Patty Enrado
The Regional Extension Center (REC) program was designed to assist priority primary care providers in small practices, small and rural hospitals, and public health clinics. Some industry groups, however, worry that rural communities and communities of color will still be left behind the digital transformation.
After reading an article on the five key features of tomorrow's EHR, I wondered how the current EHR products are going to transition to meet the demands of healthcare providers and patients.
Two keynote speakers at the fourth annual Health 2.0 Conference yesterday – a futurist and the "godfather” of Web 2.0 – disagreed over whether innovation was happening in the healthcare industry.
Regional extension centers (RECs) are just beginning their work to help priority primary care physicians adopt EHRs. Many of them, however, have developed sustainability plans to take them beyond years three and four of the meaningful use criteria milestones.
Mature electronic health record systems and health information exchange capabilities contributed to the success of five of the 10 accountable care organization (ACO) demonstration sites funded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, according to a CMS official.
While the Regional Extension Center program was designed to assist priority primary care providers in small practices, hospitals and public health clinics, some industry groups worry that rural communities and communities of color will still be left behind the digital transformation.
October 4th was the first day of the National REC and HIE Summit West. I attended the preconference symposium on "Meaningful Use - What It Is and How To Qualify." What impressed me about this symposium was the sincerity and passion of the speakers, who are early adopters of EHRs and true physician champions.
Trying to build a critical mass of physicians to adopt electronic health records (EHRs) and participate in health information exchanges (HIEs) is one of the more difficult tasks for HIEs and regional health information exchanges.
California's critical-access, rural hospitals got a big boost when UnitedHealth Group announced it would provide $10 million in loans to help them adopt electronic health records and improve their health IT systems, and $1 million in grants to jumpstart the process.
KLAS' latest report revealed many interesting things about the EMR market, specifically in the area of acute-care EMRs for large hospitals with 200-plus beds. It's a snapshot of a market in transition, thanks to the ARRA funding.