Electronic Health Records

An electronic health record (EHR) stores all of an individual patient's information in electronic format. The record is maintained by the provider over time and may include the patient's medical history, current medications, demographics, doctor's notes and other important administrative information. Issues concerning EHRs include data exchange, privacy and security, and patient consent. The final rule for Meaningful Use, released on July 13, 2010, allows hospitals to qualify for thousands of dollars in stimulus funding for the adoption of electronic health records.

RELATED STORIES:
Top 10 'urban myths' of EHRs
EHR market projected to double by 2012
Five features missing from most EHRs

 
Healthcare organizations should not assume that compliance with regulations, like HIPAA, automatically makes their organization secure, says Larry Hurtado, CEO of Digital Defense, a risk assessment firm in San Antonio, Texas.
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April 16, 2013
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Before a congressional hearing Monday, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki requested a $152.7 billion department budget for fiscal year 2014, including $3.7 billion for information technology systems. Some committee members, however, voiced concern over the request, citing the dilatory pace at which the department has moved toward an integrated electronic health record and recent decline in VA claims productivity.
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April 16, 2013
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The electronic prescribing systems market is estimated to grow to $794 million, at a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent from 2012 to 2017, according to a new study by MarketsandMarkets, which analyzed the major market drivers, restraints and opportunities around the world.
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April 15, 2013
News
Among America's dichotomies: The country is widely-viewed as a leader in IT, yet the healthcare industry is notoriously perceived as lagging others in tech adoption. But is it really? To find out, Healthcare IT News Contributing Editor Tom Sullivan spoke with Medicomp Systems CEO David Lareau, who travels the globe and meets with healthcare customers in other nations.
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April 15, 2013
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HP Enterprise Services UK Ltd. will support Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with a $210 million, 10-year agreement. The hospital seeks to transform its digital infrastructure to improve the quality and safety of patient care.
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April 15, 2013
News
Allscripts reported lower than expected financial results for Q4 2012. However, on March 5, just a couple of weeks after the Q4 earnings call, Allscripts President and CEO Paul Black offered what he characterized as good news for the ailing EHR vendor - the purchase of dbMotion, focused on community health technology, and Jardogs, dedicated to patient engagement.
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April 15, 2013
News
When Bob Brown and Steven Waldren, MD, undertook a research project for AHRQ they encountered, very early on, a lack of clear definitions regarding technical functions that various care settings need information technologies to perform. Among the reasons: At least in the EHR realm, vendors and policymakers are working together but the users - healthcare providers - do not have a seat at that table.
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April 15, 2013
News
With more electronic health record systems continuing to fall short of providers' expectations, a recent report by Black Book Rankings suggests that 2013 may indeed be the "year of the great EHR vendor switch."
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April 15, 2013
News
With the U.S. government's priority set on fixing the federal deficit, developing an integrated electronic health record system for the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense as previously planned has been forgone.
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April 15, 2013
News
At the daylong RFID & RTLS in Healthcare Symposium this past month at the 2013 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition in New Orleans, experts discussed how wireless technology is transforming how some hospitals operate - and made the case that it has an even more pivotal role to play in the hospitals of the future.
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April 15, 2013
News
Patient monitoring is about to get a lot easier for care providers and patients alike at Palomar Medical Center, as officials announced in late February they were deploying a wireless wrist-worn device that measures patients' vital signs.
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April 15, 2013
News
There was no shortage of big news made - or announced - at the 2013 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition in New Orleans last month. Also, to capture the imagination, was a star-studded slate of keynote speakers - not Hollywood celebrities, but healthcare IT luminaries - among them an eloquent former president, an innovation visionary, a newly minted CEO who led his New Orleans healthcare system, and the nation's health IT chief - each dispensing inspiration and hope for a bright healthcare future.
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April 15, 2013
News
Meaningful Use Stage 2: A handbook for providers discusses the changes in Stage 2 following the release of the final rules. This report focuses on what providers should expect, technology challenges and business opportunities in Stage 2 criteria, and key enterprise strategies for Stage 2 initiatives.
