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President Obama’s EMR overhaul is intended to be complete by 2014
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Newman certainly practices what he preaches, as Boston Medical proudly boasts a knowledge management group set up specifically for the cause – complete with the intelligence to place it in a position where clinicians are making the ultimate decisions as to what the data should be. On top of that, Newman can also lay claim to a data warehouse group; a clever investment as it can be used to show the right eyes the relevant quality metrics. “The missing piece that we have to unite these two projects is the transparency of clinician input. If I log on to my system, I can see that this patient – for a certain PQRI measure
or meaningful use measure – doesn’t fit into the denominator or the numerator. From here, I can remove them if need be. There has to be that sense of transparency up front.” It is here that a worry for the large majority prevails. With the data input and data fields relatively easy to put together with minimal standards, the difficulty stems from an ability to maintain the system once it has been put into place. A handful of institutes are already fi nding that if it’s not maintained, it tends to break down extremely quickly – and when it does, the contained data begin to fall apart. “The other piece of the puzzle that is huge for us right
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