healthcare Commentary
Paul Cerrato
EHRs Aren't Ready For Pay For Performance
Meeting the pay for performance challenge requires more sophisticated capabilities in EHRs and more physician cooperation.
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
Health IT Faces Eventful Summer
Supreme Court's upcoming decision on healthcare reform and feds' Meaningful Use Stage 2 final rules add up to a heated summer for healthcare IT execs.
Paul Cerrato
E-Prescribing Systems Still Finding Their Mojo
Latest stats suggest doctors are smitten with e-prescribing, but training and clinical decision support still needed.
Paul Cerrato
Grow Your Own Health Information Exchange
While many healthcare organizations turn to private vendors to set up HIEs, others get good results by building their own.
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
How To Improve Communication Between Clinicians
Although mandated to communicate better with patients, some healthcare providers also are looking for tech tools that get info to staff faster.
Paul Cerrato
Mobile Medical Apps Gold Rush Needs Scrutiny
The problem with this kind of booming market? It attracts not only the best and brightest but also IT developers looking for quick profits with...
Paul Cerrato
Stage 2 EHRs Require Meaningful Patient Engagement
Many of the government’s proposed Stage 2 Meaningful Use criteria for e- health records won't be easy to meet. Here's how providers are meeting...
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
Compromise On Health Data Access May Be Ugly
Some hospitals and doctors oppose giving patients electronic data as quickly as required by proposed Meaningful Use Stage 2 regulations. Consumer...
Paul Cerrato
How To Ease EHR Frustration
EHRs can slow physicians' practices to a crawl, but evidence suggests they ultimately pay off.
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
CRM Platform Can Churn Out Customized Health Apps
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health uses Microsoft's customer relationship management platform to rapidly develop niche health-related...
Doug Henschen
Hana and Exalytics: SAP's Hype Versus Oracle's FUD
Getting to the facts in the war of words surrounding SAP's Hana and Oracle's Exalytics platforms.
Paul Cerrato
So What Was Wrong With ICD-9?
As your IT team makes the transition to the ICD-10 medical coding system, doctors will insist that the older system worked just fine. Here's your...
Maribel Lopez
How Mobile, Cloud, Are Transforming Healthcare
Spurred by a combination of government incentives and aging technology, healthcare is entering an IT renaissance with mobile and cloud...
Paul Cerrato
3 IT Tools Helping Patients Find Clinical Trials
We hear so much about the transformative power of medical informatics, and no doubt some of it is more hype than reality. These three examples are...
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
As More Docs Use Digital Records, So Will Consumers
HITECH Act is prompting widespread adoption of e-health records, but there's more to "Meaningful Use" than what's in the government's programs.
Eric Openshaw and Phil Asmundson
Mobile Health Presents Life-Changing Opportunities
From medication reminders to wearable body sensors, mobile health solutions will become a vital part of our lives and many organizations' services.
Paul Cerrato
Clinicians Need Unconventional IT Tools For Toughest Cases
Providing quality care for difficult-to-treat patients requires some truly disruptive approaches.
Paul Cerrato
Despite Flaws, Personal Health Records Are Smart Medicine
Many consumers have concerns about data breaches; others complain about "Big Brother" watching. Here's my take on why the benefits of PHRs...
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
Don't Hit Snooze Button On ICD-10
Given a one-year extension for ICD-10 compliance, healthcare groups must make the most of the preparation time.
Paul Cerrato
Is Your Clinical Decision Support Built On Quicksand?
If a CDS system isn't based on rock-solid data, don't expect to see better patient outcomes or long-term cost savings.
Paul Cerrato
Telemedicine Dilemma: Savings Or Healing Hands More Important?
Telemedicine has two sides, cutting costs and giving some patients access to previously unreachable expertise, but depriving others of the...
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
IT Decisions Hang On Supreme Court Healthcare Ruling
Supreme Court's ruling on the constitutionality of healthcare reform legislation could influence the direction of health IT.
Paul Cerrato
Interoperability Nirvana Nowhere In Sight
Despite attempts to find a common standard for healthcare data communications, it still feels like the Tower of Babel.
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
Can Personalized Medicine Improve Drug Safety?
Personalized medicine programs can find better treatments based on patients' genetics. Why can't the same tools be used to predict--and...
Paul Cerrato
Smarter Voice Capabilities Will Transform Medical Documentation
Natural language processing combined with voice recognition produces clinical language understanding, which has the potential to profoundly change...
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