The Healthcare industry is constantly innovating, and the Regional Extensive Centers (RECs) represent one of these innovations. RECs were established in 2010, with a total budget of $643 million, to be spent over a period of four years. The goal, set for these information exchange centers, was to spread technical guidance and information on best Read more…
Health IT
Six Questions with an HIE Pioneer
Joe Heyman, founder of Whittier Independent Practice Association, former board chairman of AMA and president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, is working on a health information exchange structure that would combine multiple streams of data, from contrasting sources, in order to make coherent patient records. A person of Heyman’s stature has seen enough exchange of Read more…
5 questions for vendors about patient portals in MU Stage 2
While achievement of Meaningful Use Stage 1 was relatively easy for most vendors, Stage 2 makes it increasingly difficult for both vendors and providers to meet the benchmarks. Over the next few months, a plethora of Meaningful Use focused solutions will appear in the market, and practices will have to be very discerning in selecting Read more…
Should patients care about their physicians’ text messages?
One of the major security concerns for healthcare organizations, despite the modern day EHRs, compliance officers and HIPAA guidelines about protecting patients’ medical information, is the use of text messaging between physicians to share patient data. Physicians and clinicians are quick to send a text message to a colleague to ask about test results or with Read more…
Healthcare & the race to develop the best software
According to the Book of Genesis, Abel was the first human to die – excessive bleeding from the gash inflicted by his brother Cain resulted in his demise. This metaphor leaves no doubt in my mind that the need for medical care is quintessentially eternal. As the need for healthcare has evolved, so has technology. Read more…
Dynamic care: Improving patient experience by the minute
One of the major goals of the healthcare transformation, which is being spurred on through changes in technology and by the changes in legislation by the government, is to improve the quality of care delivered to patients. By making patients the center of attention of the healthcare delivery model, it will be possible for stakeholders Read more…
What moving to cloud means for practices?
Increased digitization of patient data and collaboration amongst insurance providers and physicians has triggered innovation and integration in the healthcare industry. Modern studies suggest economic factors and government regulations are nudging more independent physician practices to shift to the cloud. With the increase in the number of physicians shifting to cloud, the law governing the Read more…
Google Helpouts: The new avenue for healthcare
Search engine giant Google has rolled out yet another product as it aims to divulge into the healthcare industry. Named Google Helpouts, the service aims to provide virtual help to people in various fields, ranging from IT, engineering, art and music, cooking, education and health. Google had famously failed on its previous venture into the Read more…
How interoperable is Health IT in reality?
Interoperability, a term commonly used in the Healthcare sector, is the ability of various systems to meaningfully interact with each other. Important patient data, integration with labs, pharmacies, hospital networks, and many other entities in the Healthcare industry benefit from Interoperability. The Office of Standards and Interoperability (OSI) at the U.S. Department of Health and Read more…
Best practices for mobile text messaging in healthcare
Mobile healthcare is the new avenue for the healthcare IT industry. Be it patients, physicians, providers, payers or hospitals, everyone wants to have the ease of accessing their work through their smartphones or mobile devices. As such, the need to have better and state-of-the-art information technology to deal with mobile healthcare not only increases, but Read more…