In healthcare, there has been much talk and much activity within health IT circles about communicating across institutional barriers. We are now in an era where a majority of physicians, and most hospitals, have moved from paper record keeping to Electronic Health Records (EHRs). By-and-large, these EHRs are implemented within healthcare institutions (hospitals, large delivery systems, and independent doctors’ offices), and the medical data about patients is confined to the institution that
Read More
Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Improving Patient Experience Is The Key to Reducing Referral Leakage
Jonathan Govette of ReferralMD explains why improving the patient experience is critical to reducing referral leakage and increasing revenue for practices and ACOs.
Read More
The Role of Claims Data in HealthIT: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
As we move towards building a universal patient-centered data platform in health IT, several sources of data are useful. Data coming from transitions of care, clinical summary documents (C-CDAs) which can be shared between healthcare providers taking care of a patient, and claims data from insurance payers – these are all sources of data that can build the universal health record.
With all the focus in interoperability discussions around sharing data found in clinical Electronic Health Records
Read More
Can Public Health Data Mapping and Visualization Transform Healthcare Globally?
Laurie Hawkins, project manager of the Victorian Human Services Directory in Australia discusses how public health data mapping can improve global health.
HIT Consultant recently spoke with Laurie Hawkins, project manager of the Human Services Directory (HSD), about the opportunities of the National Health Service Directory (NHSD) and what can be achieved by many different stakeholders, both public and private. In our discussion, Mr. Hawkins explains why working with open health data
Read More
If Physicians Prefer the VA’s EHR, Why Is Adoption Outside the VA So Low?
If physicians overwhelming prefer the VA's EHR, then why is adoption outside the VA so low? Dr. Edmund billings shares his insights.
Let’s start simply with the results. The questions will come later.
In their 2014 EHR Report—a survey of 18,575 physicians on their EHR preferences—Medscape concludes that doctors like using the VA’s Computerized Provider Record System (CPRS), the core electronic record in the broader VistA platform, more than any other solution.
Read More
6 Big Benefits of Applying Automation to Healthcare
James Dias, Founder & CEO at Wellbe shares six big benefits that can be realized by applying automation to healthcare for overall cost reduction and efficiency.
Three out of four hospital and health systems CEOs cite overall cost reduction and efficiency as one of their top two financial priorities, HealthLeaders recently reported. With the healthcare industry continually looking to cut costs and waste and improve efficiency and throughput, automation of manual tasks can be an important
Read More
Wearables: A Solution Searching For Problems?
Wearables, devices used to sense data and process it into information, are generating quite the buzz in healthcare these days. But down the line, does that buzz come with a sting?
In Wearable Tech News, Tony Rizzo reports wearable technology spending predictions of $50 billion by 2018. He also reports on a ground-breaking, glucose-sensing contact lens for diabetics that will be a “true solution for a very real medical problem that affects hundreds of millions of people.”
By 2016,
Read More
What is the Future of Population Health Management?
The next evolution of population health management will demand a greater focus on three key data truths. Janice Nicholson, Founder & CEO of i2i Systems shares her definition of Population Health Management 2.0.
If you believe that Population Health Management is about reporting and analytics then you only know half the story. Yes, having the right Population Health Management tools eases the pain associated with delivering performance or compliance reports, demonstrating
Read More
VA Waitlist Fiasco: Should the VistA EHR Be Thrown Out?
Without a doubt, the death of American veterans as a result of the VA waitlist debacle is tragic and unacceptable. The Obama administration must move quickly and deliberately to fix the underlying problems and restore faith in the agency.
If these issues were common throughout the VA network of hospitals and clinics, it might make sense to consider dramatic, earth-shaking alternatives like moving veterans to private providers and shuttering the VA. But they are not common. Indeed, as
Read More
Why Did the U.S. Rank Last in the World’s Best Healthcare System Report?
The Commonwealth Fund just published its fourth Mirror, Mirror on the Wall study comparing the U.S. health care system with other countries, and as in all previous studies, we ranked as the absolutely worst health care system in the developed world, bar none. Yikes. The Commonwealth Fund studied many health care domains, and we didn’t rank in first place for anything. The best we managed to do is place a lackluster third in the subcategory of Effective Care. The United Kingdom, on the other
Read More
