November/December 2013 HTO Issue

Change Is Good

For many, change is a painful process. This was evident when reviewing the results of our first annual community hospital survey, which are summarized in our cover story Are Community Hospitals Behind The Health IT Curve? It’s clear that many community hospitals are struggling to adjust to the changing healthcare landscape.

Feature Story

Are Community Hospitals Behind The Health IT Curve?

Not surprisingly, our survey indicates that financial and resource challenges limit the IT investments community hospitals can make. Are these facilities making shortsighted technology decisions as a result?

Building The Perfect EHR For Community Hospitals

Four community hospital leaders share their EHR wish lists — outlining the performance strengths of their existing solutions and identifying areas for improvement.

Case Studies

Secure Texting Streamlines Clinical Communication

A Canadian hospital installs a secure texting solution to facilitate physician paging and to provide more details about consulting cases.

BI/Analytics Drives MU Performance, Cost Savings

For small hospitals such as Hopkins County Memorial, switching to a customizable BI program can save money, end outsourcing, and aid in Meaningful Use (MU) preparation.

Electronic Medical Billing Essential For Reform

Implementation of electronic billing in revenue cycle management is aiding providers such as Baystate Medical Center in their efforts to meet new healthcare reform laws and keep up with ICD-10.

Q&As

Desktop Virtualization Takes Pain Out Of EHR Install
By replacing 600 PCs with 1,100 cloud displays, Olympic Medical Center has created a virtualized environment that has improved clinical workflows, IT maintenance, and overall EHR utilization.

Document Management Helps Cleveland Clinic Take Epic One Step Further
Systemwide integration of a document management solution helps Cleveland Clinic derive more value from its EMR.

Unlock Patient Data With Natural Language Understanding
Natural language understanding (NLU) technology is helping Lancaster General Health improve physician documentation, prepare for ICD-10, and translate patient notes into discrete data measurable by analytics.