On March 2, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) announced a plan to approve organizations to certify electronic health record software programs. ModernHealthcare.com reported the announcement of this new plan by ONC head, Dr. David Blumenthal, at the big meeting of the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) occurring in Atlanta [...]
I am on my way back from two and a half days in Phoenix where approximately 40 SATVA (Software and Technology Vendor Association) member representatives, EMR users, and industry IT experts met to find a way for behavioral healthcare providers to exchange patient information using the electronic Continuity of Care Document (CCD). The CCD is [...]
The Software and Technology Vendor Association (SATVA) is hosting the first Behavioral Health Interoperability Conference for behavioral health electronic medical records software next week. SOS is among the member organizations who will be attending the conference along with other behavioral health software vendors, some vendor clients, representatives of The National Council (NCCBH), MHCA, and others.
SATVA has been [...]
Last week, Seth and I attended the semi-annual member meeting of the Software and Technology Vendor Association (SATVA), the behavioral health software and technology trade association to which SOS belongs. At one time, SOS, like many other companies moved along based more on the spoken needs of our customers rather than on long-term projections about [...]
During the past two weeks, I have spent several hours creating process diagrams or flow charts for a customer. After using our billing software and a custom attendance/reporting module we created for them in 2003 but maintaining paper clinical records, they are now implementing a custom Forms module and preparing to implement our behavioral health electronic [...]
Consider a couple of nightmares that might easily come true:
1. Your laptop, with a variety of documents and files containing confidential, protected health information on its hard drive, is stolen from your car, hotel, or disappears while you are traveling.
2. Your office is burglarized and all the desktop computers, as well as a server containing [...]
Last week I attended a webinar hosted by Healthcare Informatics about the transition to ICD-10. The webinar was sponsored by Cognizant Technology Solutions and was presented by Janice W. Young from Health Industry Insights and David Hamilton of the Healthcare & Life Science Practice at Cognizant. I am fond of the webinars hosted by Healthcare Informatics. They allow [...]
I try to keep informed about Electronic Medical records (EMRs), certification of those products, and funding for them provided through the economic stimulus bill (ARRA). After all, as a developer and vendor of a behavioral health EMR, I really should know some of this stuff. This week, I was struck by the number of acronyms that have come into common [...]
I have been avoiding writing about the second draft of the Meaningful Use of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) definition released by the federal Health IT Policy Committee on July 16. I had been hoping I would hear something that would make me believe the definition would in some significant way benefit our customers. I am [...]
The deaths of the past week have set me to thinking. The mother of a friend passed away early in the week followed by the wife of a family friend. Then, news of the death of cultural icon, Michael Jackson, was everywhere.
I come from a family and culture (New Orleans-based) where death is an intrinsic part of life. [...]
