As we head into 2012, the “hot topic” in EHR / Health IT circles is connectivity. A doctor’s EHR in the office is supposed to be able to connect with outside sources of patient data – reference laboratories, other clinicians using the same or different...

Never since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, or perhaps the first run at Managed Care in the 1970s and 1980s, has health care been poised to undergo the kind of dramatic change that we are seeing now. With various efforts underway...

It’s tempting to look at the Clinical Quality Measures portion of Meaningful Use as just another hoop to jump through, with little actual clinical impact on day-to-day care. But, upon a little reflection, embedding Clinical Quality Measures (CQM) into Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems is...

One of the simplest Meaningful Use menu criteria to achieve is providing patient-specific education resources to more than 10% of patients who visit your office during your reporting period. As you near the end of your reporting period, now is the time to evaluate how...

Recently, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), chartered by the National Academy of Sciences to advise the federal government on issues of medical care, research and education, delivered a publication on Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care.