Medical Billing Blog: Section - Medical Data
Archive of all Articles in the Medical Data Section
This is the archive containing links to all articles written in the Medical Data section of our blog.
Click any of the article links below to read the entire article or browse another section to the right to read articles on another subject.
Newly-Designed EHR Notes May Improve Usability
Showing less data in physician EHR notes may produce more benefits for physician productivity, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (JABFM). The study by Jeffery Beldon, MD et al. compared different physician EHR note designs to see which design physicians found most efficient, accurate, and usable when attempting to obtain information for ambulatory chronic disease care. Researchers devised four physician note designs and tested the designs on 16 primary care physicians in random order. Physicians were instructed to find key information in the EHR notes during timed tasks. Physicians then gave each note design a usability rating and new feature …
Is Your EMR User Friendly?
A common complaint about EMRs is that while they might have technical capability, they might not have real world usability, or be “user friendly”. Thus, you might be able to enter A, B and C; but finding the previous values of A, B and C might be challenging, and seeing the history of A, B and C might not be possible. As I sat in front of one of my medical providers recently, who is a late and reluctant convert to EMRs, he created an on paper list of my previous values as he inefficiently hunted through my now online history. And unless he types them back in in a …
EHR companies refuted claims of violating HIPAA
The EHR Association (EHRA) Executive Committee has fired back at accusations that EHR companies are partially to blame for interoperability problems, claiming health data exchange is progressing quickly. The association published a response to an earlier post on Health Affairs Blog that accused EHR and health IT companies of monetizing the custody of patient protected health information (PHI). Former ONC Chief Privacy Officer Lucia Savage urged the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to enforce provisions of HIPAA prohibiting business associates such as EHR developers from using PHI for business operations. She stated some EHR companies may be leveraging ownership of patient PHI for profit. “Building a revenue stream out of …
What it Takes for a Successful EHR Implementation
In a recent article in Harvard Business Review, the former CEO of the Permanente Medical Group Robert M. Pearl, MD relayed his experiences installing an Epic EHR system ten years ago and the factors responsible for a successful EHR implementation. Despite the hefty cost of implementation — in the area of $4 billion — the EHR system quickly proved beneficial in delivering more efficient, accurate patient care because of the right approach, according to the now Chairman of the Council of Accountable Physician Practices. However, not all physicians have such a positive experience. Many remain skeptical the advantages of EHR implementation outweigh the costs and administrative strain. Several Boston physicians …
How to Collaborate for EHR Usability
The number of health IT developers and products has increased significantly as a result of federal incentives for EHR adoption but correlates with the rise of provider dissatisfaction with the usability of these systems. What providers expect from their EHR systems and what health IT developers deliver have proved not to be one in the same. This disconnect points to the need for the latter to focus on the needs of the former and deliver EHR technology that is user-centered. Therefore, collaboration between health IT developers and clinical end-users is key to ensuring EHR systems are user-friendly in an industry rapidly adopting new technologies year after year to tackle new …
