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

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

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

Feds should develop electronic health data exchange standards, council says
Jeff Kelly, Online Industry Editor

Since the private sector has no real financial incentive to do so, the federal government should take steps to create standards to enable healthcare providers to easily exchange electronic health data, a new government report recommends.

In the report, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, or PCAST, said the ability for otherwise separate healthcare providers to exchange health data will improve the quality of care and reduce costs. It will make it easier … 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