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4500 Patient Records Found During Drug Bust

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In the healthcare world, it seems that HIPAA privacy violations & HIPAA Lawsuits are the car accidents that people can’t resist checking out. In most cases, people in healthcare are mostly interested to see what happened with the HIPAA violation and what the consequences were for that violation. In fact, these violations wake people up to the HIPAA policies better than any other means, but I digress.

Since this blog is called EMR and HIPAA, I try and cover various HIPAA related issues I hear about in the news. Today’s HIPAA breach is pretty crazy. It was discovered during a drug bust by the Alameda County Sheriff’s department. During the drug related investigation they found information for 4,500 patients from three hospitals: Alta Bates Summit, Sutter Delta, and Eden Medical Center.

Sutter Health posted a notice about the breach. The notice says that the information could have included: a patient’s name, Social Security number, date of birth, gender, address, zip code, home phone number, marital status, name of employer and work phone number. Sutter has offered free credit monitoring services for those patients who are involved. Plus, they have a hotline set up for those who have questions.

This situation is a bit unique since it seems they haven’t been able to identify exactly which hospital the patients are from. If that’s the case, then releasing all of the patient data to all 3 hospitals could be a breach as well, no? I’m good with making sure you notify everyone on the list that could be affected. They should be notified, but I’d be interested to know which parts of the 4,500 patients was shared with which hospital.

I wonder if large organizations like Sutter Health are creating a permanent department for breaches.

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June 12, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: Healthcare  HIPAA Breaches  HIPAA General  Medical Privacy
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EHRA’s EHR Code of Conduct – Will Anything Change?

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The big news that had to be covered today was the announcement by the EHR Association about the EHR Developer Code of Conduct. The core topics of the EHR Developer Code of Conduct are great:

  • General business practices
  • Patient safety
  • Interoperability and data portability
  • Clinical and billing documentation
  • Privacy and security
  • Patient engagement

Certainly there are other areas that I would have loved to see included, like EHR usability, but if we could address each of the areas listed above we’d have a big improvement over where we are today. Be sure to also check out the EHR Developer Code of Conduct and FAQs document and the EHR Developer Code of Conduct Implementation Guide for the full details on the EHR Code of Conduct.

The problem I have with this EHR Code of Conduct is that it has no teeth. There’s no enforcement mechanism or reporting mechanism to show how an EHR vendor has chosen to implement the code of conduct. They won’t even commit to having a list of EHR vendors that have adopted it. Trust me when I say that for every element of the EHR Code of Conduct, there’s A LOT of room for interpretation.

Where there’s room for interpretation, there’s room for abuse.

Obviously, when you bring together 40 EHR vendors it’s a real challenge to create something that has no interpretation. However, it seems they could have created a way to display how an EHR has chosen to meet the EHR code of conduct guidelines.

For example, the guideline says, “We will work with our customers to facilitate the export of patient data if a customer chooses to move from one EHR to another.” Then, it even sets a minimum export of a CCD/CCDA document. We could discuss how that type of document is nearly enough to switch EHR software, but even if it was enough, there’s a lot of ways you could implement this guideline. An EHR vendor could let the customer download a CCD for each patient individually and leave it to the customer to download all 5000 individual CCDs for their patients. That meets the guideline, but would be very different than an EHR vendor that gave you a one click download of CCDs for all your patients.

This qualitative data about how an EHR vendor has implemented the code of conduct should be easily available to doctors to compare across vendors. Otherwise, it has much less meaning and a lot of doctors will get bamboozled by the impression “commitment to the EHR Code of Conduct” implies. It’s similar (and even worse) than the pass/fail EHR certification. Not all certified EHR are created equal and not all EHR Code of Conduct adopters will be equal either. Why not be transparent about how they meet the code?

In the webinar they suggested that “the industry itself will kind of make it transparent who has adopted the code and who hasn’t adopted the code.” Maybe a third party will make that data available, but it’s a lot of work without a clear mechanism to pay for the work.

