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In: Clinical Care Systems, EHR Architecture, EHR Certification, EHR Design, EHR Market Commentary, Electronic Health Record Systems, Meaningful Use

When building software, requirements are everything. And although good requirements do not necessarily lead to good software, poor requirements never do.   So how does this apply to electronic health records?   Electronic health records are defined primarily as repositories or archives of patient data. However, in the era of meaningful use,Continue Reading

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In: Clinical Informatics, EHR Architecture, EHR Design, EHR Market Commentary, EHR Usability, Electronic Health Record Systems, Meaningful Use

Now that EHR adoption is well under way and meaningful use is in full-swing, the effects of EHR systems on every day clinical practice are becoming more obvious.    According to studies that look at how providers spend their time, clinicians are increasingly spending more time with computers and less timeContinue Reading

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In: EHR Certification, EHR Market Commentary, EHR Selection, EHR Usability, Electronic Health Record Systems, Meaningful Use

Evidence is mounting that providers are dissatisfied with their EHRs—so much so that they are willing to switch.   I don’t see this as unexpected or problematic.  It is simply a sign of a maturing market and the growing sophistication of EHR users, which I think bodes well for innovative vendors.Continue Reading

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In: EHR Architecture, EHR Certification, EHR Data Quality, EHR Design, Meaningful Use, Resource Pages, Software Architecture/Design, Software Development

While putting together a set of EHR architecture/design study materials, I decided to go ahead and create another resource page.    As with the Clinical Workflow page, the Architecture and Design page will have PubMed, IEEE, and ACM citations.   The Architecture and Design page has been created to serve as aContinue Reading

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In: Clinical Informatics, EHR Implementation, Electronic Health Record Systems, Meaningful Use, Small practices

Obviously, I am an advocate of EHR use.  Actually, tracking EHR implementation outcomes is somewhat of an obsession.   For years, I have kept a folder on my desktop called “failed projects” that contains the woes, assessments, and post mortems of IT projects gone bad.  Since HITECH, I’ve noticed something interesting. Continue Reading

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In: Audit Trails and EHR Systems, e-Discovery, EHR Architecture, EHR Certification, EHR Design, EHR Security, Electronic Health Record Systems, HIPAA, Meaningful Use, Tutorials

As EHR use increases, the number of complaints about incoherent paper printouts has grown.  However, it isn’t just clinicians who are having problems.   EHRs Prove a Difficult Witness in Court , an article from the Journal of AHIMA, details the legal headaches that can occur as a result of theContinue Reading

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In: EHR Certification, EHR Market Commentary, EHR Usability, Electronic Health Record Systems, Meaningful Use

The final EHR certification criteria for 2014 were released a few weeks ago, and I am surprised by how many of the more forward-thinking proposals made it into the final set.  The proposed criteria, released in March, contained suggestions that I thought were good ideas (e.g., usability testing, price transparency,Continue Reading