According to a new HIMSS Analytics report, many clinics and hospitals are behind on their transition from paper to digitized patient records. Even worse, the digital divide is alive and well with larger, urban healthcare systems faring better than smaller, rural facilities. Read »

The Meaningful Use Notice of Proposed Rulemaking included clinical decision support rules as one of the objectives providers must implement. More emphasis on using CDS capabilities from EHRs and EMRs is something that Robert Murphy, MD, chief medical informatics officer at Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston is excited about and applauds. Read »

On the heels of a research study sponsored by the federal government and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation comes another study by Harvard researchers that provides evidence that EHRs do not deliver savings to hospitals. Read »

In its report, The State of U.S. Hospitals Relative to Achieving Meaningful Use Measurements, HIMSS Analytics lined up its EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) against the requirements and deadlines for meaningful use under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). It also looked at the current state of hospital capabilities according to its seven stages of EMRAM. The report concludes that hospitals with Stage 3 capabilities would be able to meet the 2011 measures, hospitals at Stage 4 would be able to meet 2013 measures, and hospitals at Stages 6 and 7 would meet the 2015 measures. Read »