Dr. Doug Fridsma | June 14, 2011
The Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) will be hosting its annual Government Health IT (GHIT) Conference June 14-15 in Washington, DC. ONC’s presence at the meeting will highlight the ongoing work being done at the federal and state level supporting interoperable health information exchange and meaningful use of electronic health records. In addition to a closing keynote speech by our new National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, I’ll be speaking about our efforts promoting standards-based interoperable health information exchange.
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Steven Posnack | June 10, 2011
If enough people believe something, it has to be true, right? In my travels, I’ve found that regulatory interpretations range from being largely factual to wildly fictitious. The latter often results from misinterpretations of regulatory language, improper combinations of regulatory language from different rules, or accurate interpretations getting lost in translation as they are passed from person-to-person. These inaccurate interpretations, intentional or not, often unsurprisingly lead to confusion. Accordingly, I thought it would be helpful to clear up a few things I’ve heard related to certification.
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Alicia Morton | May 12, 2011
The modernization of health care through information technology calls for a much larger workforce than the one we currently have that will be required to help providers and hospitals make meaningful use of health information technology (health IT) including electronic health records (EHRs). In fact, there is a projected shortfall of approximately 51,000 qualified health IT workers over the next four years.
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Dr. Doug Fridsma | May 2, 2011
Recently, colleagues have raised questions about pending state legislation related to electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) and in particular the concept of electronic prior authorization (ePA) for medications. We thought it would be helpful to discuss what we know about the current state of e-prescribing and ePA. E-prescribing provides significant advantages in contrast to its paper analog. Coupled with other complementary technologies, such as drug-drug interaction checking, e-prescribing can improve patient safety, increase prescribing accuracy and efficiency, and lower costs by notifying providers of generic or preferred drug list alternatives.
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Chitra Mohla | April 27, 2011
