National Health IT Week was created to raise awareness of how information technology (IT) helps improve health care delivery in America. This annual celebration is a time to reflect on the progress that has been made and to showcase how advances in health IT improve patient outcomes and quality of care. By Gavin Fabian, CEO of Casetabs
HIE can step up its game from serving one healthcare organization or health system to becoming a population health management tool. Here’s how.
Healthcare is about a lot of things. One of those things is information; everything from a patient’s medical history to their current medications, known allergies to insurance, and much more. By Cristian Pascual, co-founder and CEO, Mediktor
Georgia leads the nation with more than 225 health IT companies, many of which are located in metro Atlanta, a location ranked among the top 10 best healthcare cities and a top 10 tech talent market. Atlanta has a growing hi-tech community and, unincorporated DeKalb County is home to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Hospitals and other healthcare organizations are in the midst of a digital revolution that’s forcing them to change their traditional ways of capturing, storing, and sharing information. To keep up with their needs for greater IT infrastructure agility, performance, security, and compliance, many savvy healthcare organizations are exploring the benefits of the public cloud.
The healthcare industry is transitioning to a more integrated care delivery and payment management model in which multiple providers in multiple facilities are required to work more closely together, share more information electronically, and accept bundled, value-based reimbursements for care cycles.
5 Key Steps Companies Can Take to Start or Accelerate Their Digital Health Strategy.
Blessing Hospital, located in Quincy, Illinois, serves a 15-county area that covers southeast Iowa, northeast Missouri, and western Illinois. A not-for-profit, not-tax-supported, independent hospital, Blessing has 300 beds, a medical staff of more than 240 physicians, and a team of more than 2,000 employees. A new $70 million patient care addition will be ready early in 2015.
Many industry leaders championed a free market approach to healthcare during the 12th Annual World Health Care Congress last week. Here are a few key reasons why I don’t think this model is “the fix” our industry so desperately needs.
Health IT is in a state of constant evolution, and it often seems that, for every problem solved, another is created. That’s why it’s vital we stop to assess where the industry stands from time to time, as well as look to the future to determine the best course to take to achieve our collective goals.
With all the talk of Big Data, there are still big questions as to how to most effectively leverage information and data to make a positive impact on healthcare delivery, cost, and outcomes. One health system leader thinks an approach developed by a Major League baseball team might be a game changer.
For the past five years, EHR/MU was selected as the top health IT initiative for the coming year. This year, there’s a new top initiative, and what it is should come as no surprise.
Health Information Exchanges or HIEs are systems designed to facilitate the transfer of clinical information among disparate health care information systems. The importance of an HIE comes from the need to retain the integrity and meaning of the data being transferred, allowing different systems to share information seamlessly. This information sharing can improve quality and safety of patient care by giving healthcare professionals instant access to information about patients that may not have historically been available as quickly as needed. HIEs can also help educate consumers and patients and involve them in their own wellness by providing them with their healthcare information via the web.
Benefits of HIEs include reduction in manual labor required for printing, faxing, and scanning documents, reduction in mailing costs associated with transferring patient charts and records, reduction in time and effort required to verify physical receipt of information or recover missing information, and a reduction in duplicate work. These benefits from HIE can provide lower healthcare costs for consumers and lower operational costs for providers. In addition, HIEs have helped to facilitate the emergence of new technology and health care services.
In the United States, regulations regarding HIEs are still being defined. Meaningful Use and state-sponsored HIEs — along with fluctuating regulations among states — are causing rapid changes and advancements to occur in the HIE space.
Carequality and CommonWell Health Alliance join forces to further interoperability. By Christine Kern, contributing writer
