It isn't yet obvious to the IT folks in the trenches, or even to analysts and soothsayers who make their living trendspotting, but 2012 may end up as the year of the health care cloud. Providers are increasingly looking for solutions to real-life problems brought on by jammed-full data centers that can't expand one more inch despite increasing data-storage needs fromelectronic health record (EHR) implementation and meaningful use, ICD-10 compliance and record retention rules, as well as accounta

American Medical Association CEO James L. Madara, MD, wrote to House Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) to urge him to take action against the implementation of ICD-10, informing him that the transition to ICD-10 as mandated by HIPAA would place a heavy burden on physicians without offering a direct benefit to individual patient care. Implementing ICD-10 will be costly to physicians and disruptive to their other health IT efforts, Madara declared, adding that fede

Aligning financial incentives with high-quality care and accelerating health information exchange efforts (HIE) were among several key recommendations made in a new report released this morning by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) that focuses on health IT's role in transforming healthcare. According to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who co-chaired a BPC task force on delivery system reform and health IT, health innovation service delivery is severely lacking today despite significan

The next few months are going to be chock-full of new regulations affecting electronic health records systems. That's the scoop from U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' latest regulatory agenda, submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and published Jan. 20. According to the agenda, EHRs are one of the agency's top priorities for the first half of 2012. HHS has accordingly sent to OMB proposed rules both on Stage 2 of Meaningful Use and on new standards, implementation spec

However, the coordinator did have data to back up his claim that EHR adoption has taken off since passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, the health IT section of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Floundering HITECH Initiatives Attract Political Spotlight Yes, we are seeing some modest success and adoption of EHRs as a result of the HITECH ... at the end this multi-year march to certified EHR adoption and meaningful use. Yet, under the covers ...

Perhaps not surprisingly, more than half of respondents chose meaningful use as the biggest health IT issue of the year. EHR adoption and incentive eligibility have been major priorities for healthcare professionals, and meaningful use shows no signs of ...

We'll be watching for the launch of one or more of these efforts in 2012.

It's going to be a busy year for those buying, selling, using and regulating electronic health systems as the country moves toward increasingly electronic health care. EHRs, of course, will be a major driver. Here are our top predictions for EHRs in 2012, culled both from around the web and from our own editors: 1. The government will continue to make headway in the Meaningful Use program. The decision by the Department of Health and Human Services to delay the start of the Stage 2 Meaningful Us

Competition among multiple health IT (HIT) companies is expected to intensify in 2012, HIT experts told BioPharm Insight, adding that all players are facing implementation obstacles. A final ruling on meaningful use of HIT could provide more stringent criteria, which would increase reliance on electronic health records and allow players to gain traction among hospitals and physician groups, experts explained It is expected that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will issue a fina

Dr. Michael Koriwchak writing for the Wired EMR Practice blog: “And our EMR use, our quality of patient care and our practice efficiency is for the most part no better.  In some ways it is worse.  As a result of MU” I can see how that can happen. It is important that we hear the [...]

McKenzie County Healthcare Systems (MCHS) today announced that McKenzie County Memorial Hospital is the first hospital in North Dakota to qualify for Medicare reimbursements for using a certified electronic health record (EHR). McKenzie County Healthcare Systems will receive the reimbursement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services EHR Incentive Program. read more

Judy Hanover, IDC Health Insights research director, states: "To meet all of the challenges of EMR/EHR adoption and get to meaningful use while preparing for healthcare reform, it is clear that ambulatory providers need integrated EMR/EHR ...

As the year ends, I've spoken to many CIOs.   2011 was a hard year filled with Meaningful Use (including many upgrades to certified systems or self-certification),  5010 (the deadline for upgrading billing systems is January 1, 2012), accelerating compliance demands,  new security threats, rapidly evolving technologies, and unprecedented demand for new projects driven by the consumerization of IT.

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