private practice ownership, a physician employment trend that threatens the delivery of care.  Continue Reading

• Data analytics thwart drug diversion from medication dispensing kiosks

  Drug dispensing machines create hospital workflow efficiency and opportunities for theft. Data analytics help pharmacists detect drug diversion.  Continue Reading

• UPMC expert Q&A: Health information exchange grows from collaboration

  Health information exchange requires standards, security and regional participation, says UPMC expert in this Q&A.  Continue Reading

• Compliance with meaningful use regulations for specialists is attainable

  Meaningful use for specialists can be difficult. But for radiologists, with some creative technology development and training, attesting is possible.  Continue Reading

• Meaningful use guidelines for specialists: Stickier than for primary care

  Meaningful use for specialists can be difficult. But referring primary care physicians will demand data interoperability; avoiding it isn't an option.  Continue Reading

• Mobile device encryption: Balancing data protection and performance

  Organizations are trying to find a balance between convenience and security as they implement mobile device encryption to protect data.  Continue Reading

• In purchase, athenahealth has big plans for Epocrates apps

  Jonathan Bush, CEO of athenahealth, discusses how the purchase of Epocrates will help the company reach a larger audience and boost interoperability.  Continue Reading

• Tablets help clinicians gain productive hours

  A reader responds to a recent SearchHealthIT article on the benefits of tablet use in clinical settings.  Continue Reading

• Offsite data centers key part of effective disaster recovery plans

  The time to start disaster recovery planning is long before the disaster strikes.  Continue Reading

• Hurricane Sandy highlights need for disaster recovery planning

  Hurricane Sandy provided the latest reminder that health care providers cannot overlook disaster recovery planning.  Continue Reading

• CIO John Halamka answers reader questions on writing BYOD policy

  SearchHealthIT's virtual seminar inspired viewer queries about their own thorny BYOD policy issues in health care.  Continue Reading

• Expert Q&A: Cloud computing, HIE will be the 'new normal'

  As IT matures, cloud computing and virtualization will lead to more information exchange and become the new normal for health care organizations.  Continue Reading

• How to create a data breach response plan: Lahey Clinic expert Q&A

  This Q&A covers how to create an effective data breach response plan -- follow HIPAA-compliant risk assessment policy to better protect key information.  Continue Reading

• Part 2: System-wide EHR integration limits flexibility in care

  Health care providers want one IT tool to satisfy all their needs. But full EHR integration might not be worth the trouble.  Continue Reading

• System-wide EHR integration limits flexibility in care

  Health care providers want one IT tool to satisfy all their needs. But full EHR integration might not be worth the trouble.  Continue Reading

• Part 2: New certified EHR standards drive industry toward coordination

  The 2014 Edition Standards and Certification Criteria place an emphasis on care coordination that could drive the direction of health care for years.  Continue Reading

• New standards for certified EHRs drive industry toward coordination

  The 2014 Edition Standards and Certification Criteria place an emphasis on care coordination that could drive the direction of health care for years.  Continue Reading

• Clinicians discuss pros and cons of point-of-care testing devices

  The growing use of point-of-care testing devices could improve the efficiency of medical tests, but some users worry about the quality of the devices.  Continue Reading

• CMS insider explains the meaningful use stage 2 rule: Part 2

  Do you wonder how to attest that patients accessed, viewed their health data in meaningful use stage 2? CMS's Rob Anthony answers that and more.  Continue Reading