I recently read an article about a keynote who predicted 80% of hospitals will fail stage 2 attestation.*  There are obviously many factors that con contribute to such a failure but I am passionate that the educational efforts for our implementations are partly to blame for missed goals.  You see,…

“I’m sorry, our system is down.” -  One sentence that makes any CIO’s blood pressure skyrocket. Today hospital staffs have been trained to use systems and rely on electronics for just about everything they need to do to get their job done. But what happens when those systems go down?…

Meritage ACO, Marin General Hospital (MGH), and other community providers have  deployed a real-time multidisciplinary mobile care navigation network that has enabled multiple caregivers, from diverse locations, to seamlessly collaborate on care, create safe transition plans, and engage…

Many people live by the proverb “it is a poor workman who blames his tools”. But reporting technology has advanced so rapidly, it is a good time to examine your tools and skills. Employing up-to-date tools and techniques can speed you through your report backlog.

In a recent survey by…

The Holy Grail of EHRs is a completely paperless physician workflow. Most community hospitals still have a long way to go to achieve this goal, but significant progress is being made.

Community Memorial Health System (CMHS) in Ventura,…

The basic decision of build versus buy applies to many things in our personal and professional lives. The answer depends on what is involved.

In our personal lives, somehow home improvement stories always leap to mind first---for good reasons. We all know someone who decided to build (do it…

HISP and Direct Messaging solutions continue to dominate conversations in the Healthcare IT community. The first in the series of deadlines is slated for July 1^st to meet the Meaningful Use Stage 2 Transition of Care requirement.  This date is quickly approaching and many hospital organizations are…

We recently reviewed the data from the CMS Web site regarding individual hospital performance for Meaningful Use Stage 1, before the FFY 2014 requirements were in effect[i].

3814 hospitals were listed; some twice or three times depending on the number of years they…

With a strong urgency to improve compliance in care plans, the nursing leadership team at White Plains Hospital decided to take action by appointing a nurse informaticist to manage the shift in care plan compliance. When conducting an evaluation of its current state, White Plains Hospital found…

Interoperability is a complex topic, not to mention it's constantly changing. Having the ability to fully integrate your systems, and having the ability to connect your HIS to any vendor or receiving system is quite a feat.

Understandably so, many of the technologies out there…

McKesson was on site last week for regresson testing getting us ready to upgrade to MPF version 16.1.  We had the best time with the applicaton and tech person from McKesson who was here with us on site.  They made it fun and interesting and even learned a few things we didn’t know from the previous two versions. …

Given all its challenges and complexities, even the most educated and experienced among us can use a little extra help when it comes to MU. For the uninitiated and for those involved in the program who occasionally wake up at night with their head spinning, here’s a…

According to a recent Meritalk report, 82% of health IT executives report that their organizations are not prepared for a downtime. Not only does this raise major concern in the area of patient care, but also brings into question the economics of some of these institutions.…

We went live with meaningful use stage 2 on March 13, 2014, but getting to that point was kind of a roller coaster ride.  Health Information didn’t have a huge part in the upgrade, but we were there for all the meetings and phone calls with McKesson and…

Know the Right Math... and Choose the Right Path

Enhanced patient care, streamlined CMS quality reporting, smoother processes, incentive payments…these are among the rewards awaiting you at the elusive end of the Meaningful Use rainbow. But to…

Today, organizations are faced with meeting multiple internal and external integration demands. Meaningful Use Stage 2 has brought a whole new set of requirements for healthcare facilities.

Each initiative and…

We all know that good health is a balancing act across all aspects of our lives:  nutrition, life purpose, physical fitness, emotional well-being and connection to others.  …

There is a lot going on in the way of hospital upgrades for us as I am sure it is for most hospitals.  We are getting ready to go live with meaningful use stage 2,  getting ready to start the MPF upgrade, and of course ICD-10.  I had touched base earlier on what we had planned for getting ready for ICD-10 so I kind of wanted to do a follow up…

2013 was an exciting year for the healthcare industry! Many organizations have achieved Meaningful Use stage 1 and are now beginning to move toward meeting stage 2. While Meaningful Use stage 2 is…

Is your report backlog growing beyond your capacity?   Do users complain of slow turnaround?  Are you having trouble finding staff with the necessary skills in report construction, data analytics and healthcare…