When patients at the VA Medical Center in Portland, Ore., were given access to key parts of their EHR such as visit notes, lab results and discharge summaries, they believed that the ability to view their records helped them in many ways.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published updated hospital clinical quality measures (CQMs) for Stage 2 of the Meaningful Use (MU) program.

U.S. House Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) has introduced legislation that would exempt pathologists and their laboratories from Meaningful Use (MU) requirements.

Florida Hospital Carrollwood, an Adventist Health System facility, has received the acute care Stage 7 award from HIMSS Analytics. The award represents attainment of the highest level on the Electronic Medical Records Adoption Model (EMRAM), which is used to track EMR progress at hospitals and health systems.

Another busy, informative, exhausting Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society annual convention has come and gone. Of course, EMR/EHR use, challenges, successes and more were debated, discussed and deconstructed by a host of speakers.

Indianapolis, Ind., April 2, 2013 -- With the addition of the MedInformatix Patient Portal Module to its Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Practice Management (PM) platform, Price Vision Group anticipates its patient capacity to increase by more than 15 percent in 2013. Using the secure portal, patients can answer questions about their medical history well before the visit, eliminating the need to fill out responses on a clipboard upon arrival and reducing the overall time they spend in the office.

GZS, Inc., a leader in developing disease-specific and condition-specific Electronic Medical Records/Electronic Health Records (EMR/EHR) and patient registry software solutions, has announced the worldwide release of the WebTracker-Hemophilia ™ EHR patient registry solution used under the new brand name HemaGlobal ™.

As I write this, the March Health IT Policy Committee meeting was just held, during which time Farzard Mostashari, MD, ScM, national coordinator of health IT, and several other speakers reiterated the message from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: 2013 is the year of implementation. Mostashari made it clear that there would be no rule-making with regards to Meaningful Use Stage 3 this year, so everyone can focus on succeeding with Stage 2.