Wes Barker
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Wes Barker's Latest Blog Posts
Use of Telemedicine among Physicians and Development of Telemedicine Apps
Wes Barker | March 9, 2023
In 2020, as the U.S. health care system faced the unprecedented challenge of combating the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine emerged as an invaluable care delivery tool; both providers and patients heavily relied on it for providing and receiving care. Through an analysis of National Electronic Health Record Survey (NEHRS) 2021 data and from in-house data collected from electronic health record (EHR) developers’ app galleries, we have an opportunity to inform the public about physicians’ experiences with telemedicine during the pandemic.
Read Full Post.Shining a Light on FHIR Implementation: Progress Toward Publishing FHIR Endpoints
Wes Barker | February 1, 2022
Using APIs “without Special Effort”
The ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule (Cures Rule) supports patients’ and providers’ access to electronic health information (EHI) through Health Level Seven (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) application programming interfaces (APIs). FHIR is ready for prime-time and the Cures Rule requires certain developers of certified health IT to provide a certified, FHIR API to their customer base by December 31, 2022.
Read Full Post.Research Results Published: More Apps are Integrating with EHRs
Wes Barker | September 24, 2021
New ONC research shows a more than 20% rise in the number of apps that integrate with certified electronic health records (EHRs).
A manuscript highlighting the findings of this research was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association: “The Ecosystem of Apps and Software integrated with Certified Health Information Technology”. Our study analyzed apps that were discoverable in app galleries managed by EHR developers – Allscripts,
The Heat is On: US Caught FHIR in 2019
Wes Barker | July 29, 2021
In 2018, the United States was at a turning point with respect to the adoption and implementation of the Health Level Seven (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) standard in health information technology (health IT). At that time, our analysis, outlined in a previous blog post predicted that the U.S. could soon see widespread adoption of certified application programming interface (API) technology enabled with FHIR. The results are in, and the findings are encouraging.
Read Full Post.Does ONC’s Certification Program Affect Interoperability? New Evidence and Implications
Wes Barker | July 20, 2021
ONC is excited to share findings from newly published research that sheds light on the impact adoption of 2015 Edition certified health information technology (health IT) has had on hospitals’ rates of interoperability. In a recently published Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association article called Impact of the 2015 Health Information Technology Certification Edition on Interoperability among Hospitals, we examined how variation in the adoption of 2015 Edition certified health IT impacted key measures of interoperable exchange.
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