Internal medicine docs regain productivity after EHR deployments faster than pediatricians
Jeff Kelly, Online Industry Editor

Internal medicine practices enjoyed a slight increase in productivity within months of deploying and electronic health records (EHR) systems, while pediatricians didn’t return to pre-EHR productivity levels over the same time, according to a new study.

Productivity dropped across the board for all doctors after deploying EHRs by between 25% and 33%. But, according to a report in Healthcare IT News, after several months … Read More

HIEs can save castaway electronic medical records and patient data
Jeff Kelly, Online Industry Editor

Patient medical records are a lot like castaways. Most are trapped in groups on small, isolated desert islands, the islands being proprietary medical systems, pharmacy software, and old-fashioned filing cabinets.

That’s what makes “trying to pull together an integrated view of your medical history … very difficult,” said Earl Jones, vice president and general manager for GE Healthcare eHealth solutions group. GE Healthcare and other … Read More

Internal medicine docs regain productivity after EHR deployments faster than pediatricians
Jeff Kelly, Online Industry Editor

Internal medicine practices enjoyed a slight increase in productivity within months of deploying and electronic health records (EHR) systems, while pediatricians didn’t return to pre-EHR productivity levels over the same time, according to a new study.

Productivity dropped across the board for all doctors after deploying EHRs by between 25% and 33%. But, according to a report in Healthcare IT News, after several months …Read More

Few children’s hospitals use electronic health records (EHR) systems
Jeff Kelly, Online Industry Editor

Less than 3% of children’s hospitals have deployed and are heavily using electronic health records (EHR) systems, according to a recent survey.

Research published in the December issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine indicates that the vast majority of pediatric hospitals in the U.S. “lack the minimum functionalities needed for a basic EHR.” Just 2.8 percent of the 108 children’s hospitals responding to a survey led by Mari M. Nakamura of Children’s Hospital Boston have what could be considered a “comprehensive” EHR. … Read More



Lack of EHR vendor support top meaningful use roadblock
Jeff Kelly, Online Industry Editor

That, according to a new Black Book Rankings survey of 4,000 healthcare providers. According to a report in Healthcare IT News … Read More




Patient portals provide near-real-time access to medical records – if clinicians actually input the data first
Jeff Kelly, Online Industry Editor

Among the requirements for Stage 1 meaningful use, hospitals and physicians must provide more than half of their patients with electronic patient data within three business days of the request. That may sound reasonable, but it’s a big change for most healthcare providers. Currently, under HIPAA guidelines, doctors have a month to respond to patient-medical-record requests and can provide them by paper.

“This is a huge jump from 30 [days] to 3,” said Steve Emery, director of product management at Alpharetta, Ga.-based healthcare IT vendor Healthport. “The only way this makes sense is if the records are electronic” … Read More

Medical devices and EHRs keep their distance
December 3rd, 2010 | Jeff Kelly, Online Industry Editor

Most medical devices do not communicate or otherwise interact with electronic health records (EHR) systems, according to a new HIMSS report.

FierceEMR picks up the story from there:

The paper, released Wednesday, says that just a third of the 825 U.S. hospitals queried report having active interfaces between devices such as defibrillators, physiologic monitors, vitals … Read More

Electronic health records and WikiLeaks
Jeff Kelly, Online Industry Editor

Dr. Westby G. Fisher says WikiLeak’s most recent data dump has implications for the digitization of medical records:

Day in and day out, I type huge volumes of information on my patients on a computer and my fellow physicians do the same. As a result, vast health care information warehouses are at the disposal of the government, insurers, and major health care institutions eager to become … Read More

When it comes to electronic health records, what’s in a name?
Jeff Kelly, Online Industry Editor

Some call them electronic health records, or EHRs. Others prefer electronic medical records, or EMRs. Still others go with patient medical records software, which, I guess, would be PMRS.

“The bottom line is that it’s an alphabet soup,” said Gartner’s Dr. Thomas Handler. And while it may seem trivial, what you call them actually matters, … Read More