Dozens of health IT advocates from around the country made the rounds on Capitol Hill this week, meeting with lawmakers and staffers to press for an array of policies to advance e-health initiatives.
Healthcare's ongoing effort to fix patient engagement has been stymied by a widespread inability to improve patient portal adoption. In an era when consumers can do just about anything online, healthcare IT leaders are often at a loss to explain why so few patients – and physicians – embrace tools for online collaboration.
After a flurry of activity, there hasn't been much recent news from Washington about the future of the meaningful use incentive program. That has left the healthcare industry to play the waiting game. Few are happy about it.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is taking incremental steps to make life easier for healthcare providers struggling to meet the criteria for the meaningful use of electronic health record technology. It's welcome relief for overburdened organizations -- but is it enough to meet their demands for improved interoperability?
Simply put, 2014 is a big year for electronic health record vendors. They must adhere to stricter standards under the federal government's meaningful use program while convincing healthcare providers that they can meet future needs for information exchange, patient engagement and data analytics. Not everyone will make the cut.
Healthcare providers are under siege by massive amounts of data. This is forcing the industry to upgrade its aging storage infrastructures, architectures and systems. Where that data is being stored may come as a surprise.
The U.S. government is giving the healthcare industry billions of dollars in incentives to use electronic health records. Most organizations have EHR software in place, but as many as 35 percent wish they could switch systems. Are EHR vendors to blame, or are deeper forces at work?