Editor's Note A recent Reaction Data survey of 254 physicians found that 21% believed electronic health records (EHRs) were the biggest determinant in burnout, followed by payers/preauthorization, regulatory compliance, and internal bureaucracy, the July 31 Healthcare Informatics reports. All factors had a common theme of consuming time and preventing physicians…
Editor's Note In a survey of more than 2,000 US adults, The Harris Poll on behalf of healthcare marketing firm Scout found that nearly half are extremely or very concerned about the security of their healthcare data, the July 30 Health IT Security reports. The survey also found that 47%…
Editor's Note Lowering the default number of opioid pills prescribed in an electronic health record (EHR) system is a simple, effective, inexpensive, and potentially scalable intervention to change prescriber behavior and decrease the amount of opioids prescribed postoperatively, finds this study. In this analysis of 1,447 procedures before the default…
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on July 19 finalized its guidance for using electronic health record (EHR) data in FDA-regulated clinical studies. The guidance is meant to encourage the use of EHR data in clinical studies and promote greater interoperability between EHR and electronic data capture systems.…
Editor's Note In this study, researchers at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles applied machine learning to arterial pressure waveforms to develop an algorithm that predicted intraoperative hypotension 15 minutes before it occurred in 84% of cases. Two sets of data were used to build the algorithm. One set consisted…
Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is notifying eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals that they now have until March 16 to attest for Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program requirements for CY 2017 and to submit electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) data for the…
Editor's Note The Joint Commission on November 29 announced a new software tool, “Tracers with AMPTM plus CMS,” to help hospitals and critical access hospitals manage their Joint Commission accreditation and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) compliance efforts. The tool is a web-based platform that stores a hospital’s…
Editor's Note An Ambra Health survey found that 31% of more than 1,100 healthcare consumers were not able to easily access their medical records, and only half of those had access to their records online through their health care practitioner, the September 19 Healthcare Informatics reports. The survey also found…
Editor's Note After implementation of an anesthesia information management system (AIMS)-based mandatory quality assurance process for reporting of intraoperative adverse events at two academic medical centers, documented adverse events decreased significantly, this study finds. Over a 2-year period after implementation of mandatory reporting, the adverse event rate at Thomas Jefferson…
Ransomware is a form of computer malware used to make data, software, and information technology (IT) assets unavailable to users. It uses encryption of data to hold systems hostage with an associated ransom demand, often in Bitcoin (a virtual currency that is difficult to trace). This encryption is used to…