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October 29, 2012
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sites/default/files/resource-media/pdf/ebook_mustage2_handbook.pdf
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In healthcare, IT systems management is not simply a matter of process efficiency and cost savings—it could be a matter of life or death for patients. Faced with regulatory requirements, widely dispersed facilities, demands for <a href="/directory/electronic-health-record-ehr" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">electronic health records</a> (EHRs), and increasingly more and more mobile devices for providers, healthcare IT managers are forced to streamline systems management as budgets and headcount shrink.
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October 25, 2012
Resource
sites/default/files/resource-media/pdf/dell_systems_management_in_healthcare.pdf
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Electronic locks and latches provide enhanced security where healthcare facilities need it the most – on the carts and cabinets that house valuable medical supplies and patient information. Electronic locks provide secure locking and audit trail capabilities that can help healthcare IT managers comply with industry regulations such as HIPAA and <a href="/directory/health-information-technology-economic-and-clinical-health-hitech-act" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">HITECH</a>. This white paper explores opportunities for improved physical security in the healthcare environment and reviews electronic access solutions available to equipment manufacturers.
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October 16, 2012
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sites/default/files/resource-media/pdf/southco_wp_medsecurity.pdf
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Hospitals and medical offices are busy places. Ever wonder how easy it would be for someone to walk out with an office laptop or mobile device? Not only do patients expect confidentiality of their medical records but government regulations like HIPAA demand it. The theft of laptops, computers and mobile devices is a common cause of data breaches and physical security is a highly effective first line of defense.
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October 8, 2012
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sites/default/files/resource-media/pdf/kensington_white_paper_080612.pdf
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Successful ACOs must assemble a consistent and complete view of patient’s clinical history for efficient access by care providers/managers. In addition, data intelligence is needed to establish patient risk profiles, treatment adherence, and clinical and cost trajectories for care management. Apixio’s intelligent cloud-based platform can aggregate and index patient data (structured and unstructured), apply sophisticated analytics, and route key insights into clinical workflow/reporting applications designed to help ACOs achieve optimal quality and cost objectives.
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October 3, 2012
Resource
Protect
http://www.apixio.com/access-performance-measures-webinar
In this webinar, Apixio describes innovative and intelligent analytics to automatically expose actionable opportunities to improve risk adjustment factor scoring by automatically extracting relevant diagnoses in clinical narrative using both text and scanned documents and comparing them against claims data to identify information gaps. The model leverages big data analytic techniques to determine where information gaps which can be addressed by coders to improve both chart audit productivity and also uncover additional opportunities for reimbursement.
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October 3, 2012
Resource
Protect
http://www.apixio.com/access-hcc-webinar
When a desktop, laptop or computer is stolen, a hospital loses far more than a piece of expensive equipment. Not only do patients expect confidentiality of their medical records but government regulations like HIPPA demand it. The theft of laptops, computers and mobile devices is a common cause of data breaches and physical security is a highly effective first line of defense. Watch this video to Learn how to stop theft and protect patient safety with industry leading security solutions.
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October 1, 2012
Resource
Protect
http://youtu.be/dItbmn0hRaY
By taking a comprehensive approach to systems management, healthcare providers’ IT departments can significantly reduce the amount of time required to perform routine maintenance tasks, therefore improving productivity. These time savings allow IT departments to shift staff to more value added activities that help support the business and reachstrategic goals.
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September 19, 2012
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sites/default/files/resource-media/pdf/realizing_the_return.pdf
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This white paper provides a brief overview of HIPAA regulations and how healthcare organizations are using technology to assist with compliance. Many traditional document handling processes do not comply with HIPAA regulations for privacy and security. The whitepaper discusses network faxing, explores advantages for implementing a network fax solution to support HIPAA compliance initiatives and to improve the security and overall efficiency of the document transmission processes.
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September 11, 2012
Resource
sites/default/files/resource-media/pdf/hipaa_healthcare_transformation_to_electronic_communications.pdf
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This white paper summarizes five vital strategies drawn from the experiences of hundreds of successful implementations in community hospitals across the nation--starting with implementation planning and carrying through go-live to ongoing optimization of the EHR. Leaders who follow them will sidestep common pitfalls and maximize use of this culture-changing tool.
