EMR/EHR

Electronic medical records (EMR) are a digital version of a patient’s chart that store their personal information, medical history and links to prior exams, texts and reports. The goal of these systems is to enable immediate access to the patient's data electronically, rather than needing to request paper file folders that might be stored in fragment files at numerous locations where a patient is seen or treated. EMRs (also called electronic health records, or EHR) improve clinician and health system efficiency by making all this data immediately available. This helps reduce repeat tests, repeat prescriptions and repeat imaging exams because reports, imaging or other patient data is not not immediately available. 

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Report: Informal 'Mar-a-Lago Crowd' runs VA, questioned $16B Cerner EHR deal

On Tuesday, Aug. 7, ProPublica published an exposé that claims three friends of President Donald Trump—dubbed the Mar-a-Lago Crowd because they frequent the president’s Florida golf club—are secretly running the show at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Northwestern Medicine lays off 60 IT workers after EHR system launch

About 60 information technology employees have been laid off by Northwestern Medicine after helping create a new electronic health records (EHR) platform, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune.

Algorithms ‘highly accurate’ when using EHRs to predict mortality for chemo patients

Machine learning algorithms that use electronic health record (EHR) data can accurately predict 30-day mortality among patients beginning chemotherapy, according to research in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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Want radiologists on board for EMR switch? Ask them for input

What if an organization wanted to switch its electronic medical record (EMR) without first consulting radiologists who would frequently use it? As expected, those folks might not be too thrilled.

Cass Regional Medical Center restarts EHR system after ransomware attack

Missouri-based Cass Regional Medical Center brought its electronic health record (EHR) system back online after a July 9 ransomware attack. The IT department engaged in a complete shut down for 10 days until it could confirm the threat had been investigated and systems were improved.

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VA names ONC's Morris to lead VA EHR modernization

The Department of Veterans Affairs recently named Genevieve Morris, the principal deputy national coordinator for HHS, as the leader of the Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization (OEHRM). The VA announced the decision July 12.

UW Medicine approves $180M plan to implement single EHR platform

The University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine will begin a complete overhaul of its electronic health record (EHR) system—and it’s not going to be cheap. The school’s finance committee approved $180 million to replace existing Cerner and Epic systems with a single integrated platform.

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Benefits of EHR may be a ways off, but physicians need to see the potential

Lloyd B. Minor, the dead of Stanford University School of Medicine, equated problems harnessing the positives of EHR with the microscope. It took 70 years for that game-changing tool to lead to scientific breakthroughs—a delay that might have to do as much with the user as the instrument itself.

Around the web

U.S. health systems are increasingly leveraging digital health to conduct their operations, but how health systems are using digital health in their strategies can vary widely.

When human counselors are unavailable to provide work-based wellness coaching, robots can substitute—as long as the workers are comfortable with emerging technologies and the machines aren’t overly humanlike.

A vendor that supplies EHR software to public health agencies is partnering with a health-tech startup in the cloud-communications space to equip state and local governments for managing their response to the COVID-19 crisis.