Compared to last year, providers are reporting greater progress in their preparedness for ICD-10 conversion, according to speakers at a Feb. 27 KLAS Enterprises webinar.Many providers have moved beyond the roadmap development stage and shifted their energies to workforce training and preparedness, according to the industry research findings presented.

As other industries raced through the 1990s and early 2000s to improvebusiness with faster, cheaper and smarter information systems, healthcare largely lagged behind. Some moved against the grain as early health IT adopters, but healthcare reform initiatives launched in the last six years placed increased focus on a previously inconspicuous position: the CMIO. Forced to do more with less, providers are turning to CMIOs to achieve value through clinical information systems.

“The primary objective of clinical documentation is to assist doctors in the complex journey of portraying in standardized text formats complete clinical pictures,” says Michelle Dragut, MD, CCS, CDIP, a physician adviser for the Florida Hospital Association Management Corporation in Orlando. “All healthcare organizations depend on correct documentation.”

Healthcare CIOs earned an average base salary of $208,417 in 2012, according to a recent survey conducted by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME). However, the survey found that compensation for IT leaders varied widely based on several factors, including size and type of organization, title held by the respondent, and reporting relationships.

Within the competitive healthcare areas of Colorado, California, Kansas and Montana, SCL Health System has integrated evidence-based decision-making directly in its EMR to support, enhance and speed patient care decisions. One-click, fully integrated access to a clinical point-of-care resource was a must as was a clear implementation strategy and plan to spur physician adoption.

It is time for the HIMSS13 Annual Conference & Exhibition. I have attended for more than 20 years and seen it through the eyes of a physician, an informaticist, a consultant and a vendor. I am often asked about the best way to handle this massive conference of more than 30,000 attendees, so let me share some thoughts on how to find innovation, share innovation or sell innovation. The easiest way to do this is to break the conference into its three main parts: the educational sessions, the exhibit hall and networking.

Version 4.0 of CONNECT, the community-driven software platform for enabling secure health information exchange, offers several new functions, according to a webinar presented Feb. 22 by the National eHealth Collaborative.

Many view the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model as the new wave in healthcare delivery, but getting there requires overcoming significant implementation challenges, according to an American Journal of Managed Care study published in February.