Not that long ago, healthcare worried mostly about the physical loss of personal health information (PHI) by way of a lost thumb drive, a stolen laptop, some misplaced paper files. These were the primary concerns in HIMSS initial security survey, published in 2008. It wasn’t until five years later, in 2013, that the largest healthcare security breaches came from cyberattacks instead of lost or stolen devices.
So, is it encouraging to see how far the rapid pace of change has carried health IT
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Can We Balance Civil Liberties with Mental Health Treatment?
Editor's Note: Irv Lichtenwald is president and CEO of Medsphere Systems Corporation, the solution provider for the OpenVista electronic health record.
In January of this year, political analyst Norman Ornstein lost his 34-year-old son, Matthew, to accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. While Matthew’s death was a tragic blow to family and friends, it was not the kind of out-of-the-blue shock that comes with absolutely no forewarning. Matthew, as Ornstein says in a New York Times op-ed
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Can Mobile Health Apps Transform Mental Health Care?
Any conversation focused on what’s great about America usually includes a mention of optimism, hopefulness or some variation on the theme.
Americans generally still believe in a brighter future, and especially the ways in which technology can enable that future. But that sense of optimism contains a kernel of potential disappointment when we ask technology to do too much.
Consider the case of mental health care, a profession that faces massive budget shortfalls.
According to Robert
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RWJ State of Health IT in 2015: Is It Time to Adjust Expectations?
Context and perspective matter.
And it’s often both context and perspective that are lacking from the daily snapshots we get of health information technology, meaningful use, interoperability and the progress we are either making or not making, depending on your perspective.
So I welcome a report like the one the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) released last month on the state of health IT circa 2015 in these United States. Subtitled “Transition to a Post-HITECH World,” the
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4 Optimistic Reasons about the Ongoing Transformation of Healthcare
None of us would have the jobs we currently occupy without some ability to focus on details. Running a company, developing IT systems, managing a hospital, seeing patients and evaluating their concerns—all require the ability to dig deep and identify root causes and effective solutions.
But maybe that focus on the trees blinds us to changes in the forest, to use a well-worn aphorism.
With that broader perspective in mind, I’d like to suggest four reasons for optimism as we continue to move
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Are Physicians Really Dissatisfied with EHRs? Should We Be Concerned?
Editor’s Note: Irv Lichtenwald is president and CEO of Medsphere Systems Corporation, the solution provider for the OpenVista electronic health record. Prior to joining Medsphere, he served as CFO of Advent Software, a leading provider of investment management solutions. Between 1995 and 2003, Irv led Advent through three public stock offerings.
Microsoft Office was first introduced by Bill Gates at COMDEX, Las Vegas, in August, 1988.
Here we are almost exactly 27 years later, and if you
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FHIR Will Not Save Us: We Need National Patient Identifiers
Editor’s Note: Irv Lichtenwald is president and CEO of Medsphere Systems Corporation, the solution provider for the OpenVista electronic health record. Prior to joining Medsphere, he served as CFO of Advent Software, a leading provider of investment management solutions. Between 1995 and 2003, Irv led Advent through three public stock offerings.
Graham Grieve is a data architect who thinks like a mountain climber.
“You build a mountain, you stand on top of it and see a bigger mountain
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