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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Last week I mentioned the scholarly book, The Rise of Homo Sapiens: The evolution of modern thinking, written by our friend Fred Coolidge and his colleague, Tom Wynn. This week’s read has been a popular book (also about the brain and cognition) titled How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. Both books focus on the executive functions of the brain. The [...]
Our book group had the pleasure of reading and having a visit with the author of The Rise of Homo Sapiens: The evolution of modern thinking, by Frederick L. Coolidge and Thomas Wynn. Fred has been a friend and colleague for the past 35+ years and is Seth’s long distance bicycling buddy. He is currently experiencing the [...]
We invite your comments on this and all of our blog entries. To participate in the conversation, click on the title of this article and enter your thoughts in the box at the bottom of the page. We spent the holiday weekend at the Georgia Tandem Rally, our favorite organized bicycling event. This year, 102 [...]
Red Flags Rule Revisited The Federal Trade Commission has announced a delay in implementation of the Red Flags Rule until August 1, 2009. Don’t be fooled by this delay. If you are defined as a creditor under the rule, you must still comply. I hope you will take the time to visit the FTC web [...]
Last week I started writing an article about my attendance at the Software and Technology Vendor Association (SATVA) meeting. That quickly went by the wayside as my time was gobbled up by the crucial task of restoring my laptop computer to a usable state. On my return from New Orleans at the end of March, it [...]
I’m getting ready for a week of vacation in my hometown–New Orleans. As some of you who know me well may remember, my 89-year-old mother has been with us in Florida since Katrina-breached levees filled her New Orleans home with 8 feet of water. Our last visit was almost 22 months ago; it is definitely [...]
For the past week the health IT news world (NYTimes; Chicago Sun Times; MSN; ) and blogosphere (FierceHealthIT; Healthcare Informatics) have been abuzz with Wal-Mart’s announcement that they will begin selling electronic health record (EHR) software to doctor’s offices starting this Spring. They will do so in partnership with eClinicalWorks and Dell through their Sam’s Club [...]
I was all set to write an article Monday morning on the expanded privacy and security requirements in the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) when I remembered that I was registered for a webinar presented by FairWarning (a privacy surveillance company) Monday afternoon on just that subject. I am really glad I waited to write, because [...]
Standard advice for securing computer systems is to require users to change passwords frequently. Something about this recommendation has always bothered me, but I never really thought it through. A current blog posting at Healthcare Informatics by Dale Sanders really hits the nail on the head. He points out that these change-passwords-frequently policies actually undercut password security [...]
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) contains provisions for spending approximately $19 billion in health IT infrastructure and Medicare and Medicaid incentives to press providers to use health IT, according the NJAMHA Newswire , a publication of the NJ Association of Mental Health Associations. The National eHealth Collaborative, the replacement for AHIC (the [...]
