The healthcare industry has seen many changes in the management of patient information.  Electronic documentation is progressively replacing paper; handwritten orders are being replaced with computerized provider order entry.  Use of health information technology (HIT) that once was optional has now become essential to streamline care, access up-to-date evidence-based care recommendations, make patient data more accessible through…

Data Breaches happen across a multitude of industries, and occur more often than many would like to admit. The healthcare industry has been particularly susceptible to breaches. Most recently, University of Washington Medicine’s Medical Center found…

The buzz that everybody keeps talking about with the new iPhone 5s is the finger print sensor especially for healthcare.  This feature would secure patient information from being seen by anyone other than the user of the iPhone.  Sounds great, but it didn’t quite work out that way because Apple’s touch ID technology…

2014 is on the horizon. With that, it’s not only a time to reflect on the past year, but also continue to move forward and plan ahead. Interoperability has been the topic of many conversations within the healthcare industry lately. Looking into the new year,  it’s important that healthcare…

One of physicians’ long-standing frustrations with healthcare IT is the time required to learn to use it. Many hospital EMRs call for days of classroom training, which takes physicians away from their patients and costs them money in lost revenue. Then,…

Posted on behalf of Edward Ricks, CIO, Beaufort Memorial Hospital

I’ve got to say Beaufort Memorial Hospital (BMH) has always been pretty progressive in terms of an Information Technology perspective. Over the past few years, we’ve realized one…

Posted on behalf of Tim Fail, Wayne Memorial Hospital

In my 11 years at Wayne Memorial Hospital I’ve learned a thing or two. One piece of advice I would offer to any Healthcare IT executive would be to take advantage of all that scripting tools can offer.

If…

I had talked a little about the new version of HPF in an earlier blog or what will be MPF in the upgrade.  There are several new features, but I wanted to talk a little more in detail on one part of the upgrade and that is the mobile deficiency completion part. 

Most of us know how long and…

Are You Ready for a Meaningful Use Audit?…

Interoperability has been a focus of the Healthcare industry lately. For hospitals and organizations, having the ability to integrate all of their systems is essential. The ability to deliver specific information about a patient…

As most of you already know, the new CMS 2-night stay on Admission rule is in effect today that will directly affect your Medicare payments.  We wanted to know how you were dealing with this new requirement from both a reporting and workflow perspective.  I'm sure a number of hospitals may be…

Hospitals today, just like any other business, often find themselves forced to meet tighter deadlines, comply with industry regulations and reporting demands with fewer personnel and resources.  The main goal of any healthcare provider whether it be the…

For all its potential to cause administrative chaos at McKesson hospitals, the upcoming transition to ICD-10 does not have to be a nightmare for physicians. Even though under ICD-10 there will be four-times the number of diagnosis codes as exist currently in…

As I’m sure many nurses and hospital personnel can attest, downtime can be a complete headache. With focuses on increased electronic data stored in the EMR, downtime situations have the ability to turn devastating quickly.…

For those of us who have worked in medical records or worked for a copy service long enough we know how nice is it that we don’t have to go pull a paper chart and make copies of each page like we used to do. We have the luxury of printing right out of the computer or putting it on a CD. That is all great…

3 Reasons Why Hospitals Need Electronic Signature

Go to any retail store, supermarket, or bank and you’re bound to find an electronic signature device at…

The American healthcare system is facing more pressure today than it has at any other time in our modern history. Millions of new patients and significant technological changes are being introduced to our healthcare system with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and this comes at a time when American healthcare professionals are already feeling overstretched due to the pressures associated with a rapidly aging US population. The healthcare landscape has also grown more complex…

The most recent HIPAA Final Rule which was released on March 26th, 2013 pays particular attention to the Security of (electronic patient health information) ePHI as well as specific requirements around Contingency Planning. If you’re like most healthcare customers, you’re currently facing multiple challenges with assuring…

It seems as though ICD-10 has been the buzz around the hospital for some time now, but are we ready? I don’t know about other hospitals, but I can tell you we will be ready. Our coding manager is on top of things, so I will tell you about some things that we are doing to get ready for the big event.…