The other part of the code of conduct that really bothers me is the question posed in the title of this blog post: Will anything change? I loved a question that was asked on the webinar, “What pieces of the code of conduct were an EHR vendor not doing before the code?” They skirted the question saying that they couldn’t comment on it and some other tap dancing around the question. Does this mean that EHR vendors will just use the EHR Code of Conduct’s false trust to sale more product while doing little to change operationally? I’m certain this is not the intent of the committee, but could be the end result if those adopting the EHR Code of Conduct aren’t held accountable.

I got comments from two EHR vendors about the EHR Code of Conduct. Take a look to see what SRSSoft’s CEO Evan Steele said in their press release:

“SRS has always been committed to the principles identified in the Code of Conduct—designing our products with patient safety in mind, supporting physician/patient ownership of their data, safeguarding privacy and security, and communicating honestly in the marketplace,” says Evan Steele, CEO of SRS. “We are pleased to be among the first EHR companies to adopt the formal code, and hope that all vendors will follow suit.”

And John Glaser in the Siemens comment:

“The release of the EHR Developer Code of Conduct by the EHR Association is an important milestone in the maturation of the healthcare information technology industry, and we at Siemens Healthcare are proud to have supported its drafting and ratification,” said John Glaser, PhD, CEO, Siemens Healthcare, Health Services. “The Code of Conduct includes many elements that just make too much sense to be ignored and it’s my belief that Siemens and many players in this industry have already been adhering to many of these principles. Codifying these principles and providing a transparent way to show customers that companies are going to adopt them will help propel our industry’s ability to deliver safer, more effective and more interoperable solutions.”

It’s not like an EHR vendor’s going to come out and say they weren’t following the Code of Conduct principles. They’re not going to come out and say they don’t care about the EHR Code of Conduct principles either. The question is whether they state it in public or not, will EHR vendors really change? I have my doubts without a clear mechanism of accountability.

In some ways this reminds me of the doping scandal in cycling. Everyone knew that everyone else was doing it and no one wanted to say anything to rock the boat because it would mean they’d have to admit to doing it. Once a few cyclists stopped doping, they were at a disadvantage to those who continued the unhealthy practices.

I vividly remember in the post-Lance Armstrong years an interview with Levi Leipheimer where he was asked about doping. He tersely responded, “I hope all the dopers and cheaters get caught. It’s not fair that I’m having to compete with them.” (Not an exact quote, but you get the gist) Once he stopped doping he knew he was at a disadvantage. He wanted those that were still doping to be held accountable. I wonder if we’ll see something similar play out in the EHR world. Some EHR vendors follow the letter and intent of the code of conduct while other EHR vendors continue to skate around the edges since there’s still nothing holding them accountable. Just like Levi couldn’t name names in his interview, EHR vendors won’t be able to name names either.

As I said to start this post, I love the intent of the EHR Code of Conduct. I just worry that it will do little to change the EHR world as we know it.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t also share a comment someone made on the Code of Conduct announcement webinar. Someone obviously didn’t realize their mic was on and they said, “It’s a love fest, an EHR Love Fest!” I’m not sure who it was that said it or why exactly they said it, but it gave me a good laugh. I always love a good EHR love fest myself.

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June 11, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  Healthcare Interoperability  HealthCare IT
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EMR and EHR Jobs

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I regularly hear from readers that are looking for a job in the healthcare IT and EHR field. It’s an interesting time in the EHR world because many organizations can’t find enough qualified EHR workers and yet there are many who would love to get into the EHR field of labor. Until now, very few organizations have been willing to train someone on the healthcare industry. We’ll see if that changes as meaningful use winds down and organizations don’t feel the same pressure they’ve felt chasing the government carrot.

4-5 years back I implemented an EMR and EHR job board into the sidebar of all of the Healthcare Scene websites. I’m always amazed at the number of views and applications that a job listed on it gets. Hopefully it’s helping both sides of the relationship (those searching for qualified people and those searching for jobs).

