In a recently released white paper, athenahealth lays out seven actions electronic health record vendors should take to ensure measurable results on meaningful use for its clients.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has released a brief on the available options for meeting the transition of care measure that is required for meaningful use stage 2.

Electronic health record adoption is on the rise. The number of hospitals using basic EHR systems tripled from 12.2 percent in 2009 to 44.4 percent in 2012, according to a report released by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and CMS.  However, the move towards efficient care coordination and care delivery through health IT does not end with EHR adoption alone. Clinical information needs to be able to flow seamlessly between EHR products within one health network and among different networks. Various healthcare industry sectors and software vendors are, therefore, focusing on advancing the interoperability of health IT systems.  

HHS announced that EHRMagic-Ambulatory and EHRMagic-Inpatient, both developed by EHRMagic of Santa Fe Springs, Calif., have had their certifications revoked by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

Brendan Flanigan is the regional manager of gloStream, a full service billing, collections, EHR, and practice management company. Here he shares how to use EHR effectively in spine and orthopedic practices and why the switch makes sense.

A recent EHR Intelligence report identified five steps to ensure organizations' electronic health record system replacement processes are successful. They are:

A new case study published by the Commonwealth Fund lays out the lessons learned by the Colorado Beacon Consortium, according to an EHR Intelligence report.

Currently, around 66 percent of physicians say they use electronic health records to meet meaningful use stage one requirements, according to the Deloitte 2013 Survey of U.S. Physicians.

The focus on engaging patients in their care and the need to meet meaningful use requirements converge in one online tool: the patient portal. Patient portals on a health system's website can allow patient to easily schedule appointments, contact their provider and access other resources, which engages them in their care. These portals also help hospitals and physicians fulfill meaningful use stage 2 requirements of providing patients the ability to view their health information online and using electronic health records to identify patient-specific education resources.

CMS and OIG have published proposed rules in the Federal Register that seek to extend the existing Stark Law Exception and Anti-Kickback Statue Safe Harbor and make them applicable to the donation of electronic health records through 2016.