EHR

Best EMR companies in the US

MedcityNews recently posted an article detailing the best EMR companies in the USA. Their webpage seems to lock up in several of our browsers, so we've cut/pasted it here so that you can read it without having technical issues...

Healthcare organizations and physicians are invariably looking to meet regulatory requirements in 2014 in order to be better equipped to deliver accountable care, maximize revenues and improve patient lives.

Top five reasons the new Meaningful Use timeline will be good for EHR vendors

Usability test in progress.  Usability Consultants at the Usability People EHR Safety Enhanced Design

1. EHR Vendors will have more time to focus on their users.

a. To be able to obtain the ONC certification (and meaningful use funding for their customers) EHR vendors must follow a formal User Centered Design (UCD) process.
b. We recommend that EHR vendors follow ISO-9241-11 and show evidence that their design process is focused upon efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction.

2. EHR vendors will have time to perform many iterations of user testing.

ONC Webinar on Meaningful Use Timeline -- Wed December 18, 2014

HHS.gov logo.  EHR Usability testing for Meaningful Use. Consutants

Join ONC on Wednesday, December 18 for a webinar discussion regarding the proposed regulatory timeline for EHR certification criteria for 2015.

Web Conference Information

Conference Line: 888-469-1748
Meeting Number: 243-89

ONC subject matter experts will provide information about the new timeline and then will be available for a question-and-answer session following the presentation.

Agenda

CMS proposes a new timeline for meaningful use

Under the revised timeline, Stage 2 will be extended through 2016 and Stage 3 will begin in 2017 for those providers that have completed at least two years in Stage 2. The goal of this change is two-fold: first, to allow CMS and ONC to focus efforts on the successful implementation of the enhanced patient engagement, interoperability and health information exchange requirements in Stage 2; and second, to utilize data from Stage 2 participation to inform policy decisions for Stage 3.

§170.315(g)(3) Safety Enhanced Design and the ONC 2015 Certification

CMS Changes Name of the EHR Incentive Programs (Meaningful Use) and Advancing Care Information to “Promoting Interoperability”

§170.315(g)(3) Safety-enhanced design

As providers of usability testing and user experience services we know that one of the major advantages of electronic health records (EHRs) are their potential to increase patient safety by preventing, detecting and aiding in the recovery from human errors. ONC has set certification standards for safety-enhanced design (SED), making patient safety a primary focus in the design of an EHR.

Meaningful Use Stage 2 is Here! Safety-Enhanced Design testing takes time!

ONC Meaningful Use Certification logo 2014 Edition

CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) have established standards and certification criteria that EHRs must use in order to successfully capture and calculate objectives for Stage 2 of Meaningful Use. These new standards and certification criteria now in effect.

Usability and User-Centered Design: A reminder to members of the EHR Developers Association

The Electronic Health Record Association (EHR Association), a non-profit association of more than 40 EHR companies, created an electronic health record (EHR) Developer Code of Conduct, which aims to encourage transparency and collaboration among EHR developers, as well as developers, providers, and industry stakeholders. The latest version of the code of conduct is available as a pdf here: http://bit.ly/13A1oLc

On the first page, the very first item (after a general statement) is Patient Safety.
The code says:

Top 10 Healthcare Usability Myths Debunked

Top 10 EHR Usability Myths - Debunked

Here are the Top 10 Healthcare Usability Myths Debunked

Myth # 1 Clinicians are uncomfortable with technology and just need more training.

Fact: Current HIT systems often don’t fit the way end users think and work.

Myth # 2 Put it all on 1 screen to make it easier to use.

Fact: Developers need to understand workflows and tasks to know what information is needed.

Myth # 3 Whoever has the Most features wins.

Fact: Vet your current feature set. Less may be more.

Physician Views on EHRs -- Mixed and Complex

A newly published survey of 1,200 physicians nationwide by the Watertown, Mass.-based athenahealth, which specializes in providing cloud-based based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management, and care coordination, is revealing a mixed bag of opinions among doctors regarding how well electronic health records (EHRs) are working for them, with a range of views about the efficacy, cost-benefit analysis, and usability, of EHRs. Meanwhile, attitudes towards government involvement in healthcare have become more positive in the past year.

Usability Testing of Electronic Health Record systems EHRs

User-Centered Design: Helping users become Effective, Efficient, and Satisfied

We recommend that EHR vendors follow the ISO 9241-11 standard. ISO-9241 Part 11: (1998) pertains to the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with Effectiveness (Task completion by users), Efficiency (Task on time) and Satisfaction (responded by user in term of experience) in a specified context of use (users, tasks, equipment & environments).

Summative testing

Summative Usability Evaluations of EHRs

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has released a set of new certification and meaningful use requirements for electronic health records (EHRs). These require that EHR vendors include evidence of user-centered design and user test results in their certification submission. To be able to obtain the ONC certification (and meaningful use funding) EHR vendors must follow a formal User Centered Design (UCD) process and perform summative usability testing on specific areas of the product.

OSEHRA: Conducting Usability Evaluations for Meaning Use Stage 2 Funding

Healthcare Usability will be presenting at the OSEHRA conference

We are pleased to announce that our talk, "Conducting Usability Evaluations for Meaning Use Stage 2 Funding " was presented at the OSEHRA 2nd Annual Summit.

When: Friday, September 6, 2013 10:30am White Oak Rm B

Where:
Bethesda North Marriott Conference Center

For information on conducting and reporting on the §170.314(g)(3) Safety-enhanced Design Criteria for meaningful use stage two certification see:

The use of electronic health records can reduce the costs of outpatient care

Study shows EHRs save money on outpatient care

Use of electronic health records can reduce the costs of outpatient care by roughly 3 percent, compared to relying on traditional paper records.

That's according to a new study from the University of Michigan that examined more than four years of healthcare cost data in nine communities. The "outpatient care" category in the study included the costs of doctor's visits as well as services typically ordered during those visits in laboratory, pharmacy and radiology.

Tags: 

ONC has a new certification mark!

ONC Certified HIT

The new mark for certified electronic health records technology was unveiled Wednesday and will appear on EHR products that have been certified by an ONC-Authorized Certification Body, indicating that the product meets the 2014 Edition Standards and Certification Criteria.

Eligible professionals and hospitals must demonstrate meaningful use of EHR technology that has been certified under the ONC Health Information Technology Certification Program to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive payments.

Healthcare Providers Aren't Happy With EHR Systems

The federal government is happy to point out that more than 50 percent of physicians and 80 percent of hospitals are using electronic health record (EHR) systems, with those users having received some $14.6 billion in meaningful use incentives initially allocated in the 2009 stimulus.

A Doctors view on the lack of usability in EHR systems

We found an article at KevinMD written by a cardiologist named David Mokotoff.

This article is a great read for gaining the perspective of an doctor that has had to deal with a number of the issues (mostly usability based) with some of the EHR systems he has been required to use. His frustration with the status quo is evidence that things need to change. EHR Vendors need to understand their end-users and establish a User-centered design approach.

Is English the second language of medical documentation?

English only?  Perhaps not the best solution for EHRs

In a recent article written by the American College of Physicians, Yul Ejnes suggests that although English is the first language of Medicine, it has become the second language of EHRs.

"How and why did this happen? Most of it stems from the morphing of the medical record from a clinical tool to an audit and billing tool. The focus is no longer on capturing the patient’s history, examination, test results, and the physician’s thought process. Instead, today’s goal is to record as many things that were said or done as one can in order to justify the highest billing code, meet the performance measure, earn a high quality score, and lawyer-proof the record – and to do so in as little time as possible."

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