Chris P. Kaiser, Editor

It’s virtually impossible to go through a day without reading about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and its incentives for medical IT implementation and advancement. I can remember, however, when the notion of going totally electronic was still a foreign concept. Among the few who believed in the concept of EMRs, perhaps Dylan Thomas’s villanelle refrain was their mantra to not give up.

With the passage of the stimulus bill, the stakes are higher now for EMR adoption because of the timeline imposed by the government to earn financial incentives. One really should have started the research and implementation process yesterday, but if you haven’t, Cardiovascular Business’s EMR Portal can help inform you.

Thomas’ words resound in these challenging economic times, while many hospitals shelve potential IT projects. But it is precisely because of the economic crunch that a facility or practice needs to have the most sophisticated data information systems in order to streamline workflow, reduce redundancy, data mine to optimize resources and increase revenue. A detailed pro forma will likely show a healthy ROI upon implementing an EMR—and that’s without the government’s incentives!

Despite a tight timeline for receiving IT incentives under the stimulus, there’s no need to panic. It’s important to do the research and talk with others who have implemented EMRs. I also encourage you to visit our HealthCare TechGuide, which contains a comprehensive listing of companies who specialize in EMRs, as well as informative White Papers such as “7 Habits for Effectively Leading Healthcare Interoperability Initiatives” from Corepoint Health and “Inside the Data Center of the Future: The Key to Progressively Managing Data Across the Enterprise” from Agfa Healthcare.

You might also want to read “Cardiology Groups and Hospitals Strive to ‘Connect’ Seamlessly” in the latest digital issue of Cardiovascular Business and “CVIS, Cardiology PACS Widening Image Access” in our sister publication, Health Imaging and IT.

In addition, in April we will be launching CMIO, a quarterly publication dedicated to educating chief medical informatics officers, a new breed of physicians tasked to lead the IT revolution. You can subscribe to CMIO here.

You can heed Thomas’s words and send me your comments on these or any other topics. I look forward to hearing from you.


C.P. Kaiser

Editor

ckaiser@cardiovascularbusiness.com