CCHIT continues to certify EMR companies for ONC-ATCB Compliance – which means they are meaningful use certified. They are certifying them for limited measures, often just for family practice measures, and then the EMR vendors follow up to receive certifications on the specialty-specific measures. As always, when comparing EMR software options, be sure to put your organization’s needs (patient care quality, efficiencies, etc) before the government’s meaningful use objectives. EMR Company EMR Technology ONC-ATCB Certified [...]

Compare EMR put out a thoughtful note regarding the current stimulus incentive dollars: EMR vendors are quickly scooping up Meaningful Use certifications on their systems. They know it’s not optional – it’s mandatory for their survival – so they are ensuring they get certified. This means that the certification is not the key to finding the right system. Obviously, it’s important to review costs when you compare EMR systems. But it is just as important [...]

Meaningful Use is the hottest buzzword in Health IT right now. The PCAST report (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) provided this summary: Recent Federal legislation has charted a new path forward. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, authorized expenditures of at least $20 billion to promote the adoption and use of EHR technologies that would [...]

When you begin the EMR selection process, you will want to be sure your committee has representation for the providers and the staff. You will want to engage individuals that can speak to the organizations needs from a billing, scheduling, workflow, and IT standpoint. Electronic-medical-record.blogspot.com assembled a list with excellent qualifying questions for evaluating EMR software providers. They published this in 2007, but the points are just as relevant today. Use the EMR Software Pro [...]