The following comment was submitted by a physician because of his inability to interpret his own notes a few weeks after entering encounter information into his EHR. His experience questions the value of discrete data (such as pick lists, radio buttons, numeric values or predefined descriptions) vs. free text or narrative notes. ‘All of the…

Hiring an IT consultant requires a different approach compared to the hiring of a full or part-time employee. An IT consultant is generally brought in to complete a specific task in an area in which he/she has domain expertise. They are generally expensive resources and as a result it is important to find the right…

Clinical Decision Support Systems (or CDSSs) are increasingly available through Electronic Health Records and include reminders, alerts, drug interaction checking and dose calculation systems as well as chronic disease reporting dashboards. Despite the pervasiveness of CDSSs, there is limited evidence regarding the ability of these systems to improve care and reduce costs. A systematic review…

EHR adoption is climbing as a result of national policies designed to encourage widespread use of Health IT such as the HITECH Act. However, adoption is not consistent across all specialties, geographies, and practice sizes — as was recently pointed out in an April 24, 2012, Health Affairs article published online by Decker, Jamoom and…

There are few opportunities that excite healthcare administrators more than the ability to lower costs and reduce utilization of services. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is a group of technologies that minimizes costs while at the same time improves the care of patients suffering from chronic diseases. In addition, RPM has the ability to improve quality…

When patients become more actively involved in their own health, there’s a much stronger likelihood their health outcomes will be better. “Questions are the Answer,” is a new public education initiative from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The initiative encourages patients to have more effective two-way communication with their doctors and…