“I’m sorry, our system is down.” -  One sentence that makes any CIO’s blood pressure skyrocket. Today hospital staffs have been trained to use systems and rely on electronics for just about everything they need to do to get their job done. But what happens when those systems go down?…

HISP and Direct Messaging solutions continue to dominate conversations in the Healthcare IT community. The first in the series of deadlines is slated for July 1^st to meet the Meaningful Use Stage 2 Transition of Care requirement.  This date is quickly approaching and many hospital organizations are…

Interoperability is a complex topic, not to mention it's constantly changing. Having the ability to fully integrate your systems, and having the ability to connect your HIS to any vendor or receiving system is quite a feat.

Understandably so, many of the technologies out there…

According to a recent Meritalk report, 82% of health IT executives report that their organizations are not prepared for a downtime. Not only does this raise major concern in the area of patient care, but also brings into question the economics of some of these…

Today, organizations are faced with meeting multiple internal and external integration demands. Meaningful Use Stage 2 has brought a whole new set of requirements for healthcare facilities.

Each initiative and supporting requirement adds another…

2013 was an exciting year for the healthcare industry! Many organizations have achieved Meaningful Use stage 1 and are now beginning to move toward meeting stage 2. While Meaningful Use stage 2…

Data Breaches happen across a multitude of industries, and occur more often than many would like to admit. The healthcare industry has been particularly susceptible to breaches. Most recently, University of Washington Medicine’s Medical Center found themselves trying to clean up…

2014 is on the horizon. With that, it’s not only a time to reflect on the past year, but also continue to move forward and plan ahead. Interoperability has been the topic of many conversations within the healthcare industry lately. Looking into the new year,  it’s important that healthcare…

Posted on behalf of Edward Ricks, CIO, Beaufort Memorial Hospital

I’ve got to say Beaufort Memorial Hospital (BMH) has always been pretty progressive in terms of an Information Technology perspective. Over the past few years, we’ve realized one…

Posted on behalf of Tim Fail, Wayne Memorial Hospital

In my 11 years at Wayne Memorial Hospital I’ve learned a thing or two. One piece of advice I would offer to any Healthcare IT executive would be to take advantage of all that scripting tools can offer.

If…

Interoperability has been a focus of the Healthcare industry lately. For hospitals and organizations, having the ability to integrate all of their systems is essential. The ability to deliver specific information about a patient from the bedside to…

Hospitals today, just like any other business, often find themselves forced to meet tighter deadlines, comply with industry regulations and reporting demands with fewer personnel and resources.  The main goal of any healthcare provider whether it be…

As I’m sure many nurses and hospital personnel can attest, downtime can be a complete headache. With focuses on increased electronic data stored in the EMR, downtime situations have the ability to turn devastating quickly.…

The most recent HIPAA Final Rule which was released on March 26th, 2013 pays particular attention to the Security of (electronic patient health information) ePHI as well as specific requirements around Contingency Planning. If you’re like most healthcare customers, you’re currently facing multiple challenges with assuring…

Over the past few years organizations have been well informed of the latest HIPAA rules. The HIPAA rules have included specifics around how to control privacy, security and overall patient safety related to electronic use of data. The newest rule, titled the Final Rule in the Administrative Protections section…

Some things are out of our control. Of course no one wants to anticipate system or network failure. However, it’s a reality that we need to continuously and cautiously plan for. Last year Hurricane Sandy crippled the northeastern seaboard. Leaving many hospitals to deal with major flooding, electrical outages and failing…

Crawl before you can walk, walk before you can run...we all are very familiar with the concept.  But how many individuals that you know leap into huge automation and integration projects without knowing the why behind the how?  If you don’t clearly understand the ‘why’ of a project, knowing the ‘what’, ‘when’ and…

Business Continuity is critical for organizations of all sizes and industries. Without business continuity, an organization will simply not be able to operate effectively, or at all, in the days following a natural or man-made disaster. While a disaster recovery solution is valuable, it does not compare to a strategy that can actually ensure that no downtime occurs.

This becomes even more important in industries such as…