Healthcare IT Update

PHLs Join Forces in Data-Sharing Project

Interoperability promises to improve epidemiology and disease ID. Take IT infrastructure away from public health laboratories (PHLs) and the country’s entire health system would be in big trouble. A basic IT system will enable PHLs to effectively manage their laboratory data or electronically message laboratory test results, according to a recent article in Public Health Reports. PHLs provide a wide range of essential services, including disease surveillance and identification of infectious organisms associated with outbreaks of disease, explains the article’s author, Patina Zarcone, MPH, of the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) in Silver Spring, MD.

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Overcome These Hurdles in Early EHR Adoption

While 2015 and its promise of loads of cash for providers who adopt EHR technology seems right around the corner, a close look at providers’ IT capabilities reveals how far they have to go in order to be prepared for the high demands EHR will place on their systems. The “rush to deploy EHRs could lead to administrative complications, formatting problems, errors and interoperability glitches,” according to a recent BusinessWeek series that examines some of the technical issues accompanying the rollout of EHR in providers’ offices across the country. As of last year, only 10% of U.S. health care facilities were using EHRs, according to the article, but the feds want half of them on board by 2014. If you’re aiming to be in that first half, read on to learn about some of the hurdles you’ll need to overcome …

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Paper Medical Records to EMR: The Dirty Little Secrets

Physician practices that are implementing EMR dish on how ‘easy’ it actually is. With all the hype out there about converting from paper records to EMR, I’ve heard very little about how that process actually happens. That’s why I appreciated heating Kris Cuddy’s nuts-and-bolts EMR implementation session at the Billing & Collections Conference in Orlando this week. And I REALLY appreciated comments from physicians and office managers at her session about what it’s really been like for them to implement EMR at their practices. They have a perspective you sometimes don’t see in all the glowing predictions about how great EMR is going to be once we all adopt it. Three hours, said one workshop participant. That’s how long it took him to transfer his first medical record from paper to EMR. Subsequent conversions are going more quickly, but the office manager says…

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HIT Staffing: Do We Need IT Experts or Health Care Experts?

Or do we need both? Training & teamwork strategies that bridge the divide. Refugees from the technology and financial busts are flooding into health care to get their share of stimulus billions, but health care providers won’t get their money’s worth unless they build collaborative teams who really understand what the ‘H’ means in HIT. If you read IT industry news, you come away with the impression that IT professionals with no health care setting experience have all they need to ‘fix’ HIT. A recent ‘Career Tips’ article for IT professionals who want to get into health care is an example. Between 50,000 and 100,000 new HIT jobs will sprout up by 2015, says Information Week, an IT industry trade publication that’s been around for years. “If you’re considering a career path into health IT — but have limited have previous experience working in clinical environments, don’t despair,”…

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