Bernie Monegain
Healthcare IT insiders regard interoperability as the key to effective health information exchange, and some might say, the hardest to pin down thus far. Industry leaders agree there can be no true exchange without interoperability. How can healthcare transformation occur unless doctor A's EHR can process the information received from doctor B's EHR?
The five most recent CIOs of the Year look into the future and imagine what healthcare IT will look like in 10 years. What they see ahead, they say, is both challenging and exciting.
HHS Secretary praises Carolyn Clancy for having impacted millions of Americans' health.
After 10 years at the helm of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), high-profile leader Carolyn Clancy, MD, will step down as director. The agency is known for its research focused on outcomes and quality of care.
Kaiser Permanente has begun hiring health information technology workers for a new IT campus in Greenwood Village, Colo. Approximately 500 IT staff will be hired in the state by 2015, bringing Kaiser Permanente's total IT presence in Colorado to about 700, officials said.
A majority of clinicians at The Mount Sinai Hospital using Epic's Beacon module, an electronic medical record (EMR) system designed specifically for cancer treatment, indicated the system improved patient care quality and safety.
A recent visit to a small hospital just a couple of miles from my home opened my eyes to how much can be accomplished on the health information technology front even with modest means.
Watertown, Mass.-based athenahealth, a provider of cloud-based EMRs, announced recently it would acquire San Mateo, Calif.-based Epocrates, a mobile health company known for its point-of-care medical apps. athenahealth will pay about $293 million in cash. It's a match hailed by the executives of both companies, and also by industry analysts, as a smart move for athenahealth.
El Camino Hospital plans to add a new data warehouse as part of its broader initiative to implement LEAN process management and enhance organization-wide business intelligence.
Standards group Health Level Seven International (HL7) has formed the Clinical Quality Information Work Group. HL7 plans to offer more education to providers and the new work group will offer leadership in the development of standards artifacts and educational content to all stakeholders involved in quality measurement efforts.