The conversion to ICD-10 will be of a larger scale (just from the IT perspective – not including all the retraining of medical coders and other business changes) than the Y2K conversion. With Y2K, we just had to find those 2 digit year fields and change them to 4 digits. In addition to expanding the […]
Regulatory Compliance
New White Paper! Reap the Rewards of HIE with Patient Organization and Community Opt-In/Opt-Out
Open to the public 24/7, and being the keeper of the most private of all data, healthcare organizations are unlike any other in terms of security challenges. A doctor cannot expect a patient to openly disclose private information if that patient fears that they may be harmed by that disclosure. As a new era dawns […]
When Containing Costs Contains Solutions
Perficient has created this series, “Healthcare Analytics and Meaningful Use” to drive discussions around unlocking the true potential of EHRs with analytics. Stay tuned for this four-part series to be published throughout October and November. We welcome your comments and questions below. Henry Ford claimed that a good business rule of thumb is to “make […]
Will ACOs Produce Accountable Patients?
I had the privilege of attending the Connected Health Symposium 2011 in Boston on October 20-21. One of great ideas from that Symposium was to debate the key topics in healthcare today including the idea of Accountable Care Organizations and their ability to drive quality up and costs down. At the heart of that idea […]
Does Fee-for-Service Reimbursement Inhibit Telehealth?
Technologies such as mobile health, telehealth, and social portal solutions are making great waves in healthcare organizations around the world. Technology creates a reality where patients are no longer required to go to the doctor’s office to get important care. The future seems even more promising. Technology provides patients with: Socially-Enabled Patient Portals: A platform […]
Healthcare’s Cost and Quality Conundrum: System Integration to the Rescue
Perficient has created this series, “Healthcare Analytics and Meaningful Use” to drive discussions around unlocking the true potential of EHRs with analytics. Stay tuned for this four-part series to be published throughout October and November. We welcome your comments and questions below. Healthcare decision makers are being called upon to reduce waste, improve operational processes, […]
Data in Action: Applying Analytics to Healthcare
Perficient has created this series, “Healthcare Analytics and Meaningful Use” to drive discussions around unlocking the true potential of EHRs with analytics. Stay tuned for this four-part series to be published throughout October and November. We welcome your comments and questions below. Data in and of itself has no value. To add value data must […]
Unlocking the Potential of EHRs requires Healthcare Analytics
Perficient has created this series, “Healthcare Analytics and Meaningful Use” to drive discussions around unlocking the true potential of EHRs with analytics. Stay tuned for this four-part series to be published throughout October and November. We welcome your comments and questions below. Healthcare leaders such as Kathleen Sebelius and David Blumenthal claim that the HITECH […]
Semantic Web Technologies for ICD-9 to ICD-10 Conversion
ICD-10 code mapping is not for the faint at heart. With a ten fold increase in the pure volume of codes, healthcare organizations will need a few tricks up their sleeves to pull this off. The mapping between ICD-9 and ICD-10 in many cases is not a simple 1:1 mapping. For example, ICD-9-CM code 274.02 […]
Does the U.S. need a Federal Law to Protect PHI and encourage HIEs?
Requirements regarding the electronic transfer of personal health information differs from state to state. Some have suggested that the Federal government needs to establish guidelines for health information exchanges. Health information exchanges (HIEs) are technology solutions that address healthcare issues by aggregating massive amounts of data and allowing multiple entities have access to the data […]
Is the Top-Down Approach to Meaningful Use Really Causing Problems?
Taking a top-down approach to government initiatives has been scorned by New Public Management advocates, who claim that a top-down hierarchical structure hampers efficiency, fails to meet the needs of society and lends itself to poor outcomes. Yet, today’s Meaningful Use initiative is noted for taking a top-down approach. If scholars are right, then Meaningful […]
It’s time to keep the Meaning in Meaningful Use
In the chase to implement EMRs and meet the deadlines for attestation for Meaningful Use, the real reason behind the requirements seems to get lost in some healthcare organizations. Those numerators and denominators represent people – patients with real medical needs that simply don’t want to be a number or a faceless statistic. As the […]