Technology Adoption and Utilization in Healthcare

Technology adoption and utilization remains one of the primary challenges facing practicing physicians according to The Physicians Foundation, a non-profit seeking to advance the work of practicing physicians and help facilitate the delivery of healthcare to patients. In their 2014 watch list The Physicians Foundation has listed five critical challenges facing practicing physicians. Practice and Insurance […]

Offering Seniors Digital Health Tools

Seniors are increasingly interested in utilizing digital health tools to manage their healthcare. According to a recent study by Accenture 57 percent of American seniors are interested in using digital options for managing their health services remotely.[1] Currently only about one-third of medical facilities are offering digital health tools. How are senior adults interested in […]

5 Usability Questions for EHR Installations

Evaluating EHR vendors can be a challenge. While physicians are experts at patient care, software evaluation can sometimes be confusing. In a recent edition of Medical Practice Insider, Linda Stotsky offers 5 core usability questions when shopping for an EHR vendor. An EHR consultant, Stotksy helps professionals sort through the varied challenges.[1] “Docs are great at […]

4 Out of 5 Patients Expect Online EMR Access

Consumers are taking notice of electronic medical records (EMR). More and more patients expect online EMR access, and they are willing to switch doctors for that access. According a recent global survey, 41 percent of patients would switch doctors to gain online access. Accenture conducted a survey with over 9,000 people, covering nine different countries: Australia, […]

EHR and the Value of Workflow Analysis

Workflow analysis and redesign is an essential part of EHR planning and implementation. One link to poor adoption and poor satisfaction with EHR may be related to poor planning. Any EHR implementation requires change. Change is stressful and causes resistance. Without effective planning, changes may actually hinder workflow and create ineffective and time-consuming workarounds. “One important lesson […]

Reducing EHR Risk

Reducing EHR risk must be integrated into transition planning, implementation and follow-up in order to avoid EHR failure, according to Dean F. Sittig, Ph.D., professor, School of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. “The potential consequences of an EHR failure become of increasing concern as large-scale EHR systems are […]

Challenges of EHR Adoption

Satisfaction with EHR implementations has dropped over the past two years, and new implementations are slowing according to recent study by American EHR.[1] One big problem highlighted by this study is reduced productivity due to the lacking usability. Think about ease of use for a moment. Every day over one billion people visit Facebook through […]

Service and Speed in the Healthcare IT Cloud

“Imagine the day when H1N1 detection is automated because it’s passively discovered in the cloud,” says John D. Halamka, MD and CIO at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). A respected leader in the healthcare technology, Halamka sees great potential for the cloud to play a vital role in improving healthcare delivery through shared resources […]

Integrating Analytics in Healthcare

How can healthcare data analysis evolve from crawling to walking (with hopes of running some day)? Dan Reber guest blogged over at The Healthcare IT Guy recently with some helpful suggestions centered on three ways “steps” toward walking. These steps involve rethinking the types of reports generated, the team dedicated to analysis, and the quality […]

Challenges for the Future of Healthcare Networks

Medical facilities face the challenge of upgrading their healthcare networks and providing comprehensive support for the growing demands of digitized information according to a recent report by HIMSS Analytics. In a recent study, “Healthcare Provider Network Solutions, Barriers and Challenges” HIMSS reports that “As health care organizations implement information technology solutions including components of the […]