We’re back with our weekend round up of interesting tweets from the Twittersphere. We’ve got some really interesting ones to consider this week. So, much is happening in healthcare IT. Hopefully I can provide a good insight to some of the trends that are most interesting. No doubt this will be a challenge as we head into what is one of the most busy healthcare IT news cycles of the year around HIMSS.

Now, on to the various EHR and Healthcare IT tweets:

Just What the Doctor Ordered: Mobile Access to Your Kaiser EHR ow.ly/8KwkP – check out my latest blog for @ehrandhit

— Jennifer Dennard (@SmyrnaGirl) January 30, 2012

Kaiser Permanente just made 9 Million EHR records available on line to the patients. That’s definitely worth talking about. Go read about it in Jennifer’s post.

This tweet just made me laugh (although, if you’re experiencing it, it’s not that funny):

What’s the billing code for EHR Anxiety? ow.ly/8KAWx #EHR #HCSM

— Alicia C. Staley (@stales) January 30, 2012

I think they probably need a DSM-IV code.

What if the patient was the repository of their own data – perhapsQcode on my phone to my EHR? plug into me not my data #hitsm

— Sherry Reynolds (@Cascadia) January 27, 2012

I know there are a number of companies working on this. The problem isn’t the technology to get the Qcode to access your patient record. It’s aggregating your patient record in some place so that it’s accessible. That’s going to take a long time (if ever) to get it all connected.

This is a great idea! #EHR Accessibility Challenge scr.bi/wTOetz #cisummit

— Brian Ahier (@ahier) January 26, 2012

I’m fascinated by this idea as well. I hope some companies will take it really seriously. The interesting thing is that often by making software accessible, you also learn a lot about how you can simplify the software.

EHR Design Talk with Dr. Rick 1/23/12: Computer-Centered versus User-Centered Design Within the next few years, … bit.ly/yPqDOw

— histalk (@histalk) January 24, 2012

Dr. Rick does a great job starting the conversation around EHR usability. I can’t imagine the effort he put in just to create the first post. Of course, it is a first offering, but I’m really glad that he’s started a deeper discussion around EHR usability. My only disappointment is that he isn’t posting them on one of my sites instead of HIStalk. Regardless, by the looks of the discussion in that post it’s going to drive some really interesting conversation that will hopefully result in improved EHR design.

“Looking for savings in hospitals that use EMRs is short-sighted. The real payday for use of EMRs will come with interoperability. Measurable savings will be realized as middleware is installed that will allow for the electronic transmission and translation of patient records across different proprietary systems between delivery networks.” – Jim Lott, Executive Vice President, Hospital Council of Southern California, Los Angeles source

“EMRs don’t save money in standalone situations. However, EMRs will absolutely save significant money (and improve care and safety) when connected and sharing clinical information.” Johnny Walker, MBA, CPA, Founder and past CEO of Patient Safety Institute, Plano, Texas source

These two quote remind me a lot of my previous post about the real long term benefits of EMR. Interoperability is one of those benefits that we won’t see right away. In fact, we’ll see little benefit from them until we hit a critical mass of EMR implementations that it’s almost futile to share information between EMR software. Kaiser and the VA are always held up as examples of successful EMR implementations and one of the main reasons for that is that they have such broad EMR adoption that they can share the clinical information across all of their clinics.

So, YES! there is a real benefit to EMR adoption long term and it comes dressed in the name “EMR data sharing.” However, it’s worth pointing out that this doesn’t diminish the very important more quickly seen EMR benefits.

I recently got the following email which highlights my point that the EHR stimulus money should have been focused on things like interoperability standards and not funding EMR adoption the way it is doing it. He also makes some interesting comparisons worth considering:

I see an uncoordinated money pot out there, attracting uncoordinated work on EMR. — about as effective technically as HDTV (since mid-80′s), W3C, the space station. Non-profit efforts seem to generally fail, or to work so slowly as to be irrelevant.

EMR standardization would likely benefit from an authoritative organization (similar to IEEE) that would work with existing systems as provided by Kaiser, Walmart, GE, etc. and grind out a solution acceptable to these and other major (and minor) players. Then a de facto standard would exist in a well-defined form, and other players would join the effort.

I may be wrong, but I don’t see this happening. Everyone seems to be drawing out the money and just going on their separate ways. People like me that try to help doctors into the electronic age thus have to develop their own protocols, as anything resembling a portable data standard simply doesn’t seem to exist.

Of course, whenever I think about and post something like this, I feel like it’s too late too change anything. The legislation is what it is and we have to make the most of it. It’s just really sad to consider what it could be.

I guess maybe the message to consider is that we can still start having EMR working together even if it’s not government funded.