PJ Carter in a blog explained how the lack of interoperability resulted in extreme physical pain to his father who had to go into an eye surgery for the repair of a detached retina. His father was told by his eye specialist that and an urgent operation had to carried out. The operation began, but…

ONC’s Annual Meeting, was held from May 31 through June 2, 2016 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. It was kicked off with a presentation by ONC Principal Deputy National Coordinator for Health IT, Dr. Vindell Washington. Dr. Washington did a great job of revving everyone up for the event and…

Guest Editorial Interoperability is not just a set of technical hurdles, programming considerations, and communication initiatives—though it certainly entails plenty of such challenges. It is about realizing the much talked-about Continuum of Care, aligning doctors, specialists, nurses, patients, pharmacists—the many individuals and operating environments involved in delivering 21st century whole-person healthcare. Glaringly absent from popular…

EHR systems have been built with varying sets of standards, and getting a patient record (or records) from one system to another is a tedious, and often impossible affair. This is why so much emphasis is now being placed on EHR interoperability. EHR interoperability is a road paved with concerns around privacy and security. It’s…

As a physician and long-time EHR user, I live and work in a world of discrete, narrative and non-narrative data. Notes that I or my colleagues have entered into the EHR, documents that have been scanned as image files or pdf documents into the document repository and discrete elements such as laboratory results. The data…

A January 20, 2016 Health Affairs Article by Dawn M. Heisey-Grove titled Variation In Rural Health Information Technology Adoption And Use (Health Affairs, no.(2016): doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0861) examines the differences between different provider groups in rural vs. urban settings. According to Heisey-Grove, initial adoption levels amongst rural providers was higher than their urban counterparts. “In 2013,…

Every week Practice Fusion conducts a simple survey, called “Feedback Friday,” with a sample of their 112,000 medical professional users. To ensure that an adequate response rate is achieved Practice Fusion mandates brevity for these weekly polls. They are limited to a single sentence with response options being limited to a “yes” or “no.” Zina…

If you haven’t heard a lot about the Internet of Things (IoT) already, be prepared, because it is already on course to revolutionize not only healthcare, but the entire internet and quite literally, technology in general. On the EHR front, it can enable anytime, anywhere access to patient records from not only practitioners, but also…