Study Shows Nursing Informatics A Developing Role

In February, HIMSS released its 2011 Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey, and no one should be surprised that it shows nursing informatics is playing an increasingly important role in healthcare organizations. Meaningful Use continues to be a significant factor in most organization’s strategic plans and, as a result, nursing informatics will likely continue to grow in [...]

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Do You Have A Vision Problem?

John Schrenker, Assistant Professor & Program Director, Health Information Administration, Roberts Wesleyan College

No, I’m not talking about the bottom line on the eye chart; I’m talking about your EMR adoption. With incentives and penalties looming on the horizon many organizations from multi-hospital health systems to small physician practices are struggling with the if, when, and how questions around adopting an EMR.  Reasons cited are all over the [...]

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I’m Taking This Study With a Big Grain of Salt

John Schrenker, Assistant Professor & Program Director, Health Information Administration, Roberts Wesleyan College

In a March 8th press release by HHS and an article on the ONC Health IT Buzz web site Dr. David Blumenthal touts that a “new study finds that 92 percent of recent peer-reviewed articles on HIT reached conclusions that showed overall positive effects.” While I don’t doubt the validity of the study, I am [...]

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Your Local RHIO/HIE Could Be a Meaningful Partner

Your local RHIO or HIE should be much more than a check box on your Meaningful Use requirements list, they stand to play an important role in delivering the vision Meaningful Use. Too often RHIOs are discussed as nothing more than repositories of clinical data, but by working with them as a partner they can help organizations and providers address half the Meaningful Use requirements.

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The Field of Dreams Approach to EMR

Even if they haven’t seen the movie everyone knows the line from Field of Dreams, “if you build it they will come.” It’s a great movie, but the idea doesn’t apply to information systems, not in healthcare or any other industry. Technology by itself will not affect patient safety, quality of care, productivity, or profitability. [...]

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What’s the Goal?

What are the goals or your project? Do you know? Every project has as least one and often several goals, but too often there are unspoken goals that can undermine the success of the project. Unspoken goals can be the result of unrealistic expectations, personal agendas, or just resistance to change. The problem is amplified by the fact that, in most of our organizations, staff are involved in several projects concurrently in addition to their day to day responsibilities. This increases the difficulty of making project goals a top priority.

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When Blumenthal Listens, People Talk

Tuesday morning at HIMSS about 100 CIOs had the opportunity to attend a standing room only meeting with Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The invitation arrived late Monday night simply stating that Dr. Blumenthal wanted to invite a small group of CIOs to have a discussion about the “progress being made [...]

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