Today I’m happy to officially introduce readers of EMR and HIPAA to my latest project: The Healthcare Scene blog network. If you follow me on twitter (@techguy and @ehrandhit), then you’ve probably already come across one or more of the great blogs in this new healthcare IT blog network. I’m really excited with the group of bloggers that I have working on the network and the amazing content they’ve been creating and will create.

Before I introduce you to the various websites on the network, here’s a little background in why I decided to do this. As I looked at the various healthcare IT and EMR bloggers producing content, I was disappointed that many of them were creating great content that wasn’t getting nearly as much attention and traffic as the content deserved. Plus, many hadn’t benefited financially from all the great content they were creating. Combine lack of traffic with lack of financial rewards and these independent voices often disappear.

I saw this as a real opportunity to leverage many of the marketing and advertising tools that I’d created for EMR and HIPAA to the benefit of many others in the EMR and healthcare IT world. Plus, a number of my current advertisers told me that there weren’t enough online healthcare IT advertising options out there. I see this network as a real win for everyone. Independent bloggers can have their voices magnified while making money doing so. Readers and the EMR and Healthcare IT industry get more independently created content (including content by doctors). Healthcare IT advertisers will have more opportunities to advertise next to great content. I get to expand my network and work with a bunch of really smart people.

Now here’s a look at the websites that will be part of the Healthcare Scene blog network:

• Meaningful HIT News – This blog written by Neil Versel started in May 2004 and has over 500 posts. Neil is one of the only pure healthcare IT journalists out there and has been doing it for the past 15 years across more publishers than you can count, but most recently at Fierce Healthcare. I’m excited that Neil has chosen to move his blog to the HealthcareScene.com blog network. He’s a must read journalist for anyone in EMR and healthcare IT. I borrowed much of my writing style from Neil and so if you like this site, go and subscribe to Meaningful HIT News email list and you won’t be disappointed.
• EMR and Healthcare IT News – The firehose of EMR and Healthcare IT news sent out by vendors. A great way for vendors to get their word out and for industry people to see the latest developments in EMR and healthcare IT. I’m looking to partner with healthcare IT PR firms on the site, so hit my Contact Us page if you’re interested.
• Happy EMR Doctor – This blog first started out as a Doctor’s Blog guest post on EMR and EHR, but the content from Dr. West was too good. So, I rolled it off onto its own blog. Dr. West has been through a failed EHR implementation and now is using one of the Free EHR vendors. So, he has some interesting stories to tell.
• Smartphone Health Care – I recently heard that there were something like 30+ mobile health conferences or conferences with a mobile health track in the past year. That seems like far too many, but it is quite clear that Smart Phones and other mobile devices are going to play a huge role in the future of healthcare. Consider this my foray into the mHealth world.
• Wired EMR Practice – Many of you might remember that I already introduced Dr. Koriwchak’s blog on EMR and HIPAA earlier. Many of you subscribed to his blog and have seen the type of quality content he’s creating. I love doctor’s perspectives on EMR.
• nextHospital – We’ll see how this blog evolves, but it’s the Healthcare Scene’s first blog that isn’t really IT focused. Written by Katherine Rourke (mentioned above), nextHospital will focus on the business of healthcare in hospitals.
• EMR, EHR and HIPAA Wiki – Not a blog, but a pretty cool part of the network nonetheless. Be sure to add your EHR vendor if it’s not on there already.
• EMR and EHR Job Board – Not a blog either, but this job board will be syndicated across all the HealthcareScene.com websites. So, it’s a great places to post or look for a job.
• EMR and HIPAA – Hopefully it needs no intro if you’re reading this post. Let’s just say, 1000 posts, 4713 comments, and over 4 million pageviews.
• EMR and EHR – Very similar to EMR and HIPAA, but only about 2 years old. 300 posts, 1092 comments and 700,000+ pagevies. Katherine Rourke, a healthcare IT journalist with 15+ years of experience, recently started posting on EMR and EHR and is a welcome addition to the site.

I’d say that’s a pretty good start. I’m in talks with a few more bloggers that may or may not join the network. I think there’s still some interesting niches that haven’t been filled. For example, a blog tracking publicly traded healthcare IT stock movements and other healthcare IT investment opportunities could be interesting. Either way, I’m excited to see all the great content that will be created on these sites. Much like this site, each site encourages you to respectfully comment, share the content, and join the conversation. Please let your voice be heard in the comments.

