Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) can save a person’s life when they detect a dangerous heart rhythm and correct it by delivering a shock to the heart. For another person it might […]

Donna: Hi, Sue! Do you ever see something on a problem list that isn’t correct? Sue: Yes, often!  You know I always say, “The problem list is a problem.” Donna: […]

I have found that the best topics for my blog are those that I care most passionately about (see “Collaborating with Kindness” as an example). As I thought about this […]

Many of you might have read the recent findings by researchers Isao Echizen et al. from the National Institute of Informatics (NII) of Japan that it is possible to copy […]

The premier medical informatics event of the year, the AMIA 2016 Annual Symposium, had many excellent talks that caught my interest. The one that myself and the audience liked most, […]

Health professionals should not have to choose between doing what’s right for their patients and doing well. Health care in the U.S. is undergoing significant changes in the way we […]

A recent article in the journal Medical Care examines the validity of AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) and CMS Hospital-acquired Conditions (HACs) given the growing reliance of these measures for […]

I’m often asked by health system leadership “How do we improve X?” where X is a specific quality or utilization metric.  This blog is a description of one (not the […]

When we consider the complexity of systems and the challenges in making data-driven systems usable, it is easy to forget the principle of “real time.” As an industry, we hear […]

As the healthcare industry strives to converge all the data sources required to manage population health, the mass of data needed to do it well, and to both clinically and […]

Will the growing use of medical scribes decrease the need for medical transcriptionists? In an interview with For the Record, 3M’s Jill Devrick discusses how both roles will be impacted by EHR adoption.

In keeping with the theme of previous blog posts–the professional realm of E&M coding–I’d like to discuss medical necessity as it relates to the final level of care. CMS has […]