Healthcare Devices | EMR and HIPAA

The Rise Of mHealth And EHR Use, And The World Of Telehealth – Around Healthcare Scene

Written by: Katie

mHealth is on the rise, and it looks like usage of smart phones among physicians is following that same trend. A recent study shows that usage rose about nine percent in 2012, which shows that it is becoming more accepted in the medical world. It will be interesting to see if it increases even more this year (I have a feeling it might.)

Similar to the increase in doctors using smartphones, there has been a jump in EMR and HIE use as well. A survey from Accenture found that over 90 percent of doctors are using an EMR in either their practice or at a hospital, and over 50 percent are using an HIE. This increase was highest among doctors in the United States. Be sure to read more of the interesting facts this survey found about EMR and HIE use in the U.S., and around the world.

Even though 90 percent of doctors are using an EMR at one point or another, only about 55 percent have actually adopted an EHR into their practice. It can be nerve-racking trying to find the perfect EHR. If you are finding yourself at that crossroad, be sure to read these five tips from ADP AdvancedMD on how to have a successful EHR implementation.

Still, some of you may be hesitant to implement an EHR. You may ask, is it worth it? Does it takeaway from healthcare? There is debate from both sides, each with compelling arguments. John believes that technology is overall positive in any industry, and discusses his thoughts, and some of the challenges that faces the industry.

Telehealth and medicine is so huge, it can be hard to digest. Neil Versel recently attended the American Telemedicine Association’s annual conference in Austin, Texas, and saw just how huge this market was. Be sure to check out this video he created from his experience, and to perhaps get a better idea about the many types of telehealth. Similar to the increase in doctors using smartphones, there has been a jump in EMR and HIE use as well. A survey from Accenture found that over 90 percent of doctors are using an EMR in either their practice or at a hospital, and over 50 percent are using an HIE. This increase was highest among doctors in the United States. Be sure to read more of the interesting facts this survey found about EMR and HIE use in the U.S., and around the world.

With summer quickly approaching, it’s more important than ever to stay hydrated. But if you need a little reminder, be sure to look into the Jomi Band. It gives you warnings when you might be on the brink of dehydration, and makes it easy to keep track of how much water you’ve consumed in a day’s time.

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May 12, 2013 I Written By Katie

Katie Clark is originally from Colorado and currently lives in Utah with her husband and son. She writes primarily for Smart Phone Health Care, but contributes to several Health Care Scene blogs, including EMR Thoughts, EMR and EHR, and EMR and HIPAA. She enjoys learning about Health IT and mHealth, and finding ways to improve her own health along the way.

Tags:EHR EMR mHealth Telehealth

User-friendly EMRs, Meaningful Use Fraud, and DietBet – Around Healthcare Scene

Written by: Katie

Many are concerned with the user experience in Health IT – particularly regarding the user-friendliness of EMRs. While it is easy to be overwhelmed by the negative reports, there are businesses and providers working hard to resolve these issues. McKesson is one of those companies, and they were recently recognized for their work at HIMSS13. Will more companies start making efforts like this?

One step toward making EMRs more user-friendly is, well, making them accessible to patients. Unfortunately, according to a recent Accenture study, 65 percent of doctors believe patients should only have limited access to their health records, and 4 percent believe records should be totally closed. Reasons range from self-consciousness of what a doctor says in a record, to being uncomfortable with using digital records. Allowing patient-access may very well be a huge cultural shift for doctors everywhere.

In order to pass Meaningful Use stage 1, one must indicate which EMR was adopted. But, according to BuildYourEMR.com’s CEO, Mike Jensen, 74 percent of the providers who stated they were using his EMR…weren’t. If this is similar across the board, around 5.4 billion dollars were paid in error for incentives. While this isn’t likely to be the case, it’s pretty sad the lengths people will go to in order to get some extra money. EMR vendors need to start going over their CMS data in order to help prevent this fraudulent behavior.

If money was at stake for you to lose weight, would that motivate you? For most people, it probably would. DietBet takes the desire people have to lose weight and pairs it with the innate desire to have money, and creates a weight-loss game. If you lose 4 percent of your body weight in four weeks, you get part of the money pot for the group you are in. If you don’t, you lose the amount you paid to participate in the first place.

