The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) has appointed Karen M. Bell, MD, as chair of CCHIT, effective April 26.

In a letter to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, a workgroup for the HIT Policy Committee recommended the creation of a web site that names EHR vendors and vendor product versions that have received certification, and shows which meaningful use stage has been tested and certified.

Referring to the leveraging of health IT as information therapy, Christine Sinsky, MD, from Medical Associates Clinic and Health Plans in Dubuque, Iowa, said that by providing a way for patients to have access to their personal health information, shared medical decision-making between the physician and the patient is facilitated. 

Relaxing the meaningful use standards, as some physician organizations and members of Congress are urging the Department of Health and Human Services to do, would be a boon to the EMR industry, according to market research firm Kalorama Information. The report predicts the $13.8 billion market could, if properly driven by incentives, grow in double digits.

Between 75 percent and 85 percent of physicians with EHRs are already using functions that meet some of the proposed criteria for demonstrating meaningful use, according to analysis from Seth O. Hogan, survey director, and Stephanie M. Kissam, health services research associate, at RTI International in Chicago.

ICUcare, a software developer for retail health clinics, has introduced its eDoc Telemedicine/EHR system.

Thanks to a donation from the Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, the Chicago Zoological Societys Brookfield Zoo now can  CT scan "patients" ranging from  tigers and gorillas, to dolphins and small bears.

Clinical documentation plays a central role in EHRs and occupies a substantial amount of physicians time, but documentation practices have largely been dictated by billing and legal requirements, according to a New England Journal of Medicine online article published by Gordon D. Schiff, MD, and David W. Bates, MD, on March 25. The authors urged physicians to take back ownership of the medical record as a tool for improving patient care.