Yes, right now each site looks very much like the rest, but we’re just getting started. Over time I’ll work to give each blogger it’s own brand while also building up the HealthcareScene.com domain to better represent all the activity that’s happening on the network. I see it becoming a virtual hub of the best and brightest conversations happening in and around healthcare IT and EMR.

Let me know what you think of these additions in the comments or drop me a note on my Contact Us page.

It’s been about 3 months since I posted about healthcare IT advertising and the advertisers that keep EMR and HIPAA running. However, I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately about healthcare IT advertising since before HIMSS I’m planning:
1. A New Premium Advertising Package Announcement
2. Launch of a New Healthcare Blog Network

In those discussions (and certainly influenced by the crazy money spent by vendors for HIMSS), I like to give this comparison:
“Compare what you spend at a conference like HIMSS with the 1 million ad impressions a 6 month ad run (Currently $2100) on EMRandHIPAA.com will provide.”

Yep, it costs vendors more to fly people out to a conference than it does to advertise on a very targeted EMR site. I’m currently working on a media kit to help better quantify the value that an advertiser on EMRandHIPAA.com and our family of websites provides.

Even with my pretty simple EMRandHIPAA.com advertising page, we’ve had a lot of very supportive advertisers. In fact, since the last time I posted about new EMR and HIPAA advertisers, I’ve had 8 existing advertisers renew their ads and 3 new advertisers sign up. New advertisers are always great, but there’s a great feeling when an existing advertiser renews since that means they’re getting real value from their investment.

On that note, here’s a look at the 3 new advertisers:

Mitochon – I first met the people behind Mitochon at last year’s HIMSS. They have a real vision for how they think that EHR adoption will occur and I won’t be surprised if they’re right. They offer a Free Certified SaaS EHR, but that’s only the start of their services. They really believe that some of the biggest benefits of EHR is in virtual medical communities. So, they offer an integrated HIE, EMR and PHR. One of the best features of a free EHR is that you can signup for free and try out the full application. So, go check it out and let me know what you think.

Nuesoft – I have a soft place in my heart for Nuesoft. No, not because they created the brilliant Lady Gaga HL7 Interface video. I think fondly of Nuesoft since they were the first EMR I came across when I started working in healthcare IT. The intense 3 day training at their offices was the start of my EMR education. I’m really happy to have their support as an advertiser. Beyond their SaaS EHR offering, they also recently announced the launch of a medical billing service called Nuetopia.

Medical Web Experts – This is a new type of advertiser for EMR and HIPAA since it’s a marketing company that does advertising for a number of different healthcare IT companies. Some of the companies they work with include: PrognoCIS, EMR Consultant, EliteHealthm Phylogic and EMR Experts. John Deutsch is the mastermind behind Medical Web Experts and he also was my very first advertiser on EMRandHIPAA.com. He took the leap advertising on my site in the very early days. It’s great to have him back again.

Thanks also to those advertisers that renewed their ads: Intersystems, PracticeFusion, SOAPware, Ambir, MD-IT, MDCare, MxSecure,and SequelMed.

Side Note: If you’re interested in advertising on EMR and HIPAA, I’d act quickly since the price for the ads is going to increase heading into HIMSS.

I’ve been meaning to do a survey of my readers for a long time now. Today I finally decided to make it happen. No doubt many of you have provided feedback to me in the comments and by email, but I thought that a simple 12 question anonymous survey would be a great way to solicit more feedback from the readers of EMR and HIPAA.

I’m sincerely interested in seeing your responses on how I can make EMR and HIPAA better. So I appreciate you taking the time to fill out the survey. No questions are required so just answer the ones you feel comfortable with.

The survey is embedded below, but if you’re getting this by email then here’s a link to fill out the EMR and HIPAA Survey.

While I admit that I’m much more suited to comment on other people’s prognostications and predictions for EMR and health care IT in 2011, I decided to throw caution to the wind and try and make some predictions for the EMR world in 2011.

Few EMR Vendor Acquisitions – I predict that acquisitions of EMR vendors will actually slow down in 2011. Certainly there needs to be some EMR company consolidation with 300+ EMR companies out there right now (and it seems more coming every day). However, I think 2011 will be a wait and see period where companies want to see how the various EMR companies perform for their clients interested in getting the EMR incentive money. The only thing that might ruin this prediction is that if many of the 300+ EMR companies have issues selling product and then have to basically sell off their assets in a fire sale. We might see some of those, but I believe even those will wait until 2012.