John recently had the opportunity to go to TEDMED as a guest of the Breakaway Group (A Xerox company)
. It was a great experience for him, and highlights can be found @ehrandhit or searching #simplehealth on Twitter. John recounts some of key takeaways from TEDMED, and suggests some of the major themes that will likely be seen in healthcare.

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April 21, 2013 I Written By Katie

Filed Under: EHR EHR Benefits EHR Stimulus Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR EMR Consulting EMR Technology Healthcare Healthcare Devices Healthcare Social Media Hospitals Meaningful Use

Tags:BuildYourEMR.com DietBet mHealth MIke Jensen Health IT TedMed TEDMED 2013

Effortless EHR Interaction

Written by: John Lynn

I recently came across the really interesting device called MYO. I really can’t do the device justice, so I’ll just share this video which will do a much better job showing the gesture controls that are possible with the MYO.

I love how it senses even changes in the muscle. I love when description that says that the response sometimes feels like it responds before you even move since it senses your muscle before the movement is even done. Pretty amazing.

There are has to be so many possible uses for a next generation gesture device like MYO in healthcare. I’ve been thinking a lot about effortless EHR interaction and where it could go. I wonder if MYO and other gesture control systems can dramatically improve a physician’s interaction with an EHR.

Plus, the most exciting thing of all is that I think we’re still in the very early days of what’s going to be possible with gesture control and human computer interaction in general. Pair this with always on ubiquitous computing like is being shown with Google Glass and we’re just at the very beginning of the computing revolution.

I guess we’ll see if healthcare decides to lag behind these new technologies or whether we’ll ride the wave of transformation.

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April 9, 2013 I Written By John Lynn

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.

Filed Under: Biometrics EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR EMR Technology Healthcare Devices HealthCare IT

Tags:EHR Interaction Gesture Control Google Glass MYO

The Health IT Tablet Shift and Some Hope for Windows 8

Written by: John Lynn

One of the most amazing shifts that we’ve seen in healthcare is the acceptance of the tablet form factor. I’ve been fascinated with tablets since they first came out. The idea was always great, but in implementation the idea always fell apart. Many a sales rep told me how the tablet was going to be huge for healthcare. Yet, everyone that I know that got one of the really early tablets stopped using it.

Of course, the tablets that I’m referring to our the pre-iPad tablets. As one Hospital CTO told me at HIMSS, “the iPad changed tablets.”

It’s so true. Now there isn’t even a discussion of whether the tablet is the right form factor for healthcare. The only question I heard asked at HIMSS was if a vendor had a tablet version of their application. In fact, I’m trying to remember if I saw a demo of any product at HIMSS that wasn’t on a tablet. Certainly all of the EHR Interface Improvements that I saw at HIMSS were all demonstrated on a tablet.

As an extension of the idea of tablets place in healthcare, I was also interested in the healthcare CTO who suggested to me that it’s possible that the Windows 8 tablet could be the platform for their health systems mobile approach. Instead of creating one iPad app that had to integrate all of their health system applications, he saw a possibility that the Windows 8 tablet could be the base for a whole suite of individual applications that were deployed by the health system.

I could tell that this wasn’t a forgone conclusion, but I could see that this was one path that he was considering seriously when it came to how they’d approach mobile. I’m sure that many have counted out Microsoft in the tablet race. However, I think healthcare might be once place where the Windows 8 tablet takes hold.

When you think about the security needs of healthcare, many hospital IT professionals are familiar with windows security and so they’ll likely be more comfortable with Windows 8. Now we’ll just have to see if Windows 8 and the applications on top of it can deliver the iPad experience that changed tablets as we know them.

Around Healthcare Scene: EMRs and Health Technology Talk

Written by: Katie

EMRs are supposed to increase efficiency and patient care. However, because of the amount of data they contain, sometimes the opposite happens. Anne Zieger discusses a recent report in Modern Healthcare, which talks about how nearly 30 percent of PCPs claim that they missed notifications of test results, leading to a delay in care, thanks to the over-abundance of information the EMR collects.

Would the use of mHealth technology such as tablets and smart phones cause harm like this as well? We’re sure to find out soon with mobile technology advancing among providers. Research shows that some providers are “gradually shifting their use of smart mobile devices from business functions like e-mail and scheduling to a much wider range of activities. Be sure to read some of Anne’s thoughts on the matter, and find out if this growth will continue at this pace.

