List of Healthcare IT Trade Associations

Advancing Medical Practice Success with Strategic Relationships

By Staff ReportersHDS

To be efficient in healthcare delivery today, doctors must partner and understand the resources and affiliations that are available to them. Here is a brief list of several healthcare trade associations and leading industry vendors submitted for your review.

AHIMA
The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is the premier association of health information management professionals. AHIMA’s 51,000 members are dedicated to the effective management of personal health information needed to deliver quality healthcare to the public. Founded in 1928 to improve the quality of medical records, AHIMA is committed to advancing the health information management profession in an increasingly electronic and global environment through leadership in advocacy, education, certification, and lifelong learning.

EHRA
HIMSS EHRA is a trade association of Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors that addresses national efforts to create interoperable EHRs in hospital and ambulatory care settings. HIMSS EHRA operates on the premise that the rapid, widespread adoption of EHRs will help improve the quality of patient care and the productivity of the healthcare system. The primary mission of the association is to provide a forum for the EHR vendor community relative to standards development, the EHR certification process, interoperability, performance and quality measures, and other EHR issues that may become the subject of increasing government, insurance and physician association initiatives and requests.

HIMSS
HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) is the healthcare industry’s membership organization exclusively focused on providing leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology and management systems for the betterment of human health. Founded in 1961 with offices in Chicago, Washington D.C., and other locations across the country, HIMSS represents approximately 17,000 individual members and some 275 member corporations that employ more than 1 million people. HIMSS frames and leads healthcare public policy and industry practices through its advocacy, educational and professional development initiatives designed to promote information and management systems’ contributions to ensuring quality patient care.

HITSP
The Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel serves as a cooperative partnership between the public and private sectors for achieving a widely accepted and useful set of standards specifically to enable and support widespread interoperability among healthcare software applications, as they will interact in a local, regional, and national health information network for the United States. Comprised of a wide range of stakeholders, the Panel will assist in the development of the U.S. Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) by addressing issues such as privacy and security within a shared healthcare information system. The Panel is sponsored by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in cooperation with strategic partners such as the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI), and Booz Allen Hamilton. Funding for the Panel is being provided via the ONCHIT contract award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

HL7
Health Level Seven is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited Standards Developing Organization (SDO) operating in the healthcare clinical and administrative data arena. It is a not-for-profit volunteer organization made up of providers, vendors, payers, consultants, government groups, and others who develop clinical and administrative data standards for healthcare. Health Level Seven develops specifications; the most widely used being a messaging standard that enables disparate healthcare applications to exchange keys sets of clinical and administrative data.

MSHUG
Microsoft Healthcare Users Group (MS-HUG) unified with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) as part of the HIMSS Users Group Alliance Program in October 2003. The unification strengthens the commitment of HIMSS and MS-HUG to better serve their members and the industry through a shared strategic vision to provide leadership and healthcare information technology solutions that improve the delivery of patient care.

WEDI
The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange [WEDI’s] goal is to improve the quality of healthcare through effective and efficient information exchange and management. They aim to provide leadership and guidance to the healthcare industry on how to use and leverage the industry’s collective knowledge, expertise, and information resources to improve the quality, affordability, and availability of healthcare.

Assessment

As the health information technology industry evolves, we will continue to contribute our expertise to foster ideas that shape the future of healthcare by offering more examples similar to the above.

Conclusion

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HealthyMagination and Direct to Consumer [D2C] eMRs?

About HealthyMagination.com from GE

By Staff Reporters

Just imagine … the broadcast TV or radio commercial fades in, as the announcer says:

“Almost everyone wants to make healthier choices, but they don’t always know how. The amount of information available on wellness, nutrition and exercise is overwhelming, to say the least. Even when we do know how to improve our health, we often try to make sweeping changes or set goals that seem too daunting to reach.”

What it is

Healthymagination, from General Electric, is a consumer directed internet site, with new D2C TV commercial about becoming healthier, through the sharing of imaginative ideas and proven solutions. It goes beyond innovations in the fields of technology and medicine, celebrating the people behind these advancements.

Seeking to build stronger relationships between patients and doctors, GE created healthymagination to gather, share and discuss healthy ideas and illustrative stories.

Story link: http://www.healthymagination.com/stories/

Participatory Projects for Patients

Because healthymagination is about becoming healthier together, it takes the form of multiple projects that patients can participate in, whether they are looking to change a lifestyle or fine-tune an approach to health.

According to GE, making healthy decisions should be easy … and fun.

Link: http://www.healthymagination.com/projects/

Info and Video for Doctors

There is also a portal for medical professionals, promoting GE eMRs, of course.

Link: http://www.ge.com/innovation/emr/index.html

Due Diligence RFP

And, good preliminary questions for all physicians to ask any eMR vendor are:

  • What is the cost per physician license?
  • Do you have any existing clients in our specialty?
  • Does your system come pre-loaded with templates for my specialty?
  • Is your company the developers of the software or is it re-branded from another vendor?
  • Is your system client/server based or ASP based?
  • Does your system include practice management software?
  • How many clients does your company have?
  • Is your system HL7 compliant?
  • How long has your company been in business?
  • Is your development done overseas?
  • Is support done overseas?
  • Is your software CCHIT certified? If not, why?
  • How often is the software updated?

Assessment

Let us hope that the health 2.0 participatory patient of the future doesn’t select a physician based on the proprietary eMRs s/he uses, as seen on a television commercial, much like the D2C [direct-to-consumer] pharmaceutical industry of today.

IOW: Will that be Allscripts, Cerner or GE, etc? Or, listen to narrator and actor Morgan Freeman intone on a TV spot: “Ask your doctor if XYZ electronic medical records are right for you.” 

Conclusion

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