Welcome to the Health IT Buzz Blog, a service of HHS’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). This blog was created to answer your questions about the nation’s transition to electronic health records and to create a conversation about the challenges and successes health care providers, physicians, practices, and organizations are experiencing as they transition from paper to electronic health records.
Latest Blog Posts
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Extending the Value of the Direct Project in Arkansas
Arkansas is rapidly becoming a leader in health information exchange. Since launching their statewide secure messaging tool (SHARE) in January 2012, Arkansas’s Office of Health Information Technology (OHIT) has registered more than 2,100 clinical and administrative staff to use it, with another 3,000 in queue to be fully on-boarded. SHARE uses the national standard for secure health information transport developed by ONC’s Direct Project. For a rural state that started their State HIE Cooperative Agreement with no existing exchange infrastructure and limited electronic health record (EHR) adoption, their progress is laudable.
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Accelerating Progress on Adoption and Meaningful Use of Health IT among Critical Access Hospitals and Small Rural Hospitals
An accident happens on a farm and a man is taken to the nearest hospital, a tiny Critical Access Hospital, the only urgent care facility in the area, an hour drive over unpaved roads from any other hospital. The medical team stabilizes the patient and then sends him by helicopter to the nearest tertiary care hospital. What if the Critical Access Hospital could electronically transmit the patient’s medical record, including his lab and imaging results, to the tertiary care hospital while the patient is still in flight? If the hospital is able to electronically transmit these records, the doctor could review her patients’ records and get a head start on saving his life before he is even wheeled through the hospital’s doors.
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Disaster Preparedness and Health Information Exchange
Last month, we watched with great concern as Hurricane Isaac approached the Louisiana coast. By an almost unbelievable coincidence, it was raging toward New Orleans and expected to hit on the exact day of the 7th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the precedent-setting natural disaster of our time. While there was much confidence in new levees and improvement to infrastructure, we were once again reminded that man cannot battle nature, we can only prepare.