August 30, 2013 Linda Minghella
article
Having an effective response plan is critical for mitigating the impact of downtime, and your organization has likely put a tremendous amount of thought and care into its contingency plan. But your plan may have an Achilles’ heel that your organization is completely unaware of—a weakness that could leave your organization as poorly prepared as if you had no contingency plan at all. Where are the holes in your plan? Find them by asking a simple question: What is the longest hypothetical outage you have planned for?
August 30, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
As health information exchange evolves forward, industry leaders and experts debate what to do about some of the continuing obstacles to granular-level data exchange. Should federal officials intervene?
August 28, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
A team of researchers in the Global Institute for Emerging Healthcare Practices, a division of CSC, has published a new report that examines the challenges inherent in leveraging data and information for accountable or coordinated care. Lead author Jane Metzger speaks exclusively with HCI's Mark Hagland about the implications in the report's findings for healthcare IT leaders nationwide.
August 24, 2013 Mark Hagland
blog
The timing of MGMA's plea for leniency towards physicians working to meet the requirements of meaningful use couldn't be more challenging for whoever becomes the next National Coordinator for Health IT. What should ONC do--maintain policy rigor or accede to the demands of providers? The answer could prove pivotal to the entire HITECH program.
August 23, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
Michael Restuccia, CIO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which has been participating in more than one HIE initiative, shares his perspectives on the challenges and opportunities inherent in health information exchange, with HCI's Mark Hagland.
August 23, 2013 Ted Reynolds and Marla Roberts, DrPH, R.N.
article
GUEST BLOG In part 1 of this two-part blog series, we explored the current state of physician EHR use and suggested that the root cause of suboptimal physician EHR adoption is related to design issues and implementation planning problems. In part 2 here, we discuss the population health management issues that must be addressed in examining physician EHR adoption.
August 22, 2013 Mark Hagland
news
In an Aug. 21 letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Susan Turney, M.D., president and CEO of the Medical Group Management Association, called on Sebelius to embrace a series of actions designed to ease the burden on physicians trying to meet to meet the meaningful use requirements in the HITECH Act, including instituting a moratorium on penalties for physicians that have successfully completed Stage 1 requirements.
August 20, 2013 David Raths
article
Intermountain Healthcare has opened a Healthcare Transformation Lab in Salt Lake City, where it is partnering with several information technology companies, including Xi3, Intel and Dell. Initiatives under way include a “Patient Room of the Future,” featuring advanced patient-monitoring technologies.
August 16, 2013 Mark Hagland and Rajiv Leventhal
article
Last October, the 20-plus-hospital UPMC health system launched a massive big-data initiative, one that will cost the organization more than $100 million over the next five years. With leaders in that organization collaborating to leverage data, the organization this spring launched a formal Data Governance Program. Recently, Terri Mikol, director, data governance, at UPMC, spoke with Editor-in-Chief Mark Hagland and Assistant Editor Rajiv Leventhal regarding the organization’s data governance initiative.
August 13, 2013 David Raths
blog
To improve communication and begin providing an integrated view of all their operating room data, hospitals are turning to surgical information system vendors with new display solutions. For instance, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) in Philadelphia has installed LiveData’s OR-Dashboard in all seven of its cardiovascular operating rooms.
August 12, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
A newly published survey of 1,200 physicians nationwide by athenahealth is revealing a mixed bag of opinions among doctors regarding how well electronic health records (EHRs) are working for them, with a range of views about the efficacy, cost-benefit analysis, and usability, of EHRs. Meanwhile, attitudes towards government involvement in healthcare have become more positive in the past year. But there remains concern over the transition to the ICD-10 coding system.
August 11, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
Jody Cervenak, a Pittsburgh-based principal with the Denver-based Aspen Advisors consulting firm, has spent years in the healthcare IT space, including a long stint at the UPMC health system in Pittsburgh. Her perspective? Only when we can fully align incentives among stakeholders can we get to the next phase of HIE evolution.