web based news from FierceHealthIT

Liking the IT options you're getting from your payer? Well, you'd better. A new study suggests that more than half of payers may not be making new investments in 2008, instead of hunkering down to... Read more...

A new trade organization is pushing to get doctors and dentists to begin doing a great deal more business online--and in the process, document the free care they provide to medically indigent and... Read more...

While commercial EMR vendors say they could develop a joint Web-based health record system within a year for the VA and DoD, it increasingly seems bureaucracy makes that all but impossible. WebMD,... Read more...

Google's announcement that it's developed a healthcare advisory panel has created quite a stir. In recent weeks, the search giant has been pitching its secure Web information security technology, arguing along the way that secure authentication is key to building Web-based EMRs. The announcement has further fueled speculation Google will develop its own Web-based EMR.

The stellar 21-member panel, …

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Over the last few weeks, Google vice president Adam Bosworth has been making the rounds spelling out the search giant's vision for medical data sharing. Among his key points has been that strong authentication will be critical for the kind of online sharing necessary for patients to really benefit. Perhaps to reassure privacy advocates, who have vigorously questioned Google's philosophy of data ownership, Bosworth has been telling audiences that consumers "should own their total personal …

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An emerging San Francisco-based vendor has struck a deal with search giant Google to distribute Google text ads within its EMR, a step which may mark the first time that an EMR vendor has financed its offering this way. The Google ads will be generated based on keywords drawn from patient clinical data. Because it's agreed to let the ads into its Web-based EMR, vendor Practice Fusion will be able to offer the EMR to physicians for free. It had previously sold its software-as-a-service …

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With all the hype surrounding pay-for-performance and other value-based reimbursement, nobody has come up with a fail-safe means for healthcare purchasers and payers to quantify the benefits. The Leapfrog Group, the group of large employers hoping to raise healthcare quality through greater accountability, figured it was time to take a stab. The result is the ROI Estimator, an online companion to the Leapfrog Hospital Rewards Program that is meant to figure clinical and financial return …

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While it wasn't always the case in the past, nurses are playing an increasingly large role in shaping and rolling out EMR systems. That was definitely the case at Mountain States Health Alliance (MSHA), which was aggressive enough to begin moving from paper records to EMR in 2001. MSHA's network includes 11 hospitals with 1,462 beds, 21 primary care centers and 13 outpatient clinics.

While physicians often run EMR deployments, this time chief nursing executive Kathryn Wilhoit …

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