EHR Incentive Numbers Down – We’ve all heard the $36 billion in EHR incentive money. Of course, this is just the projection of how much EHR incentive money they’ll have to give out. I expect that when we get the total amount of EHR incentive money paid out in 2011 that it will be much lower than the projected targeted. Especially if many of them sit out 2011 and wait for 2012.

Health Information Exchange Success Stories – There are so many people working on the health information exchange issue that in 2011 we’re finally going to start seeing some breakthrough stories about the exchange of health information. Although, it won’t likely come from where we expect it. Watch for some unique approaches by companies and communities to finally make the exchange of health information a reality. It won’t be across the US in 2011, but we’ll see the signs of what could be in 2011.

Reimbursement for Online Visits – I’m far from an expert on reimbursement and trends in health insurance so this might be a stretch, but I think we’re going to see the first insurance reimbursement for some sort of online visit. The first draft will be a bit cumbersome and restricted, but it will be the start of the online doctor visit in earnest.

Portable Doctor’s Offices – A few years back I started hearing about some doctors who were going back to the old days. Not the old days of medical care, but the old days of the doctor visiting the patients in their homes. When I think about this, I always think of Little House on the Prairie and them calling for someone to go and get Doc Baker. In 2011, I bet we see a lot more doctors eschewing the traditional doctor’s office and visiting patients in their homes. With a hosted EMR and the portable laptops and iPad like technologies that we have today, it makes running an office out of your car pretty reasonable. Certainly it won’t work for all specialties, but it is a service that I think many patients would pay to have from their doctor.

PHR Adoption Will Continue to Lag – I just see no signs that PHR adoption is going to take off this year.

First EMR Lawsuit – I predict 2011 will bring the first HIPAA lawsuit where EMR is at the center of the lawsuit. It will be an important one to watch since it will likely set precedent for future EMR related lawsuits.

There you go. A few little 2011 predictions. I’d love to hear any predictions you’d like to make and which predictions I’ve made that you think are wrong and why.

I found a really cool WordPress plugin which does a summary of the activity on a blog like EMR and HIPAA. 301 posts in 2010 isn’t too bad. The thing I like most about the stats is 1. the consistency and 2. the incredible number of comments people have contributed to the site. In the list of top commenters, I see some familiar names. I also love the list of posts with the most comments. Some really amazing discussions in those posts.

Thank you to each of you that participates in EMR and HIPAA. Have a Happy New Year!

In 2010 I wrote 301 posts.

In 2010 the posts were commented 2009 times, from which 556 comments (27.68 percent) were written by registered users/authors.

TOP 10 commenters in 2010:

• Don B: 82 comments
• Michelle W: 60 comments
• Anthony Subbiah: 46 comments
• Brian: 41 comments
• Bobby Gladd: 38 comments
• David Swink: 28 comments
• Nick Orlowski: 24 comments
• D. Kellus Pruitt DDS: 20 comments
• DonB: 18 comments
• CEOmike: 16 comments

TOP 10 most commented posts in 2010:

• Reasons Why EMR Efforts Are Proceeding So Slowly: 42 comments
• Email is Not HIPAA Secure: 34 comments
• EMR Stimulus Q and A: EMR Stimulus Money and Dentists: 25 comments
• Guest Post: Healthcare’s Challenging with Meaningfully Using an EMR: 24 comments
• Healthcare IT Adoption Versus Banking Industry: 19 comments
• SaaS EMR vs. Client Server EMR and AAFP in Denver: 19 comments
• 692 Pages of Government Meaningful Use Regulation: 18 comments
• EMR Key Differentiators: 18 comments
• List of Webinars on Meaningful Use: 18 comments
• EMR Platform: 17 comments

Merry Christmas!

I just finished our family tradition of a Christmas Eve mini dinner. My wife executed it to perfection. It was absolutely fantastic. We somehow got the kids in bed despite their excitement over the visit from Santa Clause. Shortly, I’ll go and eat the cookies and drink the milk the kids left out for Santa (man I love being Santa). I’ll leave the reindeer’s carrots for my wife.

This Christmas shopping season has been interesting for me. I see and hear so many people talk about the stress of shopping for Christmas. So many people want to “get it over” and get all worked up doing the Christmas shopping. Personally, I decided to forget all of those people who try to give the impression that Christmas shopping is a terrible experience and just enjoy it. Turns out, I love the experience of Christmas shopping.

