On this blog I have previously described the importance of medication safety screening, along with one of its major challenges, which is alert fatigue. Alert fatigue is the tendency for providers to start to ignore alerts when alerts are presented too often. I have also previously reviewed a study (JAMIA; Seidling et al) that underscored the importance of design in alerting systems. In that study, the factor most responsible for alert acceptance was the design of the alerting system. Read further >

This year Wolters Kluwer introduced a Global Innovation Award initiative to recognize employees and teams who significantly contribute to innovation. Four winning projects were selected from over 240 submissions that represented innovative activities throughout the company. One of the winning projects was the Clinical Solutions Innovation Lab, with which I have had the pleasure of being involved since its formation. Read further >

The term gift can refer to the transfer of anything that makes another person happier – or, as the case may be, healthier. In the spirit of the holiday gift-giving season, I was interested to hear that pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) is developing an online pharmaceutical game along the lines of Facebook’s Farmville, Castleville, Fishville, and YoVille. Read further >

Recently I attended the annual meeting of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). For the benefit of readers of this blog who weren’t able to attend the meeting, I’ll provide a few highlights below. Read further >

While widely reporting that improved access to online medical information and resources has improved quality of care at their practices, many physicians still rely on general browsers to obtain information for diagnosing and treating patients, according to a new survey from Wolters Kluwer Health, fielded by IPSOS. Read further >

Halloween is all about scares and frights. We scare others, they scare us. When it comes to accessing electronic health records, though, some patients seem, well, scared or at least reluctant to sink their fangs into it. Read further >

As of September 30, 2011, more than 114,000 providers have registered for the electronic health records (EHR) incentive programs under Medicare, Medicaid or both. Of these, 88,399 physicians and hospitals have registered for the Medicare incentive program, 24,030 for the Medicaid program and 2,215 for both programs. Read further >

When I decided to go into medical informatics 17 years ago, I did so because I was convinced that a system of electronic health records could provide better patient care than a system of paper-based records. Many of my colleagues in this field, both in academia and in industry, entered it for very much the same reason. Read further >

On September 15, 2011, CMS launched its new esMD pilot program, giving providers a new mechanism for submitting medical documentation. This launch marks the beginning of phase one of CMS’ initiative and CMS is hoping to make it significantly easier for providers to submit information, as well as easier for CMS’ recovery contractors to identify improper payments by reducing costs and time spent on these transactions. Read further >

I’ve previously described the notion of offering clinical decision support via web services. In that post I mentioned two different ways to summarize a patient’s medical information – the HL7 Continuity of Care Document (CCD) and the HL7 Virtual Medical Record (VMR). The latter has advanced since my last post in that an informative ballot of a Domain Analysis Model was approved. Read further >