Electronic Medical Records (EMR) implementations have their own, unique challenges. Healthcare organizations are concerned with selecting a vendor, complying with a myriad of regulations, and basically transforming the way healthcare is delivered to their patients. Given the transformative nature of an EMR implementation, virtualization is often just a side thought for health CIOs. Therefore, I’d... (more...)

The following is a blog I posted on my “other” site – Virtualization Pulse, hosted by Tech Target. Most readers on these pages are already very knowledgeable, so please forgive the simplistic view. In the near future, I will publish additional blogs on virtualization and specifically focus on the the healthcare IT space. Consider this one a relatively simple level-set for the audience.... (more...)

…No, I am not talking about the world-famous subway system in London, but rather like to pick up the topic by Dr. Philip Chase on the Physician’s view of an EMR. Dr. Chase describes how a recent visit to his physician revealed that the esteemed healthcare provider spent a lot of time typing Dr. Chase’s answers into an EMR application. The physician’s attention was divided between... (more...)

Computerworld posted an article titled E-Health and Web 2.0: The Doctor will tweet you now. The title made me cringe, to be honest. If any medical provider would communicate with a patient via facebook or twitter on patient related topics, we’d have an avalange of lawsuits on our hands. Thankfully, it is not that bad as the article cited above describes electronic communications between doctors... (more...)

Earlier this week I attended “The New Wave of Healthcare IT Virtual Seminar” from SearchHealthIT.com. Unfortunately, I had to leave for the airport, but I did catch one of the first sessions on mobile health by Claudia Tessler and C. Peter Waegermann of the mHealth Initiative, Inc. mHealth is basically the area where electronic medical records (EMR), mobile computing, social media and... (more...)

Under the much debated HITECH legislation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, HIPAA covered entities and their business associates must notify patients and in some cases the secretary of Health and Human Services of privacy breaches pertaining to identifiable patient records. I have written previously about the distinction between privacy and security breaches, and I am going to... (more...)

The HiMSS group on LinkedIn features some interesting discussion. One of the longer threats evaluates why EHR/EMR implementations fail Well, I must ask – please define failure! And this questions goes right to the heart of the matter. Defining success is probably one of the most prominent things any project management and executive steering committee must accomplish at the onset of the project... (more...)

There are two interesting trends going on in healthcare at this time (no, I am not talking about the current debate in congress). One is that we will see more and more healthcare providers use electronic medical records – a trend that is fueled by financial incentives through “stimulus money”. The other is one of the consumerization of IT – specifically healthcare IT. We see... (more...)

Well, not quite, but as a physicist working on the grand unified theory would say: The arrows are pointing into the right direction. While patient care is not delivered virtually quite yet, the experts in the field of Health Information Management and Systems will have their annual gathering in Atlanta in early March (http://www.himss.org) to ensure we’ll get there in the future. If you haven’t... (more...)

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) contains a whole chapter called HITECH. This catchy acronym stands for Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health and makes you wonder if “they” construct the acronym before deciding on what information to convey. It basically mandates a number of fairly stringent disclosure requirements for HIPAA covered entities... (more...)