Today, the American Medical Association (AMA) and 95 state and specialty medical societies submitted formal comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on the proposed rule outlining the meaningful use criteria for the electronic health records (EHRs) incentive programs.
“The AMA is supportive of the widespread adoption and meaningful use of EHRs by physicians, but the Stage 1 criteria proposed by CMS are too aggressive,” said AMA Board Member Steven J. Stack, M.D. “It could unreasonably punish physicians who undertake great efforts to achieve meaningful use of EHRs – …

By Mark Newman
What is the best EHR for your practice? As usual, the answer is, “it depends.” Choosing the right Electronic Health Record (EHR) system for your practice involves answering many questions. These include:
–   Which specific EHR features and functions do we need?
–   Which EHR vendor has experience in my practice type or specialty?
–   Which vendor has the best reputation and a stable business?
–   What’s the need for access to data for reporting and research?
–   Does the EHR system have the necessary certification and functionality to qualify for “Meaningful Use” …

By Guy A. Lee, MD
Middle-aged and older patients commonly present with neurogenic claudication, the classic nerve-related radiating leg and buttock pain caused by lumbar spinal stenosis. Imaging will typically show degenerative factors, including the narrowing of the midline sagittal spinal canal and possibly also narrowing between the facet superior articulating process, the posterior vertebral margin and nerve root canal.
The narrowing and compression of spinal stenosis is believed to cause leg, buttock and groin pain for about 1.2 million Americans. Those who experience mild or moderate symptoms typically have pain that …

By Helen Oscislawski, Esq.
It has been a year since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (also known as “the stimulus bill” or “ARRA”) was enacted on February 17, 2009.  ARRA contains many measures to “modernize” the nation’s infrastructure, including the health care delivery system.  Between August and December 2009, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) within the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) announced several new programs and allocated more than a billion dollars of federal funds specifically toward laying the …

John Halamka, MD, is Chief Information Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Chief Information Officer at Harvard Medical School.  He recently asked his students of his healthcare I.T. class at Harvard to read his EHR implementation project and “then develop a list of barriers to EHR implementation in their organizations.”  The result was the following top 10 barriers to successfully deploying an EHR:
10. Usability – products are hard to use and not well engineered for clinician workflow.
9. Politics/naysayers – every organization has a powerful clinician or administrator who …

1/5/10 UPDATE:  
In recognition that the transition to EMRs might take a while, CMS is proposing a phase-in of three stages.  The first stage of meaningful use criteria focuses on electronically capturing health information in a coded format, using that information to track key clinical conditions and communicating that information for care coordination purposes. It also calls for implementing clinical decision support tools to facilitate disease and medication management and reporting clinical quality measures and public health information.  In order for professionals and hospitals to be eligible to receive …

As the year, and the decade, come to an end, you are likely to see a lot of “Top 10″ lists.  With that in mind, ABC News, in collaboration with MedPage Today reached out to more than 800 specialists as well as a distinguished panel of medical historians to put together a top 10 list of medical advances one decade into this century.  Here is the list, with the details available at MedPage Today:
1. Human Genome Discoveries Reach the Bedside
2. Doctors and Patients Harness Information Technology
3. Anti-Smoking laws and Campaigns Reduce …

It’s official:  The Internet is an integral part of clinical practice.  Google said so.
We already knew that the Internet was an increasingly vital tool, but Google actually has some solid research to back it up.  Over 400 physicians (PCP/GP, Endo, Cardio and Psych) — all of whom spend at least 75% of their time in direct patient care — completed an online survey to determine how they most often complete clinical tasks.  For example, primary care docs were presented with a diagnosis situation; psychiatrists were asked medication questions; etc.
The survey found …

National survey of U.S. hospitals shows information technology has
yielded neither administrative efficiencies nor cost savings

The increased computerization in U.S. hospitals hasn’t made them cheaper
or more efficient, Harvard researchers say, although it may have modestly
improved the quality of care for heart attacks.
The findings, published in today’s [Friday's] online edition of The
American Journal of Medicine, contradict claims by President Obama and
many lawmakers that health information technology (health IT), including
electronic medical records, will save billions and help make reform
affordable.
“Our study finds that hospital computerization hasn’t saved a dime, nor
has it improved administrative efficiency,” …

You can’t go very far without hearing or reading about new technologies that benefit medicine and physicians.  Entire hospital systems are devoting themselves to particular smartphones.  Doylestown Hospital, near Philadelphia, supplied its physician staff with iPhones earlier this year.  Now, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston, Texas, has outfitted some of its 19,500 employees across 11 hospitals with iPhones.
At a conference this week in San Diego, Dr. Eric Topol, chief Medical Officer of the West Wireless Health Institute, ”As a cardiologist for the past 25 years, I can tell you …