Active EHR users uncovered one in six medical practices could exchange out their first choice EHR by year's end, according to an annual poll of 17,000 end-users, conducted by Black Book Rankings. The majority of frustrated end-users blame themselves for not properly assessing practice needs before selecting their first EHR vendor with the narrow goal of receiving government incentives.

The RI Regional Extension Center, a service of the Rhode Island Quality Institute, launched its EHR Adoption Program for Specialists in February, allowing providers in specialty practices to receive the assistance and benefits previously available only to certain primary care providers.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has developed a new database with support from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that can help software developers create better EHRs for the care of children.

January saw much activity related to electronic health records. From the release of the final privacy rule to numerous reported breaches to comments submitted regarding the proposed rule for Meaningful Use Stage 3, there’s a lot going on.

In the paper world, in general, data and information were the same thing; you wrote something (or typed it) into the chart, hopefully in the place it belonged, and it told you what you needed to know. There were no automatic alerts that fired off that information/data that told you of a potential interaction or allergy if you were prescribing a medication the patient shouldn’t take for either of those reasons. You had to physically look at the allergies for that individual and have memorized or look up all the information regarding a medication. In the digital world, data are often not the same thing as information and it’s important to know the difference between the two.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has released significant enhancements to its VA Blue Button technology, which enables veterans to download their personal health information from the VistA EHR system.

Cooper Clinic in Dallas is uniquely focused on providing preventive medicine services. But its need for tight integration between its EHR and practice management system is just like 30 to 50 percent of U.S. healthcare facilities now shopping to replace an ambulatory EHR, according to a KLAS survey. After a lot of due diligence, they have found an integrated technology that works well in Greenway’s PrimeSUITE. 

Physicians who assign their reimbursement and billing to a critical access hospital are now eligible to participate in the Meaningful Use program, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced.