Tim's WhatMatters Blog 

A new study finds that practices with an EHR deliver better care and outcomes to diabetic patients than do practices operating on paper.

If the EHR could send a brief summary of the visit to a distant family member of the patient, that would be great.

Most physicians use an Apple product. That defines their expectations of their EHR.

Do EHRs help or harm physician productivity? It turns out the same MGMA study is cited by both optimists and pessimists. Read the study yourself.

About a decade ago, everyone was talking about 'it' -the next big thing- 'Ginger'. Finally we learned what Ginger, this new thing predicted to change the world, actually was -A scooter. Granted, we’re not yet nine years removed from the HITECH EHR stimulus program as we are now with the mysterious Ginger, but we are getting far enough into the whole concept that some early opinions are forming. Some are sounding a bit like, ‘Really? That just looks like a cool scooter to me.’ Not 'change the world' worthy.

We have learned from the early EHR pioneers that ‘within the walls’ software implementations only slightly unfreeze the information locked in the paper charts. As a lever of systemic industry change, EHRs alone are pretty limited. Archimedes, the Greek math dude that postulated he could move the world if only he had a lever long enough, would not be impressed. With only EHRs, our data is still mostly frozen. Which gets me to my favorite new buzzword. ‘Data Liquidity’

One camp views every dollar of cost the same - a dollar no longer in my pocket - and make no distinction about the type of expenditure it is- operating expense, investments to maintain or to build new value, etc. That is a problem. Cheap is not always the least expensive option. It all depends on how you look at it.