On September 22, 2011, I attended a webinar sponsored by the Business Operations for Behavioral Health Collaborative, a SAMHSA-funded joint venture of the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, the National Association of Community Health Centers, NIATx, and the State Associations of Addictions Services (SAAS). The topic of the webinar was Health Information Exchange and [...]
Are you a Jeopardy fan? If you are, I am sure you know that in January of 2011, IBM’s supercomputer, Watson beat two of Jeopardy’s all time money winners, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. Watson is an Artificial Intelligence that can understand questions posed to it in natural ‘human’ language. WellPoint, a BlueCross collaboration, is [...]
Last week I asked you if you were using a Personal Health Record (PHR). I got only one response…from a college friend who is a technical writer. John is involved with a PHR company called medkaz. This company believes that all electronic medical records should be driven by and owned by the patient. Accordingly, they have developed [...]
In August, the National Coordinator for Health IT, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, spoke about the need for a ‘targeted strategy’ to involve consumers in eHealth. He is concerned that all of the efforts being expended to acquire EMRs and for eligible providers (EPs) to achieve meaningful use of those EMRs must become more patient-centered. One provision [...]
I have been struggling with a topic for this week’s blog. The only thing that has come across my path that feels compelling is the hummingbird who showed up at our coral honeysuckle on Sunday. Unfortunately, integrating that ruby throat into my article does not seem like an easy task. Sometimes, I feel like I [...]
I am sure many of you remember the reports dating back to 2005 that celebrity patient files were being viewed by casual lookers…employees who had access to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Health System electronic medical record (EMR) but who had no legitimate reason to view those records. Well, the Department of [...]
This morning I read an editorial (An ounce of prevention could heal a pound of pain) by Dina Overland of the FierceHealthPayer newsletter. She decided to use her platform as the editor of a newsletter that is aimed at insurance payers to directly address those payers about prevention of healthcare problems and diminishing future costs. She focused on an [...]
According to a June 14, 2011 report by Government Health IT News, consumers’ confidence in the safety of their data in electronic health records (EHRs) is a prerequisite to the successful adoption of electronic means of recording and sharing health records. So says Dixie Baker, chair of advisory Health IT Standards Committee’s privacy and security workgroup [...]
In a previous life, when I was actively involved in the American Psychological Association (APA), I was for three years a member of and one year the chair of the Public Information Committee of the APA. Prior to that, I hosted a live, call-in television show for two years. Frankly Speaking with Dr. Kathy Peres was [...]
I am not sure why I continue to attend free webinars about data breaches. They mostly serve to make me extremely anxious for our customers. . . especially for those who have not created a data security plan or have thought minimally about their responsibilities for protecting the privacy of their patients’ Protected Health Information [...]
The holiday last Monday made it difficult to get to my blog. As each new item that I needed to handle came up, I found myself thinking about what I had hoped to write. Thinking about it was all I managed. No matter how much I thought, I did not discipline myself to leave all [...]
A discussion with my coworkers recently reminded me of the wide variability in the size and nature of the organizations that utilize our software products. Behavioral Health organizations range from solo, part-time psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and professional counselors in private practice to large community-based organizations that provide inpatient, outpatient, intensive outpatient, and home-based care to [...]
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 is American Psychological Association’s Mental Health Month Blog Party. This post is dedicated to Mental Health and Mental Health Awareness. This past weekend, we rode 104 miles in the BikeMS Citrus Tour 2011. One of the fun parts of the weekend was getting to spend a few hours with our friend [...]
Our technical support and customer service staff regularly discuss questions our customers commonly ask. They often answers these questions in emails—repeatedly. For a long time, we have tried to answer some of these questions in documents to make it easier for our customers to succeed in their jobs. The Document Library page on our web site has always aimed to [...]
Just one year ago, after passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), The National Council highlighted the expansion of Medicaid that would occur as a result of the ACA. To meet the law’s requirements to provide insurance coverage to the working poor who are generally not insured through their employment, do not have access to insurance groups, and [...]
Last week I attended a continuing education workshop for psychologists at my local chapter of the Florida Psychological Association. Psychological Records: Basic Requirements and the (Forced?) Choice of EMRs was presented by Robert J. Porter, Ph.D., president of the Tampa Bay chapter and treasurer of Florida Psychological Association. Dr. Porter’s presentation was attended by about 30 psychologists and [...]
Do you have a favorite author? I have loved different writers at various times in my life. At present, one of my favorites is Barbara Kingsolver. What? You don’t know her work? Well, you should try one of her best known, The Poisonwood Bible, the story of a missionary family in the Congo in the [...]
Once a month, on average, our technical support specialists are confronted with a customer whose database has become corrupted because of some hardware issue and who has no usable backup. After last week’s adventure, I decided I would again write about backup. Then, last night, I saw a discussion on a Psychology and Technology listserv that included [...]
Two nights ago I woke up at 1:30 a.m. and did not fall back to sleep until 3:30 a.m. The room was too hot to sleep comfortably and I was awakened by a night sweat. I got up and cooled the room, but before I could fall back to sleep I was experiencing painful flushing [...]
Many of our customers include Case Management as part of the mix of services provided to clients. Among the seriously mentally ill (SMI) population, Case Management has become an essential service helping individuals gain the most from the services they receive. Helping the client take their medication as prescribed, assessing their current symptom status, intervening [...]