This week we’ve had a number of new job postings that I thought might be of interest to my readers:

EHR Information Scientist

Senior Analyst, EHR

HRIS/Benefits Manager

Take a look at those jobs and the others listed. Let your friends who are looking for EHR related jobs know about them. Hopefully we can help to make a difference in someone’s life.

If you’re someone looking for a job, feel free to leave a link to your online resume or LinkedIn page and a short description of your skills and what you’re looking for in the comments of this post. You never know who might be reading and see your comment.

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June 10, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  EMR jobs  HealthCare IT
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Open vs Closed EHR Systems with Jonathan Bush

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Yesterday I had a video interview scheduled with Jonathan Bush from athenahealth. It was going to be broadcast live on my burgeoning EHR Videos website (Subscibe for EHR Video Email Updates) using the Google Plus Hangout technology. Everything was set until Google Plus HOA (Hangouts On Air as they’re called) wouldn’t load. It was a system wide problem and so we were unable to broadcast the interview. However, Jonathan and I were able to see each other and so we just did a more traditional interview about the subject of open vs closed EHR systems.

As you can imagine Jonathan had plenty to say on the subject of open versus closed EHR systems. We started the discussion discussing the business model of closed EHR systems and how looking at many EHR companies that seemed to be a very good business model. I asked him what was so bad about being closed.

Jonathan then told me that a closed EHR system is a great business model for the software vendor if you can get it. However, he said that as the product category matures the closed systems will get disrupted by more open options. In fact, at one point in our conversation he suggested that once some of the players become truly open, the other EHR vendors will have to follow along.

I was offered one caveat by Jonathan. He was curious if Epic was the exception to this rule. He wondered if Epic had so much money that they could last well beyond most companies. This cash could provide them the runway and opportunity to reinvent themselves along with those companies trying to disrupt them. Although, the most powerful comment made in regards to Epic was when he suggested that Epic has clients that benefit from Epic’s closed nature as well.

Another powerful comment he made was, “Affordable sounds like decline.” The concept is really interesting. Basically, so many EHR vendors have been able to charge an outrageous premium with amazing margins for their EHR software. If they were to choose to lower their price, many could misinterpret that decision as the company cutting prices to increase sales that have dropped off. Certainly the argument can be made that EHR vendors don’t need to charge what they do. However, image is important and could be influenced by a price drop.

While it’s always fun to talk about Epic with Jonathan, I also pressed him on why athenahealth wasn’t more open in the things they do. Couldn’t some of the same arguments made against closed EHR systems be applied just as easily to athenahealth? For example, why isn’t the athenahealth API more open?

In one of his more contemplative responses, Jonathan acknowledged that athenahealth was heading down the path of closed EHR systems. He saw that they were headed in a similar direction with their business model and so they had to decide if that’s the direction they wanted to continue or if they wanted to move towards a more open EHR model. He mentioned their More Disruption Please program and how the number of companies they were working with in that program was a sign of their move to be more open.

Jonathan admitted that the athenahealth API wasn’t where it should be, but that the goal was to have an API for every surface area of athenahealth. I wish we had this comment on video so we could really hold him to it. I love the idea of every surface area of an EHR being available through an API.

I also pressed Jonathan a little bit about CommonWell and whether it would be open to everyone and anyone that wanted to participate. He responded, “We expect every single maker of health information technology to obtain a key for every patient they have and see where that patient has been.” That was a pretty broad statement about openness. He did suggest that CommonWell was the right approach of knowing where the data was stored as opposed to storing every single person’s data in every clinic. It had to be a distributed patient records model.

Jonathan did also tell me that they’d recently got a call from Epic to work with them to build API connections with all the information in Epic. We’ll see if this is a step towards a more open Epic. Although, it still seems to follow the same pattern Judy discussed when she called Epic the most open EHR system she knew. She’s ok opening up with strategic partners.

