Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)

With T SystemEV, Great Plains Regional Medical Center is now contributing emergency department (ED) health information to the Nebraska Health Information Initiative (NeHII), the nation's first and most successful statewide HIE organization.

With many of them citing CPOE capabilities as a major hurdle, the number of CIOs who expect their hospitals to qualify early for stimulus funding for EHR implementation has dropped by half, according to a recent survey by the College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME).

The White House has called for a "universal exchange language" to enable healthcare providers to share health information in real time, in order to modernize and coordinate diagnosis and treatment while incorporating privacy and security of personal data.

I'm often asked how healthcare reform will impact IT planning and implementation over the next few years.

The implementation of a telepharmacy model in a multi-hospital health system increased access to pharmacy services, allowing for round-the-clock medication order review by pharmacists, which is critical to reducing errors, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy.

A Department of Health and Human Services advisory panel wants feedback from the public about concepts it has developed for clinical quality measures for meaningful use in 2013 and 2015.

Surgeons at Georgetown University are exploring the benefits of using an iPad in the operating room, according to an article published in the Journal of Surgical Radiology. One surgeon says the technology's most obvious advantage in the OR is providing a "convenient way to easily access previous patient imaging."

In an investment it expects will pay dividends as healthcare IT usage grows apace, Aetna announced Tuesday that it would spend $500 million to acquire Medicity, the Salt Lake City-based developer of health information exchange technology.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is providing grants to states in order to fund health information exchange breakthroughs in five challenging areas that will promote sharing of patient records nationwide.

Health IT complications made the list of top 10 potential technology hazards for 2011 as identified by federal patient safety organization, ECRI Institute.