August 2010

Guest Article: Top 10 tips for successfully using speech recognition in EHRs and healthcare apps

Moving away from paper is an automation journey that is both challenging as well as rewarding and choosing the right data entry technology is certainly one of the biggest challenges. Choose the right data entry mechanism and your journey is smooth; choose unwisely, and you’re in for a great deal of pain. There is no [...]

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Meeting practical business and security challenges of healthcare apps in the cloud

There has been, understandably, a great deal of interest for moving all kinds of applications “into the cloud” (like software as a service or SaaS) because it can ease deployment and reduce costs. However, due to the nature of the healthcare data, security is a special concern. If you’re interested in moving to the cloud, [...]

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McKinsey estimates that MU incentives may pay for less than 20% of hospital EHR roll out costs

One of my favorite publications, McKinsey Quarterly, published an article this month entitled “Reforming hospitals with IT investment” which speaks in plain business language about the costs and benefits of hospitals rolling out EHRs. The article requires registration but is otherwise free and is worth reading. Here are some of the highlights for a 200 [...]

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Guest Article: What the low-tech checklist can teach techies about medical business processes and proper system design

I’ve often said that if you can’t repeat something, you can’t automate it — meaning trying to jump into creating software or systems before you have identified and fixed your human processes is always prone to failure. One of the best ways to understand if your process is repeatable is to create checklists and see [...]

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NIST says Meaningful Use Test Procedures have been approved by ONC

NIST updated Meaningful Use Test Approved Test Procedures page today: The Approved (Pending) Test Procedures were formally approved on August 2, 2010 for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) Temporary Certification Program. Notice of the approval appears in the August 9, 2010 Federal Register. The set of Test Procedures marked [...]

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Guest Article: Lessons from the trenches – transitioning to EMR without risking data loss

The government’s promise of billions in EHR incentives has you interested in what you might be able to get so many of you are looking for advice and lessons learned from practices who have taken the leap to EMRs. I invited James Andrassy, M.Ed, PA-C, who has worked as a healthcare provider for the past [...]

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