Today I came across what someone called a new Health and Human Services (HHS) health information technology (HIT) website. Unfortunately, they didn’t get the same graphic designer and web developer that have been doing such a fine job with the various websites that Obama has been putting up.

I find the first page interesting since it has HHS asserting the following:
Health information technology (Health IT) allows comprehensive management of medical information and its secure exchange between health care consumers and providers. Broad use of health IT will:

I wish that each of these bullet points had links to all of the research that shows these are indeed the outcomes of HIT. This should include the research that argues against HIT being able to solve these problems. That would turn the list into an invaluable resource on the benefits and challenges of HIT.

I’m going to need to take some time to look at the rest of the site. However, the link that said “Standards and Certifications” certainly caught my eye and is guaranteed to be a future blog post.

I was recently sent a news release about DrFirst offering their ePrescribing services to physicians through a new online American Medical Association (AMA) platform. Here’s a short description of the new AMA platform:

DrFirst is the first company to announce that it is offering its services through the new AMA online platform. The platform, which is currently in beta testing, is aimed at providing physicians access to information, products, services and resources that can facilitate medical practice and ease adoption of evolving health information technologies. The AMA aims to launch its new platform in early 2010.

I find the concept of the AMA offering a platform for doctors interesting. Does anyone else know anything about this platform? On face it just sounds like the AMA trying to get a piece of the revenue that can be generated from adopting these technologies. I’m just not sure why someone would use this new AMA portal instead of just buying the software themselves. What advantages does the AMA portal provide outside of being a recommendation source for various software?

This week I have a chance to do a lecture about EMR to a bunch of med students at a local medical school. There are so many facets to EMR, that I’m really trying to figure out which EMR concepts would be most valuable to a med student. I’d love to get some feedback from my readers on what they think would be most valuable. I’d especially like to hear from any doctors about what they wish they’d known about EMR when they were in medical school.

If you have ideas and suggestions, please leave them in the comments or if you prefer to keep your comments private, you can fill out my contact form. I’d really like to provide these students the most valuable information possible so your feedback is really appreciated.