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September 10, 2012
Resource
sites/default/files/resource-media/pdf/hmsclinicalsystemadoption_fivestrategiesforsuccess.pdf
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Specialty medicine practices rarely employ a dedicated information technology resource. Durham Nephrology is no exception. The Durham practice navigated the uncharted waters of attesting to <a href="/directory/meaningful-use" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">Meaningful Use</a> under <a href="/directory/health-information-technology-economic-and-clinical-health-hitech-act" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">the HITECH Act</a> of 2009 without the benefit of an IT expert or outside consultant. They implemented an <a href="/directory/electronic-health-record-ehr" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">EHR</a> system in 2003 and believed that an EHR was the only long-term, effective way to organize patient charts and clinical notes. Read this story to find out this resourceful team achieved their goals--and more.
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September 4, 2012
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sites/default/files/resource-media/pdf/pro100_proehr_durham_nephrology_associates_nephrology_nc_success_story_10_19_11.pdf
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The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012’s planned mandate to remove the Medical Telemetry Services from the 608-614MHz WMTS spectrum is earthshaking news to the healthcare industry and has created a lot of uncertainty and questions in the North American hospital community.
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August 30, 2012
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Do Not Protect
http://webinars.medtechmedia.com/registration/webinar/advances-wireless-technologies-healthcare-hitting-wall-end-wmts-medical-telemet?partnerref=himsswebsite
Today’s reality of patient management is “disjointed care” and most of the collaborators in a patient’s care team don’t know what each other is doing for the patient in real time. Knowing all the different participants in the patient’s care team and coordinating and integrating their electronic activities is what successful EHRs must handle with ease.
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June 7, 2012
Blog
Now that more than $4.4 billion in electronic health record (EHR) incentive payments (as of March 2012) have been paid to 76,000 plus healthcare providers, it’s time to focus on the rest of the physicians in this country who need to implement an EHR system.
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May 30, 2012
Blog
Sometimes healthcare hits close to home, and by that I mean it reaches out from behind the computer screens and conference podiums I sit so often in front of and grabs me by the shoulders, shaking me out of my blogging bubble with the message that this state of care we’re all living in needs to get better, quickly.
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May 18, 2012
Blog
Although many healthcare organizations have made the transition, a significant number continue to struggle with the implementation of EMR technology.
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April 18, 2012
Blog
The proposed rule for Stage 2 Meaningful Use has a strong emphasis on patient engagement. This is certainly a good thing, and I am very glad to see the focus put on this area.
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April 17, 2012
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No matter what the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) decide to do with the ICD-10 implementation deadline, clinical documentation improvement (CDI) may become a survival tactic for hospitals.
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April 4, 2012
Blog
Like many of you, I made the annual pilgrimage to the HIMSS Conference last month but I didn’t write much publicly about it. Here’s what I learned while I was in Vegas and my takeaways for the rest of the year.
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March 27, 2012
Blog
Engagement is a two way street. It takes both parties to create engagement, not just one or the other.
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March 21, 2012
Blog
While in Chicago recently, I was asked how we validated our quality measures when we moved from chart abstraction to automated computation of PRQS, Meaningful Use, Pioneer ACO, and Alternative Quality Contract measures via the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative Quality Data Center (QDC).
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March 20, 2012
Blog
Today I want to spend time on the psychology of engagement, as I believe it is critical to the success of connected health and can also be highly individualized.
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March 15, 2012
Blog
Research published this week in the journal Health Affairs suggests computerized patient records are unlikely to cut healthcare costs. The article says going paperless might actually encourage physicians to order costly tests on a more regular basis. How did social media denizens respond to this information?
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March 7, 2012
Blog
Apparently, doctors who order a lot of imaging tests are more likely to have electronic systems that let them view those images in their offices.
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March 7, 2012
Blog
The Rothman Institute (RI), the region’s largest orthopaedic practice, based in Philadelphia, PA, is pleased to announce its recent decision to fulfill upcoming meaningful use requirements using a collaborative approach for electronic medical records (EMR). Teaming with SRS and URS (Universal Research Solutions), the RI will introduce a novel concept for its physicians to meet meaningful use requirements most efficiently by introducing the first Orthopaedic-specific, outcome-based EMR solution.
