HR & Workforce Management

True to its word, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is moving at full steam to provide governance support to health information organizations (HIOs) to spur the industry to widespread electronic data exchange. ONC has formed a governance framework with business, trust and other principles to create a "common foundation" for all types of health information exchange governance models. Still, I wonder if this decision ultimately may come back to haunt the industry.

Implementing an electronic medical records system in Malawi included the usual challenges, such as having tech staff available, selling clinicians on its value and training them to use it. But there were additional challenges, including power outages, low computer literacy in some areas and co-existing with a paper-based system, according to a new study published in PLOS Medicine .

The urgency to modernize the U.S. healthcare system and the pace of change that can be absorbed by both providers and IT vendors is a delicate balance, National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, M.D., said at a Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., this morning. 

Lack of electronic health record interoperability at a new hospital jointly run by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense is adversely affecting clinical care and costing the government millions of dollars, according to a new report published this week by the Institute of Medicine.