Healthcare IT Update

DHHS Will Survey Medicare Benes on EHR Use

The feds are having providers race pell-mell to implement electronic health records, so it’s nice that they’re stopping to consider how much federal health care program beneficiaries will actually use the new tools themselves. During 12 weeks next fall, the Department of Health and Human Services will  survey a group of 500 Medicare beneficiaries for feedback on the PHR systems they’ll be using during that time, according to an announcement published in the Government Health IT site. Since last year, Medicare fee-for-service patients in Arizona and Utah have pilot-tested personal health record (PHR) tools that are supposed to help them track their health. The tools are available via GoogleHealth, NoMoreClipboard, PassportMD and HealthTrio. HHS, together with CMS, want to know more about “why consumers, and specifically Medicare beneficiaries, elect to use PHRs and what functionality they want from a PHR,” the announcement adds.

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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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