I ended the conversation with me asking Jonathan what could be done to make the business model of being open work in healthcare. He mentioned two topics that deserve more time and their own dedicated post: a repriced athenaclinicals based on order and anti kick back laws as an obstacle for exchange of information. Both were preventing a market for health information. Our time ran out so I couldn’t dig into these subjects more. I’m going to see if Jonathan or someone from athenahealth would be willing to do a couple future guest blog posts on the subject.

As you can see, I covered a lot of ground with Jonathan in the 10 minutes we had. Imagine if we’d had the full 30 minutes. Plus, you could have heard it straight from him. I’m certain we’ll be inviting Jonathan back for another interview in our series of EHR Videos.

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June 7, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR
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The Golden Age of EHR Adoption is Over

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I’m ready to call the Golden Age of EHR Adoption Over. We’re not getting ready to enter the nasty, ugly, dirty, swamp filled waters of EHR adoption. If you’re an EHR vendor you likely already know this to be the case. That’s not to say that there’s not still real opportunity in the EHR space, but it will take on a very different form.

I think this image of the adoption lifecycle describes the EHR adoption cycle really well. I’m sure it will be familiar to many of you:
EHR Adoption Lifecycle

It’s very clear to me that we’re somewhere in the middle of the Late Majority cycle of EHR adoption. This plays out well since we’re somewhere between 50-84% EHR adoption. While the chart shows a downhill slope, the ride to get the Late Majority and Laggards on EHR is going to be anything but a downhill ride. I’d say it’s going to be more like climbing Mount Everest. It’s possible, but it’s going to take a lot of work.

The reality is that those who wanted to adopt EHR already have adopted EHR. That means we have left a group of practices and hospitals that for the most part aren’t EHR convinced. However, there is one advantage for those wanting full EHR adoption. Almost all of those who haven’t adopted EHR see the writing on the wall. They’re just going to take their time and make a deliberate choice based on the experiences of those around them.

EHR vendors will now start to focus on creating what I call Smart EHRs. Doing so will be how they battle each other in the next wave of EHR switching. Plus, this will usher in the next EHR Golden Age: Use.

Future Golden Age of EHR Use
While the golden age of EHR adoption is over, we’re entering a new EHR Golden Age. It’s the golden age of amazing EHR use. It’s still very early in this new cycle, but the innovators are going to really surprise us with the innovation that’s going to be possible on the back of an EHR.

Many of the changes will be subtle and we’ll take them for granted almost instantly, but they will be amazing in aggregate. Take for example, Jennifer’s recent post on EMR and EHR about her child’s well visit. How beautiful is it that her child’s record was available at a new clinic with no effort on her part. We’re not there yet, but we’re going to get there. Although, we wouldn’t get there if we were still at 25% EHR adoption.

Jennifer’s example is a simple, but powerful one. No doubt there are going to be much more complex and much more powerful examples to come. Many of which will actually save people’s lives.

The Golden Age of EHR Use is going to bring about dramatic benefits that would have never been possible without massive EHR adoption. The Golden Age of EHR Use will be so good that even the EHR adoption laggards will finally want to change.

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June 6, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  HealthCare IT  Interfaces
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Farzad Mostashari Tweets #HDPalooza

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Health data geeks from across the US have descended on Washington DC this week for what’s called Health Datapalooza. It’s a sort of Mecca for healthcare data sharing where health data geeks virtually hold hands and sing koombaya as they circle around blue buttons and hard drives full of granular health data. As someone who believes that health data liberacion is the right direction for healthcare, this is a great event and this year it seems to have really hit its stride.

One of the biggest advocates of using healthcare data for good is ONC’s own Farzad Mostashari. Never someone afraid to tweet or Retweet health data related topics, Farzad’s twitter account has been incredibly active during Health Datapalooza. So, I thought I’d use it to illustrate some of the messages Farzad found important enough to share from the event. Plus, I’ll throw in my commentary after each tweet as appropriate. (Note: when the tweet is from someone else it’s because Farzad retweeted it.)