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September 27, 2011
Press Release
Welch Allyn, a leading global provider of frontline medical products and solutions, today announced it is partnering with Wavelength Information Services, Inc. (Wavelength) to offer its clients a unique service designed to ease the process of selecting and preparing for an electronic health record (EHR) system. Wavelength is a Maryland-based healthcare IT outsourcing and systems integration firm whose comprehensive range of programs and services include system implementation, integration, networking, optimization, project management, programming, custom reporting, education and knowledge transfer expertise. It is a sub-recipient partner of the Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP) Regional Extension Centers (REC) system.
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September 27, 2011
Press Release
4medica, provider of the industry's leading cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) Integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR(SM)) solution, today announced launching the first version of its 4medica Mobile app for smartphones and tablets to give physicians 24/7 access to up-to-date clinical data whenever and wherever needed. Whether on rounds, at home or working remote, doctors can view critical laboratory, pathology and radiology results, demographics, notes, patient lists and trending data from multiple sources and render informed decisions via the iPhone®, iPad®, BlackBerry® 6+ and Android™ smartphones and tablets.
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September 26, 2011
Press Release
PHYAURA, LLC has launched its highly anticipated community edition of PHYAURA EHR. PHYAURA EHR community edition is free and open source and allows all healthcare practitioners in the United States to document clinical notes, schedule office visits, and bill for medical services, all without any vendor lock in. PHYAURA has also established a new open source healthcare community to bring professional technology companies and users together for enhanced collaboration.
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September 23, 2011
Press Release
Health Specialists of Lenawee, P.C. in Tecumseh, Michigan, is the first practice working with the Michigan Center for Effective IT Adoption (M-CEITA) to have achieved “meaningful use” of a certified electronic health record (EHR).
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September 22, 2011
Press Release
BioClinica®, Inc., a global provider of clinical trial management solutions, announced that BioClinica WebSend has been included in more than 90% of its 2011 imaging core lab business signings. WebSend benefits clinical trials by speeding access to clinical imaging data while reducing errors and costs by securely sending medical images over the Internet, rather than using courier services.
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September 21, 2011
Press Release
Practice Fusion, the fastest growing EMR and healthcare community, today announced over $6 million in additional funding with several new investors, including Western Technology Investment (WTI) and Scott Banister, to further fuel the company's rapid growth. Building on earlier investments led by Founders Fund, Artis Capital Management, Morgenthaler Ventures, Felicis Ventures and Glynn Capital Management, Practice Fusion has passed $36 million in total funding.
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September 20, 2011
Press Release
ABILITY Network Inc™, the nation’s largest and most secure web-based health network, announced today the introduction of ABILITY AWARE, an innovative software product that identifies fragmented patient medical records or partial medical records on a real-time basis. By enabling caregivers to securely access lists of patients who may have fragmented or incomplete records, patient outcomes can be improved and healthcare system costs reduced.
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September 20, 2011
Press Release
meridianEMR®, the Livingston, New Jersey-based market leader in Electronic Health Records (EHR) for Urology, announces that its Advanced Monitoring System (AMS) recently detected a security breach and other unusual activities on a practice's meridianEMR server. This instant detection allowed meridianEMR and the Urology practice to respond immediately in protecting patient records. The successful operation of AMS validates the technology leadership position of meridianEMR and highlights the company's commitment to protecting patient data.
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September 16, 2011
Press Release
The HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association (EHR Association), a collaboration of 42 EHR supplier companies, announced its support this week of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) event to kick-off an important federal initiative to educate and engage consumers in managing their health using health IT, “Putting the ‘I’ in ‘IT’”.
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September 15, 2011
Press Release
Medsphere Systems Corporation, a pioneer in open-source healthcare enterprise solutions, today announced the generally available (GA) release of the enhanced OpenVista® electronic health record (EHR) platform, which is currently being installed across the Medsphere client base.
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September 14, 2011
Press Release
Practice Fusion now represents the largest community of US doctors working towards Meaningful Use attestation in 2011. With the release of certified features to the Electronic Health Record (EHR) system on Monday night, every user on Practice Fusion’s free web-based EHR today has the tools needed to immediately begin Meaningful Use and earn up to $18,000 in 2011.
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September 13, 2011
Press Release