Welcome to EMR and HIPAA

If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, then you know that I currently work in College Health at my local University. I started this job about 3 years ago and it has been a great learning experience for me in learning about EMR and healthcare IT.

When I started the job 3 years ago, I took advantage of working at the University and started classes for my Masters in Information Systems. Happily I completed my Masters a few weeks ago. With the completion of my Masters degree, I’ve decided to start looking around for other job opportunities. I already have a few leads, but I thought I’d post my availability to my blog in case any of my readers have potential job openings.

To be completely honest, I’m really jack of all trades when it comes to technology. I’ve done everything from server and database administration to workstation rollouts. I enjoy optimizing processes and analyzing how to revamp a process using technology. I don’t want to be a programmer and will probably avoid doing any hard core system or database administration, but those things are fine as a small part of my job. I much prefer working in a strategic position where I can plan and organize in a way that the company is well positioned for the future.

If anyone has some potential job openings in the EMR or Healthcare IT field, then I’d love to hear about the opportunity and I’ll have my resume handy. You can either leave me a comment or send me an email at john [at] emrandhipaa {.} com

I never thought when I started this blog that it would do so well. I mostly just started it as a labor of love. It still is a labor of love, but I was really happy when a number of advertisers were interested in advertising on EMR and HIPAA.

Thanks to Medical Software Associates and emrexperts for advertising on EMR and HIPAA. I really appreciate your financial support of this blog and my wife appreciates it even more.

If there are any other advertisers interested in advertising on EMR and HIPAA, please leave a comment on this post or email john [at] emrandhipaa {.} com Visitors to this site stay an average of 4 minutes and 40 seconds and visitors are almost exclusively interested in EMR and health care related topics. A very nice targeted market for EMR vendors, EHR vendors or I would think it would work really well for pharmaceutical companies too.

I don’t think I want to know the answer to that question literally, but sometimes I wonder when sales and marketing people from an EMR company come to this blog and place comments like the following:

A free practice management software solution for medical practices

[EMR Company] is a free practice management software solution for medical practices. It is the only software a clinic would ever need as it supports all internal clinic functions including scheduling, registration, billing, EMR, reporting and all external interactions with payers including claim submission, ERA and eligibility verification. The software is built to allow communication with external agencies such as billing, transcription, appointment scheduling vendors. Since it has extensive functionality, website has free tutorials and free customer service to help customers become proficient with the system.

With an integrated database and automated workflow, [EMR Company] increases productivity, velocity and accuracy within the clinic. It is deployed as hosted solution eliminating the need to purchase expensive hardware or backup solutions. All communication is encrypted to protect patient information. [EMR Company] is unique in that it does not use a web browser; instead it has the familiar, intuitive Windows based interface. [EMR Company] automatically self-updates with the latest version, which are generally released every 2 weeks. Since it is not browser based, [EMR Company] can directly interface with compatible desktop products such as scanners and mobile charge capture software.

[EMR Company]’s business model is truly unique – it does not charge for its software modules (except optional EMR module - $35/month), customer service and setup. However it supports itself by charging a small fee for each payer transaction, typically less than what you would pay your clearinghouse to submit claims electronically.

For more details go to [EMR Company]

Some EMR vendor (who I’ll leave nameless) tried to post the above comment on my post about EMR forums. I don’t mind a signature from an EMR company with a link to their website if they’ve provided at least some sort of decent comment about the post. However, outright advertising their company on my blog comments is crazy. They obviously don’t understand that I can remove/mark as spam any comments like that. Plus, comments use the “no follow” tag and so they aren’t getting much SEO benefit from it either.

I don’t expect this to stop, but expect that more and more people will do this in the future. Don’t. It doesn’t do any good. If you want to advertise on my site contact me or leave a comment. It doesn’t cost that much and you’ll be getting highly targeted referrals from people researching EMR.

I can’t believe that it’s been almost a month and a half since my last post. I think that’s definitely a record for EMR and HIPAA. What can I say? My EMR presentation in Hawaii led into Thanksgiving which led into the Christmas holidays and just today I got back from a 2 week vacation in Utah. My family and I had a great time and I hope that you all had a great Christmas season also.

Now that I’m back home, I’ll hopefully have enough time to post more about EMR and HIPAA. I have at least one special post in mind, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get to a bunch of other things also.

