EHR

Early Healthcare IT Adopters See Simplified Service, Reduced Costs

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Healthcare is experiencing an unprecedented transformation.

Motivated by the need to meet new regulatory requirements in the U.S., including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and to receive incentives from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s (ARRA’s) Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) provision, many healthcare providers are investing to modernize their legacy IT infrastructure and clinical applications. In addition to meeting compliance issues, these early adopters are discovering numerous advantages from their investment in IT – not only in cost savings, but also in improved patient care, tightened information security, advanced collaboration, increased transparency and trackability, and ‘connected care.’ Keep reading →

 /  Published December 5, 2012 at 8:00 AM

IG Report Cites Obstacles In EHR Transition

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Medicare failed to follow some basic safeguards in switching its paper-based health record system to electronic health records, a key part of the current administration’s plan to save millions of dollars and provide better health care, the HHS Inspector General said in a report released Thursday.

In the report, the IG for Health and Human Services said Medicare did not put in place appropriate technology tools to make sure the information provided by hospitals and doctors about their EHR implementation was accurate. At stake were financial awards given to health providers if they adopted electronic records beginning in 2011. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 29, 2012 at 2:00 PM

Disgover.com Could Clear Calendars of Boring Office Meetings

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Disgover.com, a relatively new social networking and collaboration tool, is throwing out that boring and time-consuming 20th century office meeting.

Gone is the urgency for face-to-face meetings, long distance conference calls, high-priority e-mail messages or communal gatherings at a high-end hotel in a posh locale, travel costs that are a drain on government budgets in these austere times. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 15, 2011 at 9:30 AM

Feds@Work: VA Analyst’s Efforts Help Health Data Access Effort

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Veterans, Medicare recipients and military health care beneficiaries today can download digital files of their available personal health data on a computer, smartphone or flash drive, providing them with instant access to critical information and promoting personal management of their own health care.

This groundbreaking development is possible because of additions to three government websites, all now containing a “Blue Button” icon that allows individual users to login, view, print and save copies of their available personal health information, some of which is extracted from organizational health records. More than 250,000 people had downloaded their health information through the fledgling Blue Button initiative by the spring of 2011, but there is a potential for millions of people to use the system. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 3, 2011 at 10:03 AM

VA’s ‘Blue Button for All Americans’ Contest Expands Personal Health Records

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Last week’s news that the Department of Veterans Affairs was expanding its efforts to promote its Blue Button personal health record system prompted me to research the Blue Button program for Personal Health Records (PHR) and make them easier to use by our readers not just our Veterans.

President Obama highlighted the Blue Button Initiative, as have many others in recent weeks. The program is just one of a series of successful government challenges to promote innovation in government.

This is similar to my efforts to make Traumatic Brain Injury information more accessible and useful in another story.

An authoritative online resource: Managing Your Health Information Online explains the difference between: Electronic Health Records (EHRs) (much in the news) and Personal Health Records (PHR) as follows:

  • An Electronic Health Record is a safe and confidential record your doctor, other health care provider, medical office staff, or a hospital keeps on a computer about your health care or treatments. EHRs let your providers share up-to-date information about your conditions, treatments, tests and prescriptions. If your providers use EHRs, they can join a network to securely share your records with each other. EHRs help cut down on medical errors and can keep you from getting duplicate tests.
  • A Personal Health Record is a record with information about your health that you or someone helping you keeps for easy reference using a computer. You control the health information in your PHR and can get to it anywhere at any time with Internet access.
So two questions that one naturally asks are: Who offers PHRs? and is my health information private and secure in PHR?


The previously mentioned authoritative online resource: Managing Your Health Information Online answers:

  • PHRs are often offered by providers, health plans, and private companies. Some are free, while others charge fees.
  • Some independent companies create and maintain PHRs for you. If you give them permission, they may be able to get your health information from your doctor or health plan.
  • If your doctor or health plan doesn’t offer a PHR, check what’s available from other companies at http://myPHR.com.
  • Special permissions or passwords let you choose who can access your PHR so others can get your critical information quickly. When you use a PHR, make sure it’s on a secure Web site. With a secure Web site, you usually have to create a unique user ID and password, and the information you type is encrypted (put in code) so other people can’t read it.

My comment is: why not do it yourself for free, without the Internet (especially if you are not always connected or not able to use the Internet), and in a familiar environment like a spreadsheet, notepad, or word processing document.

So I am providing the “Blue Button PHR for All Americans” as an Excel spreadsheet (XLS) and Comma Separated Value (CSV) files that can be imported into most other softwares for the convenience of our readers and their family members and friends that need them but cannot afford a commercial service or use Internet services.

On August 2, 2010, President Obama announced the Blue Button capability that allows veterans and Medicare beneficiaries to download their personal health information by a simple click of a blue button.

So now you can just download the files, read the background information and do it yourself for free and with your own security. It can be on your iPhone, iPad, and/or laptop and desktop PC or Mac. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 31, 2011 at 2:33 PM