Suffice to say, when John Glaser speaks, the healthcare industry should listen. Even as Glaser moves from the healthcare provider and policy areas of the industry to the vendor side, he remains a respected authority on healthcare IT. Read »

This is the third installment of the interview conducted with Heather Haugen and Jeffrey Woodside, MD, whose book, Beyond Implementation: A Prescription for Lasting EMR Adoption, was published in May. Read »

David Blumenthal, MD, head of ONC, announced on Friday, June 18, the final rules for temporary certification of EHR products. With the temporary certification rule in place, he expects EHRs with this particular certification on the market by this fall. Read »

We're starting to see more validation for EHR implementation from multiple organizations and different segments of the healthcare delivery system. This is good news. Read »

In an opinion piece in the Baltimore Sun last week, Ritu Agarwal related her personal experiences about the problems with paper-based patient records and in a very convincing way made a case for EHR adoption. Read »

There were many concerns when ARRA funds were first announced, with fears of the digital divide widening being one of the major ones. Thus far, HHS and ONC have done a great job in terms of thoughtful and thorough strategic planning and establishing programs to ensure that those concerns are addressed. Read »

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT awarded four Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) grants funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. One of the projects is being led by Professor Carl Gunter of the Department of Computer Science and the Information Trust Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His mission is to develop technology that would make EHRs and health information exchange safe and secure, and therefore help patients and providers become more comfortable with these systems. Read »

They say all healthcare is local. That could also be said about the regional extension centers (RECs) anointed by the Dept. of Health and Human Services and ONC. The existing entities have a history of serving the community and are in the best position to help healthcare providers implement EHRs and EMRs, and qualify for meaningful use of these systems. Read »

When you read articles about physicians who aren't going to make the switch to electronic health records, it's always interesting to note the age of the nay-sayers. I'm not trying to start a war between generations, but age has a lot to do with refusal to adopt health IT. Read »

The Dept. of Health and Human Services will soon announce the 15 communities - from a pool of 130 applicants - that will serve as the Beacon Communities. Read »