And speaking of tablets, around 4,000 home care staff will be receiving a brand new Android tablet. Bayada, a national home care agency has recently sent out Samsung Galaxy Tabs to therapists, medical social workers and other home health professionals. Considering the fact that iPads are often the tablet of choice, this was an interesting move. The workers can document information while at a patient’s home, as well pull up data before going to the house. Will more healthcare providers be taking on the Android tablets, because of their lower cost? Chime in over at Hospital EMR and EHR.

There’s always some kind of new app being created to help people keep track of their health. Now, people can use uChek, an at-home urinanalysis, to keep their health in check. The mobile app, along with the uChek kits, allow people to test their urine for a variety of different markers. While it shouldn’t be used to replace a necessary visit to the doctor’s office, it could help prevent certain issues from getting worse by catching them early on.

With all this talk of technology in the healthcare world, one might wonder how it affects patient engagement. We recently switched pediatricians for my house, and while the last office was very tech savvy, this new office doesn’t have a computer in the offices, they give out paper prescriptions, and they have paper files. And to be honest, I love this office way more because of how personal the visit was, with no technology to distract the doctor. At our old office, the doctor stood far away from us, only looked at the computer the majority of the time, and it just wasn’t personal. However, because a lot of the mHealth technology does a lot of good, Dr. West over at the Happy EMR Doctor has some suggestions. He has created a list of 7 tips to help improve EHR etiquette, and this is definitely something all healthcare providers should follow. Just because there’s technology, doesn’t mean the importance of patient engagement should disappear as well.

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March 10, 2013 I Written By Katie

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

Tags:Android Anne Zieger Apple Bayada EHR EMR mHealth uChek

Healthcare IT at CES and Digital Health Summit

Written by: John Lynn

As most of you know, I attend quite a few healthcare IT conferences. This is aided by many great conferences coming to my hometown of Las Vegas. Next week this happens again when the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) happens in Las Vegas. If you thought HIMSS was big, you should attend CES to see what big really is. CES is insane. It’s so large that I think that Las Vegas is the only convention city that can support its size. CES takes over both the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Sands Convention Center and that’s just for the official show.

I’ve been attending CES ever since I moved to Las Vegas about 7 years ago. At first I mostly attended CES to enjoy the “circus.” I’d just walk onto the CES show floor and get lost in the flashing lights, incredible products, showy booths, and just about everything else you could imagine on an exhibit floor. It was always a fun experience and I’d always happen upon something healthcare IT related in my wanderings.

A couple years ago, CES started to create essentially mini-conferences within the larger CES conference. One of those focuses was healthcare IT and was called the Digital Health Summit. Since those small beginnings the digital health portion of CES has grown into a really interesting place to see various consumer health IT products.

The Digital Health Summit is broken into two areas. First, they have the educational programming piece which is 2 days of digital health panels. You can see the full Digital Health Summit agenda here. One thing I love about the Digital Health Summit is that it’s not the regular healthcare IT speakers. In fact, in many cases it is people who you won’t find at other healthcare IT conferences you might attend. So, you’re guaranteed to hear some different perspectives on healthcare IT that you hadn’t heard before. Plus, they bring in big names like Arianna Huffington, Sanjay Gupta, and Deepak Chopra MD.

The second part of the Digital Health Summit is a section of the CES show floor that is focused on digital health. Each year I’ve attended the Digital Health section of CES has grown larger and larger. It’s usually an interesting mix of devices, exercise equipment, healthcare companies (like United Health Group), and other amazing healthcare technology (like the Genetic sequencer at last year’s CES). I even found an EHR company at CES one year. It seems that healthcare devices are really coming into their own this year and so I expect the exhibit hall to be stock full of the latest medical devices.

I’m sure I’ll be tweeting from CES on @ehrandhit when I find cool things. Plus, I’m sure I’ll capture a picture or two of the craziness that is CES (like the guy last year who was doing double back flips on a trampoline wearing skis).

If you’re going to be at CES, let me know. I always love meeting people at the event and enjoying the craziness together.

