I’ve been coming accross a few different EMR and Health Information Management organizations that I probably should have known about if I was going to claim to have an EMR blog. Here’s are a few that I have found during my start into EMR blogging. I admit that I’ve only found a couple so far, but I figured if I posted the few that I’ve found here I might here from some of my readers on other organizations I should know about and follow.
HIMSS – Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
TEPR – Towards the Electronic Patient Record

ASTM – Continuity of Care Record(CCR) Standard
HL7 – HL7 Standard

I know I’m missing a lot, but I’m sure my trusty readers will let me know of any others worth mentioning. I also must admit that I wish I would have gone to either the HIMSS or TEPR conference this year. I should have planned better. The HIMSS 2006 would have been really cool because I could have gone to the blogger meetup. Maybe next year.

The AAFP reported an interesting piece on a request that the Continuity of Care Record (CCR) be used by HHS to carry forward their IT Healthcare goals. While I’m glad I don’t do this kind of political jockeying I love to read about it. Here’s part of the letter that was sent to HHS:

* The CCR standard has been endorsed by multiple physician organizations and health IT vendors and is already in the market and available for use.
* The standard is a comprehensive clinical content standard with 16 sections, including patient demographics, encounters, diagnoses, medications, allergies and immunizations.
* The CCR standard will permit interoperable exchange of personal health data between disparate electronic health record systems used in medical practices.
* The standard is an open standard and is free of licensing fees.

I really need to spend some more time on this subject. I found the Continuity of Care Record(CCR) website. Something that I don’t like already is that their “official CCR Implementation Guide” costs. Maybe this is standard, but I’m not sure I’m ready to pay to see the official guide. I guess they have to fund CCR some way or another.

I saw a really good article that seemed to be starting towards RHIO that everyone wants, but no one wants to work or pay for. The article discusses how Hospitals in Indianapolis have created an RHIO to exhange lab results, radiology reports, and discharge summaries.
It was really nice that it discussed some interesting challenges that face an RHIO. Foremost in my mind is that it requires someone a full day to be able to “copy and paste” the data from the records into a company’s EMR. They are looking at integrating it with HL7 so they don’t have to do this. I guess this is baby steps, but can you imagine having to enter lab result data all day. I did data entry for a while and it’s not any fun. Plus, this isn’t just data entry, but knowing which result field it should be added to in your EMR.
I wonder if they have any plans to integrate some of the data with the CCR standard. I think projects like this and the people behind them are going to really determine the future of medical interactions.

This CCR Initiative seems to show some interesting promise and I’m very interested to look more into it. I’m not sure how HL7 and CCR will work together(or against each other), but I expect to see the CCR abbreviation to become commonplace with EMR’s.

Here’s some good info I got from this website:

Continuity of Care Record Is Developed by

ASTM International Health Care Informatics Committee

W. CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa., 5 January 2006—A revolutionary new ASTM International standard will change the way in which healthcare professionals preserve and transfer healthcare information about their patients. The standard, E 2369, Specification for Continuity of Care Record (CCR), was developed by Subcommittee E31.28 on Electronic Health Records, which is under the jurisdiction of Committee E31 on Healthcare Informatics.

The Continuity of Care Record is a core dataset to be sent to the next healthcare provider whenever a patient is referred, transferred, or otherwise uses different clinics, hospitals, or other providers. The CCR will bring an end to physicians and other healthcare professionals having to act “blindly,” without easy access to relevant patient information. It will provide the necessary information to support continuity of care, thus reducing medical errors, achieving higher efficiency, and creating better quality of care.

During the past two years, U.S. President George W. Bush has called for greater interoperability of electronic medical records and personal health records. E 2369 represents a major step forward in assisting vendors and healthcare organizations in their search for simple, yet powerful tools that will help meet the president’s objectives.

Read more…