I’m moving hosts for EMR and HIPAA. I’m excited to consolidate my hosting and move EMR and HIPAA to hopefully a little faster and more reliable host. Not to mention, I think that this host isn’t located in Canada and so Google won’t be confused and send me the Canadian traffic. Not that I have anything against Canadians, but I always thought it was interesting that Google.ca sent me all sorts of referrals.

It will take a few days for everything to transfer over, so I’ll probably wait to post for the next couple days. Always better to let everything settle before I make to many other changes.

By the way, if you are looking for a good host, you might want to consider Bluehost. I’m planning on moving all of my domains to them. In fact, I already have 3 on there. Here’s the banner with what they offer.

I’m happy to announce that EMR and HIPAA will be having a second blogger participating in spreading the EMR and EHR love. Her name is Elizabeth and she’ll be offering a very different perspective on EMR and EHR than I could ever do. I think that most people know that I’m a technical person that just loves working with EMRs. Elizabeth is going to offer more of the legal and hospital perspective of EMR. I’m really interested myself to read her posts and learn more about how doctors can benefit from their hospitals purchasing an EMR. I personally have always heard that things like this were possible, but that sounded like the Holy Grail of EMR to me. Hopefully Elizabeth can help us find that Holy Grail or at least inform us about how it works.

Of course, I don’t want to pigeon hole Elizabeth into one topic. Just like I often get side tracked with other personal and technical concepts, I hope that Elizabeth will occasionally do the same.

Since we may be discussing some legal issues I feel inclined to share the following:

Comments on EMRandHIPAA.com do not represent legal advice and we do not have an attorney-client relationship. If you want legal advice, you should contact a qualified attorney that may help you.

Sorry for the disclaimer, but it’s necessary. In fact, I’ll be posting it at the bottom of my blog as soon as I get a chance.

You can expect Elizabeth’s first post starting tomorrow.

I started this blog about 1.5 years ago in December 2005. At the time I didn’t really know too much about blogs. I’d kind of worked on my Smuggle Me Blog, but that was mostly just playing around. Thankfully I was bored over Christmas break and so I was found searching the internet for information on EMR. As I accrued all this information I decided that I wanted a way to publish my thoughts on EMR and also share the various EMR related items in one place. It was kind of fun to look at my first EMR and HIPAA blog post.

When I started my blog I hoped that one day I’d make it to the top of Google’s search for EMR. In fact, my first attempts at getting visitors to my blog was finding the highest ranked EMR sites on Google and joining. 1000 posts on EMRUpdate (one of the top EMR websites on Google) and I’m still enjoying my visits to the site. I really want to thank EMRUpdate for giving me lots of great content, keeping me motivated and sending me plenty of traffic when I was just starting. Well, now I guess that my website has finally made it to the front page of Google for EMR (Number 10 to be exact). It feels great to be recognized by Google as one of the top 10 sites for EMR.

I also want to take a second to post a big Mahalo (Thank You) to the various sponsors and advertisers that have supported my EMR and HIPAA blog. It’s been great working with the good folks at EMR Experts and Medical Software Associates. My wife really appreciates the date money. If anyone else is interested in sponsoring or advertising on EMR and HIPAA, then leave a comment and I’ll get a hold of you.

Thanks for all those readers who have left great comments and provided even more ideas for my blog.

Well, as you can see my blog hasn’t gotten much activity lately. I wish I could say that things were going to get better, but the fact is that you probably won’t see many posts from me for the next 2-3 weeks. I’m going to Italy with my wife. I will give you a little look at where we’re headed in Italy.

Rome
We’ll be flying into Rome arriving about 10 AM. We’ll spend most the afternoon going around Rome. I think that Trevi Fountains, and the spanish steps are tops on my list of places to see in Rome. I also love going to St. Peter’s and watching the painters.

Napoli
After touring Rome we’ll hope on a train and head down to my friend’s place in Napoli. She is the sweetest lady. She said she’d have dinner waiting for us and a key to her house so we can just come and go as we please.

The next morning we’ll be touring some of Italy and I definitely have to hit Piazza Garibaldi to get me a suit and some other Sunday clothes for church. I was also told that there will be a baptism Saturday night. This happened last time I went to Napoli (truthfully Pozzuoli). It’s so much fun, because I get a chance to see a bunch of the members all at once. The next morning I’m sure we’ll enjoy church in probably the most beautiful chapel I’ve ever seen. Well, at least the view from the chapel is the best.