If you want to stop reading here you could, because it’s the core of Farzad’s message. Although, if you want to go into depth on the topic, keep reading. At least Farzad has made clear that he’s going to use whatever methods he has available to make patients’ health data available.


I’ve said this a few times recently as well. I have an extreme belief in the creativity and drive of entrepreneurs. We just need more of them to be able to do their work in healthcare.


Amen! The challenge is getting this message to consumers. If you tell them that their data will be kept private, but will be shared where appropriate to provide better care, every patient wants this to happen. In fact, most already assume this is what’s happening.


Healthcare problems are still a HUGE challenge. We don’t need any more barriers than we already have to overcome.


I wish the $36 billion in EHR incentive money would have been spent on standardization. We’d have had better results. I’m still not sure how we’re going to get to future payment models. Govt could play a role in it.


Speaking of changing payment models. Seems like government doesn’t know how to get their either. A fundamental delivery system transformation could be translated as impossible.


The ladies will love Farzad in his bowtie. I love people who aren’t afraid of trying what seems impossible. Who in health IT is doing that today? I guess looking at the last tweet CMS and ONC are trying.


I’m not sure if we should be proud or sad at the 8% number. Granted, it’s a lot of people that have to learn about it. Although, since many don’t care about their health data, 8% is pretty good.


I’ll be interested to see this number post-meaningful use stage 2. Doctors will be really encouraging their patients to get their health data so they can meet MU stage 2.


This isn’t actually from Health Datapalooza, but Farzad did just retweet it. I haven’t dug into Obama’s plan to deal with patent trolls, but I’m really glad more of a spotlight is being put on this challenging problem. In the case of software, I’m really against patents because as the tweet says they do stifle innovation. It’s ironic because they’re suppose to encourage innovation, but it’s just not the reality of how they’re being used.

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June 4, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  EHR Stimulus  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  Healthcare  Healthcare Interoperability  HealthCare IT  Meaningful Use
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EMR Change Agent, EMR Workflow, and Volume Billing Driven EMR

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I think the article took a little different take on the tweet than I did when I first read it, but I love the idea of using the EMR as a powerful change agent in your organization. Many executives say they wish they could change some things about their organizations. EMR can be one method to help implement some of those changes. Far too few are using it to really effect change for good in their organizations.


This feels a bit like semantics for me and you know I avoid semantics. What I do know is that EMR can make an ugly workflow really ugly or a beautiful workflow really beautiful.


This road already seems paved. The question I have is whether we’re willing to rip up the road and replace it. There’s some signs that it’s going to happen, but I’m still not confident in those signs.

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June 2, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  EMR Technology  HealthCare IT
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Working with United Healthcare, Aetna, Humana and Walgreens

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Today I had a unique experience attending the Life At 50+ event that AARP puts on. It turns out that life at 50+ revolves around healthcare and wellness in many ways. Plus, they put together the AARP Live Pitch event for healthcare companies to pitch their companies to a board of judges and then to the AARP members. The later was quite interesting to watch and who doesn’t love hearing from real customers.

After lunch, they also had a panel with executives from United Healthcare, Aetna, Humana and Walgreens to talk about what they look for when it comes to working with healthcare startup companies. There were some predictable things like “we focus on the team” and also some off the cuff remarks like the tweet embedded above about “stuff that actually works.”

One thing was clear that these companies were all in an evolution from their core business to something else. As one panel member said they were moving from a claims processing company to a wellness company. Another panel member said they didn’t see themselves as providing healthcare as much as enabling healthcare.

I was most interested to hear these executives talk about what they looked for in a company. The general consensus seemed to be that they wanted companies that understood their gaps and could fill their gaps. Although, when they were asked to talk about their gaps, the executives seemed to have a hard time describing their gaps. I think this is the core challenge. If they really knew their gaps, they’d be filling it themselves.

