I read an article on the MEDITECH website regarding Parkview Adventist Medical Center and their approach to EHR (Electronic Health Record), “Small Hospital is Big News.” The article states, “The facility and its CIO Bill McQuaid have been making regional and national headlines for undertaking a secure, cost-effective, and meaningful approach to EHR use.” [...]

The race is officially on. EMR vendors have been busy since the beginning of the year to prepare their systems to meet the requirements of Meaningful Use – Stage 1. Now, one of the biggest questions marks in the process is a giant step closer to being answered. On one of the biggest stages possible [...]

This past week I had the opportunity to speak with about 30 CFOs. Some were from community hospitals and others were from critical access hospitals. All were there for the same reason: to learn about the federal EHR Incentive Program. But before I went into the details of Stage 1 of “Meaningful Use” I took [...]

By now I think most of us in healthcare IT have either spent time reading the requirements for Stage 1 of meaningful use. Others have listened to the many webinars that are helping hospitals and physicians understand “42 CFR Parts 412, et al” and “45 CFR Part 170”– the fancy name on the Federal Register [...]

With the excitement of Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) in the 1979 film “The Jerk” I was thrilled to see the government release the definition of meaningful use at the end of 2009. The nearly 600 page document was as big as the phonebook that contained Navin R. Johnson’s new listing and made him “somebody” [...]

I struggled for a week trying to come up with a topic for this week. Driving home last night from a Cub Scout meeting it came to me… a Top 10 to get us into 2010! Now, what stories in healthcare IT? Surely ARRA and HITECH. And defining and refining “meaningful use.” What about the [...]

Health Data Management reported on December 7 that the Department of Health and Human Services is on time in the agency’s effort to release rules regarding HITECH, a key component of ARRA (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Anybody seen them? Yeah, neither have I. They were supposed to be out on the same day [...]

http://www.mgma.com/WorkArea/mgma_downloadasset.aspx?id=31758 http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/meaningful_use-39399-1.html http://www.inteck-inc.com/leadershipteam.htm#JK http://www.inteck-inc.com/services.htm

If you’ve been attending the numerous seminars covering ARRA and HITECH stimulus money you know the vendors are trying to sell electronic health/medical records. And that is justifiably so. Without the technology there will be no way to achieve the meaningful use requirements. But the ultimate goal isn’t to have an EMR in every physician [...]

National Coordinator for Health Information Technology David Blumenthal e-mailed an open letter last week. In it he discussed “meaningful use.” He declared the concept “simple and inspiring.” But don’t throw away the HIT Policy Committee matrix just yet. The not-so simple matrix is still going to be a critical part of getting the incentive payments [...]