Healthcare IT Update

Cloud Computing for HIT: Stormy Weather or Silver Lining?

Here are pros and cons to know before you hop on the cloud. More and more IT companies with little to no experience in health care — but plenty of market share on the Internet — are heading into the HIT business, offering providers and other health care professionals off-site server space where they can maintain patient records. This is known as “cloud computing” — in which providers use web-based software provided by the IT company to access that server space, so that their records exist in the so-called “cloud” of the Internet. Cloud computing, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, “is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” AUDIO: Reduce your…

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What HIT Pros Must Know About PHRs

IT Giants Motor to Health Care 2.0 Patients are already able to manage their own medical records, in what are called Personal Health Records. But as more and more people try out this new technology, and as more and more IT giants go for the health care consumer dollar, providers and some experts are raising red flags about everything from privacy to medical errors. Doctors worry that PHRs can trap inaccurate information from billing data, which could lead to improper treatment, or that patients will overreact to doctors’ notes that are set to become part of their online records by year’s end. If your organization is trying to figure out what widespread adoption of PHR means for you, you’re not alone. Experts see it as the wave of the future that no one’s quite…

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