Amalfi
Monday we’ve got a nice hotel lined up in the beautiful town of Amalfi. We’ll probably check in to our hotel as early as possible and then head up for a little hike to the waterfalls just above Amalfi where they use to make paper. It’s an incredible hike that feels like you’ve gone into a completely different world. Got to love Valle Dei Mullini.

Positano
After spending the night in Amalfi, we’ll be taking an early morning “chicken bus” up to my favorite place in Italia:Sentiero degli Dei (Trail of the Gods). It’s about a 4 and a half hour hike. At the end of the hike there are 1000 steps to reach the beautiful city of Positano below. We’ve got a hotel lined up in Positano which will be a certainly welcome relief.

Napoli - Pompeii and Vesuvius
The next morning we haven’t decided exactly what we’ll do, but we’re considering heading to Pompeii since it’s in the area. However, if we’re too tired we might head back to Napoli and go to Pompeii later. I would love to take the boat from Positano back to Napoli. The boat is a lot of fun and a nice soothing ride.

Venice
After spending a couple days with friends in Napoli, we’ll be heading for a romantic weekend in Venice. I can’t say anything about Venice. It’s absolutely the most unique place I’ve ever been. It’s Romantic. It’s incredible and I can’t wait to stroll the streets with my wife. Not to mention a nice gondola ride.

Bologna
I’ll be meeting a friend of mine in Bologna. We’ll be attending church in Bologna which should be interesting since we’ve never been there. I’d rather go to church somewhere else, but I really want to see my friend Maria Rosaria so we’ll do what we have to do. Sunday after church my friend will pick us up and after eating some of her mother’s fine fine Italian cooking we’ll be heading to Florence.

Florence
We haven’t decided how many days we should spend in Florence. We’ll stay at least a day and up to 4 days. I must admit that my wife and I aren’t that into art and so I’m not sure how long we’ll want to stay in Florence. I think we’re probably going to want to head back to Napoli to spend more time with friends.

Well, that’s the general round up of our trip through Italy. Most things are subject to change, but it doesn’t really matter. No matter where we go or what we do we have nothing to worry about, because the best part of Italy is….

THE FOOD!!

Hopefully I’ll be able to at least blog a little from Italy, but if I can’t then we’ll see you after our trip.

I often get emails from all sorts of people that want me to post this information or that. Sometimes I read it. Most the times I just delete it. Although, I almost always inspect it to see if it is worth reading. Today I found one that was pretty interesting. It’s a survey commissioned by QuadraMed (AMEX: QD, www.quadramed.com) that polled 587 American consumers. Here’s the summary results:

When asked if they were aware of the concept of electronic medical records, respondents were split (Yes: 49%, No: 51%).
After reviewing the definition of electronic medical records, the majority of respondents agreed that electronic medical records would increase each of the following:
The quality level of care they receive (91%)
The efficiency of the overall healthcare system (*93%)
The likelihood that they would chose a doctor or hospital with the technology needed to access and update EMR’s over one that did not (82%).

I was actually surprised that consumers actually were aware of the concept of electronic medical records. Although, I guess the numbers could be skewed. I often say that I work at a Health Center doing Electronic Medical Records. People nod their head like they know what they’re talking about. Occasionally I follow up with a question like, you know what electronic medical records are? They usually give you a dumb look and say, well I can kind of understand what an electronic record is. Then, they usually admit that they have no clue what I really do.

I do think the last number is the most interesting. 82% of people would be more likely to go to a doctor’s office that had an EMR. This reminds me of a discussion we had a long time ago on EMRUpdate. Someone wanted to market to their patients that they had an EMR and came up with the clever slogan Got EMR? I don’t think it really went anywhere, but all of us on the forum got a good laugh thinking about how you could promote your use of an EMR to your patients.

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but here in Las Vegas it seems like the doctors have more than enough patients and don’t need to really market their services. Maybe if there was an over supply of doctors, patients would look into a doctor’s EMR use more. For now, paper chart or EMR will probably do most consumers.

I must admit that usually I’m not that interested in healthcare blogs that don’t have to do with technology and electronic medical record. However, I’ve had to make an exception with the Healthcare Managers blog. I love her open style and her willingness to talk about anything. I love that she’s not trying to hide anything and she really wants to get people’s feedback. I think many of my readers will enjoy her blog as well.