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January 3, 2013 I Written By John Lynn

Filed Under: Health IT Startups Healthcare Devices HealthCare IT

Tags:CES CES 2013 Consumer Medical Devices Digital Health Digital Health Summit Digital Health Summit 2013 Genetic Sequencer Healthcare IT Conferences Las Vegas United Health Group

Healthcare.gov, EMR Switch, and Flu and RSV Detector: Around Healthcare Scene

Written by: Katie

It was a quiet week around Healthcare Scene, but here are a few of the posts that did get posted. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, and this new year will be the best yet!

EMR and EHR

11 Reasons Why Healthcare is So Screwed Up

This list was initially created by GetReferralMD and reposted on EMR and EHR. This post doesn’t go into details about each of the reason, but it provides some interesting food for thought. Some of the reasons on the list include insurance companies, ignorance, and McDonalds. With the upcoming new year, it’s the perfect time for resolutions to be made, and some of these issues to be addressed.

Healthcare.gov

This government-run website has recently been revamped, and now offers a lot more features. It has an obvious mission — to convince everyone to back-up Obamacare, but it has neat options now like an insurance options wizard and tools to help people understand using insurance. It still leaves some things to be desired, but it’s a nice site that doesn’t have the looks of a typical government site.

Hospital EMR and EHR

2013: The Year of the EMR Switch

This coming year appears to be the one where more hospitals will be switching to EMR. This will, obviously, have a huge affect on the EMR sales process. It will include tons of EMR marketing, alternatives may have more of a chance, and market winners and losers will be named.

New Hospital Rockets To Top Of HIMSS EMR Adoption Scale

While many smaller hospitals have been behind the curve when it comes to Meaningful Use and HIMSS standards, one 50-bed Texas hospital challenges that sterotype. Texas Alliance Health has achieve stage-7 of the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model — something that only 1.9 percent of U.S. hospitals has achieved. This is quite the feat for any hospital, especially a small one like Texas Alliance. It had many factors working in its favor, particularly that it has only been open since September.

Smart Phone Healthcare

UK Company Developing a Biosensor Device to Detect Flu and RSV

Early detection of the flu and RSV can help prevent these illnesses from getting worse. However, early detection is hard to come by, and when the first stages have passed, many treatments are not affective. OJ-Bio, a UK-based company, seeks to change that. A new sensor is in the works that accurately can detect these illnesses, as well as other respiratory illnesses, quickly, early-on, and at home.

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December 30, 2012 I Written By Katie

Filed Under: EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR EMR Implementation EMR Selection Health IT Startups Healthcare Healthcare Devices HealthCare IT Healthcare Social Media Meaningful Use mHealth

Tags:EHR EMR HIMSS OJ-Bio Texas Alliance Health

Healthcare Faces Massive Cybersecurity Risks

Written by: Katherine Rourke

When a consumer publication like The Washington Post – hardly an insider journal of computing — picks out your industry and slams it for having poor cybersecurity, you know something’s amiss.

The newspaper has just published a report, following a year-long cybersecurity investigation, arguing that healthcare is one of the most vulnerable industries in the U.S., making it a tasty target for terrorists, black-hat hackers and criminals.

It’s rather embarrassing, but it’s hard to argue with the Post’s conclusion that healthcare data security isn’t what it could be. A few data points:

* Researchers are finding that healthcare institutions routinely fail to fix known bugs in aging software, something other industries have largely overcome.

* Providers are making careless use of such public cybertools; the paper cites the example of the University of Chicago medical center, which at one point operated an unsecured Dropbox site for new residents managing care through their iPads (with a single user name and password published online, yet!)

* According to Post research, open source system OpenEMR “has scores of security flaws that make it easy prey for hackers”

* In perhaps the scariest example, the paper notes that clinicians routinely work around cybersecurity measures to get their job done.

Another factor contributing to cybersecurity holes is confusion about the FDA’s position on security. While the agency actually wants vendors to update FDA-approved device interfaces and systems, vendors often believe that the FDA bars them from updating device software, the Post found.

That leaves devices, especially defibrillators and insulin pumps, open to attacks. Researchers have been able to find these devices, linked to the web in the clear, simply by using a specialized search engine.

As wireless medical devices and smartphones, iPads and Android devices creep into the mix, cybersecurity vulnerabilities are likely to get worse, not better. I wonder whether we’ll need to see a cybersecurity disaster take place before the industry catches up to, say, financial services?