Many people say that they hate the crowds. I love the bustle of people every where. Some people hate the cheesy Christmas music. I think the music makes for a great atmosphere. Some people hate that they don’t have enough money. I love the opportunity to teach my children that it’s not about the money. Plus, it’s fun to be creative within a budget. Some people hate “having” to take around treats to their friends and neighbors. I love the chance to go and see people that I love and care about.

Needless to say it’s been a magical Christmas season for me!

I can’t help but wonder if there’s not an analogy here for those implementing an EMR. Basically, if you want excuses not to implement or enjoy an EMR, you’ll find it. If you look for ways to implement an EMR and enjoy its benefits, you’ll find those too. I’m not suggesting you rush into anything, but you can choose to enjoy the EMR selection and implementation process and it will make a huge difference.

I realize that many of the readers of this site don’t celebrate Christmas, but I’ve never been offended when someone told me Happy Hanukkah and I don’t celebrate it. So, I hope that people can join me in the spirit of giving and caring that’s associated with Christmas.

It’s really hard for me to believe that today marks the fifth anniversary of EMR and HIPAA. It’s pretty fun to look back at my very first EMR and HIPAA post on December 11, 2005. I definitely haven’t focused all that much on college health, but otherwise I find it pretty amazing that my goal of posting EMR and HIPAA information and driving discussion from other people has held strong for 5 years now.

My second post makes me laugh too. It is some technical details about Wireless technology and security. I’m a little uncomfortable linking to it since it has changed some since 2005. For example, hiding the SSID doesn’t offer much security and can actually cause some connectivity issues if you do implement it. It was the best I knew at the time and it illustrates my original motivation for the blog: to learn!

My third post talks about my wish to have electronic signatures on a tablet. I never got my EMR vendor to implement it for me, but they did implement it with a signature pad like you might find at Walmart. One of the best technologies that I implemented since it helped get rid of so much paper and scanning. Although, many EMR vendors back in 2005 were reticent to implement it since their tests told them that it would cause more trouble for the front desk than actually help. I ignored that and pushed it forward anyway. One time I walked by a 70 year old lady signing the pad and filling out her paperwork on a kiosk and a little part of me smiled.

My fourth post on “What’s an interface?” is still a good read today. I’m glad to see that at least some of my content has withstood the test of time. As far as interfaces, I wish I’d known then what I knew now. After that post and looking into the lab interface, it took us 1+ years to finally implement the lab interface. I am glad we took our time to really thoroughly test it since it was a new interface. Although, if I would have known the incredible benefit of having the bi directional lab interface, I’d have driven that project A LOT faster. The comments on the post also make me laugh since even today I get irked by EMR sales mis communications (lies).

My fifth post I learned about the good and bad parts of having open comments. In the post I talk about which database is best for an EMR software. You’ll see in the comments that R. Terry Ellis (who I interacted with and learned a lot from at the time) kind of took me to task on a comment I’d made about MySQL on Windows. You’ll also note that even in the beginning that I wasn’t one to avoid 2. being wrong and 2. exploring a discussion around a topic. I still LOVE how readers hold me accountable for what I say. Not to mention how much they teach me.

I’m a little embarrassed by my sixth post about problem lists in an EMR. As I read it, I can tell that I was treading lightly since I was trying to write about and discuss something for which I had very little knowledge. I still feel that way about certain topics. However, I’ve learned a bit over these 5 years. It is interesting to see that even in these early posts I was interested in the idea of “Selecting the Right EMR.” I thought I learned that over time, but I guess not.

Thanks for letting me reminisce. It’s fun for me to go back and look at these old posts. It’s amazing that a bored holiday project has come so far. I’ve often recounted that my original two goals with EMR and HIPAA were to:
-Make it to the Top of Google for the search term EMR (Google validates nerds like me)
-Become an Expert of EMR (and have a way to show it)

I made it to the first page of Google for the term EMR within the first 6 months. I’ll let you, the readers, decide if I’m an expert of EMR or not. Either way, I’m glad to now call myself a full time blogger and internet entrepreneur and I’m thankful that EMR and HIPAA is my cornerstone.

I’m pretty pumped right now since this weekend is probably the best weekend (traffic wise) that EMR and HIPAA has ever had. I’m not sure the difference, but thanks to all of you who have been reading over the weekend. The weekend is usually pretty dead around EMR and HIPAA and so it’s awesome to get some great traffic to the site on the weekend. Plus, I just checked and it’s pretty cool that EMR and HIPAA (this site) just passed 3.5 million pageviews and EMR and EHR just passed half a Million. Not bad.

