Guest commentary from Celwyn C. Evans, a senior partner at Greencastle Associates Consulting in Malvern, Pa. With the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, the focus of debate has fallen squarely on the challenge of defining ''meaningful ...

It's movie night, and you're not interested in subtitles or surrealism. Maybe next week you'll go for the one with the ''Winner: Best Foreign Language Film, 2008 Venice Film Festival'' sticker on it. But tonight you're in the mood for a poorly acted and painfully predictable slasher film; the one where the band of promising, carefree teens head ...

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine personally, and are not necessarily representative of Texas Health Resources (THR) or its subsidiaries. I ran a ''night before vacation'' errand to Lowe's. As I completed the purchase, the store manager interrupted on the overhead, ''Employees and customers, head immediately to the break ...

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine personally, and are not necessarily representative of Texas Health Resources (THR) or its subsidiaries. To Teach, To Heal, To Discover -- Six words that captured the essence of the mission of the academic medical health system where I served as CIO. Along with our affiliate Case, we ...

Guest commentary from Lee Barrett, executive director of the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), a non-profit standards-development and accreditation organization. Information technology has been mature enough to transform health care for years. The HITECH Act has now cemented the business case. The biggest ...

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine personally, and are not necessarily representative of Texas Health Resources (THR) or its subsidiaries. To date, I've had the privilege of holding three CIO positions. First, for a physician managed services organization. Second, in an academic-based multi-hospital system. And currently, as ...

Guest commentary from Alex Adamopoulos, executive vice president and COO of Exigen Services Pulling together as a nation to overhaul an aging, often paper-based medical records system is long overdue. We can all agree it will create jobs, pump money into various industries and make managing a fast-growing patient base much easier. With great ...

Guest commentary from Thomas L. Pettibone, founder and managing partner of Transition Partners. President Obama's economic recovery package allows for billions of dollars for health care IT investment. As the recovery package begins to be distributed, hospitals and health care providers have significant monetary incentives to demonstrate ...

A large majority of readers -- 65 percent -- who answered ADVANCE's online opinion poll during the past month said they need to rework their existing EHR plans in light of the HIT provisions of the recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Twenty-two (22) percent of respondents said they need to expedite their current EHR ...

Guest commentary by Michael L. Cowan, MD, chief medical officer at BearingPoint and former surgeon general of the U.S. Navy It's official. The economic recovery package has been signed and $19 billion is marked for health information technology. But, before we can fix anything or facilitate technology adoption, we need to understand the major ...