There I was, sitting in my comfortable chair reading my newspaper on Sunday morning. I flipped through Parade magazine, a supplement to my Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer. A headline on Page 8 caught my attention: ''Electronic Health Records Face Critics.'' The article noted a new Harvard Medical School study that suggests electronic health records ...

Statement from Alisa Ray, executive director, Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) Having reviewed the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding certifying bodies, we feel confident about [CCHIT's] prospects of becoming accredited. Today's release of the Certification NPRM is an important step that will reduce the ...

On March 2 the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services released a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) outlining the proposed approach for establishing a certification program to test and certify electronic health records (EHRs). In an e-mail statement, David Blumenthal, MD, national coordinator for health information technology, ...

Editor's note: Associate Editor Mark McGraw filed this blog post while covering HIMSS10 in Atlanta.  Dr. David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health information technology, addressed an overflowing crowd of HIMSS attendees at this morning's keynote address. The timing seemed ideal, less than 24 hours after Dr. Blumenthal led an ONC ...

Guest commentary from Richard Amerling, MD, a nephrologist practicing in New York City The debate raging over ObamaCare has been carried on mostly by politicians, pundits, policy wonks and economists, with little input from those most intimately involved with delivery of health care -- medical practitioners. Doctors have too often been ...

Guest commentary from Stephen W. Bernstein, a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP The year 2010 brings heightened health care focus on compliance, reform efforts and enforcement. This article breaks down the top 10 issues of this year. 1) Stark Law Self-DisclosureProviders subject to the physician self-referral law (Stark ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...