Wireless Healthcare IT, Risk Analysis, and Ever-changing Technology: Around Healthcare Scene

Written by: Katie

EMR and EHR

Why 2013 Will Be A Good Year For EMRS

EMRs don’t always have the best reputation, particularly concerning their ease for implementation. However, there are some things that are looking up in 2013 for the industry. Ann Zieger discusses these, and includes ideas such as vendors being able to offer mobile options, as well as consolidation leading to a more stable vendor market.

Wireless Healthcare IT Could Hold the Key to Preventable Readmissions

CardioMEMS developed a heart-failure monitoring system, the first of its kind. The company understands the need from back-end data and has a lot of potential for the future. Technology like this may be the key to preventing hospital readmissions.

Hospital EMR

Hospitals Stepping Up Security Risk Analysis, While Practices Lag

EMRs pose a large risk for criminal hackers to come in. However, according to a HIMSS survey, around 90 percent of hospitals are now conducting annual risk analysis. Unfortunately, practices only came in at about 65 percent. An even more surprising fact was that 22 percent of survey responders reported having a security breach next year. While there have been a lot of strides made toward stepping up security risk analysis, there is still a ways to go.

Meaningful Health IT News

Technology Changes Faster Than You Think

In 2005, smart phones weren’t mainstream in the health industry. This post also includes other interesting facts about mHealth only seven years ago, and it goes to show just how fast technology is changing. It raises the question, where will we be seven years from now? An interesting infographic from 2005 is also shown in this post as well.

Smart Phone Healthcare

The Patient’s Guide Reveals How iPhone Dominates Mobile Health Research

A recent study done by the Patient’s Guide researched the use of medical devices. During this study, they discovered how the iPhone is by far the most popular device being used. This post includes an infographic from The Patient’s Guide that displays other findings from the study.

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December 16, 2012 I Written By Katie

Filed Under: EHR EHR Benefits Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR EMR Analyst EMR Implementation EMR Technology Healthcare Healthcare Devices HealthCare IT Hospitals Meaningful Use Medical Privacy PHR

Tags:EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR The Patient's Guide

Health IT Hazards, Selecting the Right EHR, and Withings Wireless Scale – Around Healthcare Scene

Written by: Katie

Hospital EMR and EHR

Health IT Stands Out In Health Technology Hazards List

The Top 10 Health Technology Hazards list was recently released by ECRI. And this year, two of the hazards that made the list are health IT related – patient/data mismatches in EHRs and other HIT systems, and, interoperability failures with medical devices and health IT systems. Anne Zeiger predicts that more HIT issues will top this list in the future.

Patients Accessing Online Medical Records Use More Services

A new study revealed something interesting — patients who use online access to medical records are likely to use more clinical services than those who do not. The Journal of the American Medical Association drew this conclusion after studying members of Kaiser. Kaiser has had a patient portal in place since 2006, which made it an ideal candidate for this study.

EMR and EHR

10 Tips for Selecting the Right EHR

In the market for a new EHR? Or perhaps just implementing one? This post highlights 10 tips on selecting the right EHR for your practice, as presented by Insight Data Group. Some of the suggestions include making sure the EHR is easy to use and customized, and use the government’s money to pay for your EHR.

Meaningful Healthcare IT News

Social and Mobile Continue to Converge in Healthcare

An interesting infographic is shown and discussed in this post. It is called “How Health Consumers Engage Online,” and reveals some interesting facts about the digital and health world. According to it, more people in the United States own a smart phone than a tooth brush, and 23 percent of people use social media to follow the health experiences of a friend. This definitely presents some fascinating data that is worth reading.

Smart Phone Health Care

New Withings Wireless Internet Scale Hits the Market

A new scale was recently released, and it does more than just tell a person how much they weigh. It tracks numerous variables, including BMI, and can be synced to various mHealth apps. There is also an app that goes along with the scale as well. It is a bit pricey at over $100, but it definitely “tips the scales” when it comes to scales.

Smart Phone Enabled Thermometer Approved By FDA

The “Raiing” is the newest in smart phone technology. It’s a high-tech, yet easy-to-use, thermometer, designed for iOS devices. It is placed under the armpit, and can actually track a person’s temperature over time. If a temperature reaches a certain number, an alarm will go off on the connected smart phone. This can help give parent’s peace of mind, as a sick child sleeps.

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December 2, 2012 I Written By Katie