A high percentage of MRI and CT examinations are not meeting appropriateness criteria and those that don't typically yield negative results, suggesting a need for tools to help primary care physicians improve the quality of their imaging referral decisions, according to a study published online today in the March issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR).

Healthcare reform. Healthcare overhaul. Healthcare lite. As members of Congress and the Oval Office grit their teeth and search for consensus or attempt to thwart it, federal agencies and others are quietly making progress toward meaningful changes in the way health IT gets done. These behind-the-scenes efforts are small steps toward adapting healthcare for the future and possibly lowering the cost of care.  

Thursday, March 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 AM Session leaders from the Department of Defense and the Veterans Affairs Administration will answer and discuss the following questions: What are some of the most critical imperatives for advancing healthcare delivery in the new age of automation? What are some of the most vexing challenges to leveraging technology as a tool in healthcare? What are some of the key opportunities for transforming care delivery? How does innovation change in the information age of healthcare?

Wednesday, March 3, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM Conventional wisdom dictates that documents are bad and discrete data is good. But the Healthstory project offers a bridge between free-flowing narrative clinical documentation and semantically interoperable data.

Wednesday, March 3, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM Creating a common problem list from diverse EMRs at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center raised challenges despite common terminology. The presenters will describe their solution to these challenges, which impact semantic interoperability.

Wednesday, March 3, 10:45 AM - 11:10 AM

Tuesday, March 2, 9:45 AM - 10:45 AMThis session will seek to define the elements of an effective case that can be made for ROI and cost-benefit analyses for hospitals to connect to ambulatory EMRs; describe how hospitals can improve their community physician affinity; and describe internal IT resource requirements and implementation lessons.

Tuesday, March 2, 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM OhioHealth is transforming care delivery and preparing for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding with an interoperable healthcare platform that simplifies access to care, facilitates coordination of care, optimizes treatment and improves satisfaction.