With that said, I did pull out a couple areas that seemed of great interest to the panel. Those two areas were medication compliance and getting patients to the right doctor. If you can help with either of those things, then your company would likely be of interest to these companies. Although, as the tweet at the top says, you better make sure it works before you think they’re going to work with you.

I also found it ironic that some on the panel wanted an end to end solution while another described them as looking for point solutions. At the end of the day, I don’t think they’d mind either solution if that solution provided value and had seen some traction. For example, one panelist talked about coordinated care, but they also said they wanted to see proof of the coordinated care in action and implemented in a hospital system.

I guess none of these things are too surprising. Find something where you have traction and provide value and you’ll have lots of opportunities.

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May 31, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: Health IT Startups  Healthcare  HealthCare IT
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300 Automatic E&M Coders in EMRs

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Automated coding has been a popular topic ever since I first started blogging about EMR software 7.5 years ago. In fact, back then the discussion was usually around how great automated E&M coding was going to be for a doctor. Everything from increased coding levels to firing your billing person were talked about. However, I think the reality is that we’ve seen something much different happen.

Many people hate the automatic E&M coding in EMR because it is wrong so often. If they can’t trust it to do the right coding, then what savings are they really getting from the automation? To put it in the words above, they still need their billing person. Plus, the idea of coding higher is great because it can mean more revenue. However, it also can be seen as upcoding and give you plenty of grief as well. “My EMR told me to do it” isn’t a great defense for over coding a visit.

As I think about these automatic E&M coding engines, it makes me wonder why we don’t have someone who’s created a really great coding engine like we have with drug databases. Since there isn’t that means that every one of the 300+ EMR vendors has their own coding engine. That means we have 300 different E&M coding engines all with different ways to approach coding.

I imagine many would argue the reason the E&M coding engine needs to be part of the EMR is because it needs deep integration with the EMR data. This is true, but the same is going to be true as we enter the world of smart EMR software with deep CDS applications. EMRs aren’t going to build all of these pieces. They’re going to have to enable entrepreneurs to build some really cool stuff on top of their EMR. Why not do the same with E&M coding?

Although, it’s also worth consider, is medical billing one area where human touch is better than automated coding?

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May 30, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  HealthCare IT
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In The Trenches Tips for EMR Transitions

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Over on EMR and EHR recently, Anne Zieger wrote a post about three tips for EHR transitions. As is often the case, one of our passionate readers emailed me a response to the EHR tips that Anne wrote about. I don’t always post what people send me, but I do like to sprinkle in the comments of our readers to provide multiple perspectives on EHR. Especially when they’re passionate, heartfelt comments that may look at the issue different than I do.

The following comments come in response to Anne’s post from a pediatric office. Be sure to read the full post if you want the commentary for each EMR tip.

EMR Tip #1 – Make workflow changes gradual
Response:
Wake up and smell the coffee! If you have ever implemented an EMR, you know this isn’t possible. You are welcome to try, and I certainly recommend it, but get real. Your best bet is to hold on for dear life, remember that this too shall pass, and BRIBE THE STAFF LIBRALLY WITH GOODIES like (healthy) lunch and (healthy) snacks cuz it is cheaper than replacing staff.

EMR Tip #2 – Ask for feedback
Response:
Oh, believe me, you’ll get this — the trick is to make it specific and useful and then to execute on changes that will mollify providers and nursing. And it will all hit you at once, and a priority system is based on how loud the squeaky wheel is.

EMR Tip #3 – Educate patients
Response:
Ha! The frosting on the cake …

… thus leading to more patient phone calls, longer times in the exam room and as a result, more stressed-out staff. Just ask people to be patient and hope for the best…confusion is unavoidable.

Just keep saying to yourself “This too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass…”

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May 29, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  HealthCare IT
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