Watching Hurricane Irene this morning as waves surged onto the North Carolina coast brought back memories of Hurricane Katrina and the effects on medical records that were not stored electronically. Many organizations and physicians who used traditional paper charts lost their entire set of medical records (Katrina Highlights Need for Electronic Health records). Despite the…

As reported in Government Health IT, the Health IT Standards Committee endorsed a single set of vocabulary standards for each area of quality reporting measures. The recommendations to the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) are for the EHR certification process for Stage 2 of Meaningful Use. Up until this point, ONC has provided options…

One of the questions when implementing an EHR is whether to install a local (wired) network within the practice or whether to go wireless. In many cases, with the implementation of an EHR, the result is a combination of both options with wired access points in examination rooms, administrative areas, and for document scanning purposes….

As EHR adoption becomes more prevalent, there is a growing sense of concern regarding the security of the information stored in servers both in medical offices as well as remotely in the cloud or in server banks. Can the data be securely stored and protected? This concern is well described by an EHR member who…

When documenting an encounter or referral letter in an EHR, the notes can range from scanty to very comprehensive. Some clinicians take great pride in their note-keeping and the ability to generate a well-written referral. Just as note-taking in paper charts can vary in terms of quality and accuracy, the same can be said for…

According to Modern Healthcare, Robert Tagalicod, the director of the Office of eHealth Standards and Services at the CMS, announced during a meeting of the Health IT Policy Committee last week that $400M has been distributed to eligible professionals and hospitals through the Medicare & Medicaid EHR Incentive program.

If asked, most healthcare experts would suggest that there is a technology gap between young physicians and those of us who have been around a bit longer. However, as reported in American Medical News by Pamela Lewis Dolan, a new survey performed by QuantiaMD suggests that physicians who have been in practice 31 years or more…