Top EMR and HIPAA Ads
Tomorrow or the next day I’m planning to send out the details on the top ads on EMR and HIPAA. As I did 6 months ago, I’ll be opening up the bidding for the top 2 ads on the site. So many people have been interested in the top ads that I figured it was the only fair way to approach it.

If you’re interested in the top ad spots on EMR and HIPAA, let me know on the EMR and HIPAA contact us page or comment below and I’ll copy you in on the email I send out with all the details. Current advertisers don’t need to message me since I’ll be emailing them already.

I’m also really close to launching my previous mentioned Deluxe Advertising Package. I don’t quite have all the details but I’m close. If you want to be the first to sign up for it, you’d likely be in a good position to get one of the top EMR ad spots.

New EMR Projects
I’m also close to announcing some exciting news about some new EMR projects I’m working on. I think it will be some great stuff that people who read this site are going to love. More on that once I finalize some of the details.

EMR Jobs
All we hear about on the news these days seems to be about the bad economy and all the people that are unemployed. So, I’m always really happy to see the jobs posted on the EMR and EHR job board. For example, there was one recently posted for 4 Full time Epic Application Specialists. The cool part about the job listing is that they’ll even cover the cost for a person’s EPIC training and certification. If you’d like to work in hospital healthcare IT working on EPIC, take a look.

Today has been a pretty wonderful day for me. I played some Turkey bowl this morning, had a wonderful meal with my wife and kids and then watched The Grinch in the afternoon. A nice relaxing day with the people that I love the most.

As I think about my life, I have so many things to be thankful for. In fact, I think I take them for granted far too often. Right after I married my wife I took her on a trip back to Guatemala where she had lived for a year and a half. During our visit we visited one of her favorite friends. Turns out this lady lived in one of the poorest parts of Guatemala in what amounted to a river bed with some metal sheet roofs held up by old washing machines and stove tops stacked up.

Even amidst these amazing conditions, the wife gave some money to a child to run and buy some soda (since I’m sure they never usually had this) so that she could offer her guests (us) something wonderful. It was an amazing gesture and a great lesson. Although, what was also amazing was how this wonderful family was incredibly happy even in such difficult conditions.

As I think about wonderful people like this that I’ve met throughout my life, it makes me even more grateful for what I’ve been given.

This year I’ve also been reflecting on my decision to quit my day job and become a full time blogger and entrepreneur. While I can’t say that it’s not been without its challenges, I’m incredibly satisfied with my decision. In fact, it’s hard for me to imagine ever going back to work for someone again. I guess there’s probably some situation where it would be fun, but right now I’m incredibly happy with a wonderful job that most the time barely feels like work.

Of course, none of what I’m doing would be possible if it weren’t for great readers and great advertisers. I think this site has some of the best and smartest healthcare IT people that exist. There’s so many things that I don’t know, but I believe there’s few things that readers of this blog don’t know. My only hope is that I offer as much to my readers as they offer to me. The advertisers that support EMR and HIPAA are fantastic. Thanks to each one of you who support my efforts. Many of you have been advertising on here for years. I very much appreciate it!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We indeed have so much to be grateful for.

As you know on the weekend, I try to do my simple posts since most of you are enjoying the weekend like you should.

Today I thought it might be interesting to point to a few different EMR and healthcare IT blog recommendations. This is far from an inclusive list. In fact, I could probably do this every weekend and not repeat the same blog recommendations. Maybe I will! Especially since then as I read various other blogs I can remember to make note of it. So, for this post I’ll start with some popular ones that many people know about.

Fierce EMR – I really like the work that Neil Versel does and Fierce is lucky to have him working on their EMR content.

HIStalk – This is often a bit too hospital focused for my tastes. They do have HIStalk Practice which is more ambulatory focused and has gotten better as Inga’s focused on it more.

Chilmark Research – I really enjoy John’s blog. He does a good job analyzing HIE, EHR and mobile healthcare. The only complaint is that he doesn’t publish enough, but that’s ok. When he does publish it’s almost always an interesting read.

The Health Care Blog – My only complaint about The Health Care blog is that often times it has a lot of posts that aren’t related to health care IT. Although, it does have a strong group of health care IT bloggers that do some great IT and EMR related posts.

Like I said, there are dozens and dozens of other ones. These are a few of the ones that have been around for quite a while doing their thing. I’ll cover some more of the other blogs I enjoy next time. Or you could just keep reading this site and my other blogs (EMR and EHR & The Wired EMR Practice) where I try to write about a lot of the major happenings in the EMR and healthcare IT world.