As you resolve not to smoke, overeat or work too much in 2012, the website SearchHealthIT issues its list of five health IT trends not to watch in the new year:
- Electronic medical records: EMRs are generally in-house records for tracking patient data and improving quality of care. It's electronic health records, which can be shared among caregivers and accessed electronically by patients, that bear watching, website editor Brian Eastwood writes in a blog post.
- Personal health records: The market doesn't seem to be going anywhere right now, and questions are being raised about privacy.
- Hospital information systems and clinical information systems: Like EMRs, the data compiled by these systems is not easily shared among providers or through a health information exchange.
- Computerized physician order entry: Adoption is low, in part because they're geared toward hospitals, not the physicians using them. They're "slow to adapt to the tablet PCs and smartphones that physicians have more than happily embraced," Eastwood writes.
- Regional health information organizations: While more than 250 of these organizations exist nationwide, the terminology and its acronym (RHIO) appear to be going out of fashion.
John Pulley
John Pulley has written the Health IT Update blog since May 2011. Prior to becoming a regular contributor to Nextgov, he covered technology for Federal Computer Week and Government Health IT magazines. He has written about government for Federal Times and Air Force Times, as well. Pulley has worked in journalism for more than 20 years. He began his career covering local government for regional newspapers. In addition, he served as a writer and senior editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education for seven years. In 2006, he founded The Pulley Group, an editorial services agency.
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