"EHR" Posts

Portrait of Julie Franklin

Resources from ONC on Becoming a Meaningful User of EHRs

Julie Franklin | January 12, 2011

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) want to help you on your journey to becoming a meaningful user of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology.  Here are resources about meaningful use, Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, and the EHR certification process to help guide you:

Read Full Post.
Portrait of Peter Garrett

EMR vs EHR – What is the Difference?

Peter Garrett | January 4, 2011

What’s in a word? Or, even one letter of an acronym?
Some people use the terms “electronic medical record” and “electronic health record” (or “EMR” and “EHR”) interchangeably. But here at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), you’ll notice we use electronic health record or EHR almost exclusively. While it may seem a little picky at first, the difference between the two terms is actually quite significant.

Read Full Post.
Portrait of Dr. David Blumenthal

Certified EHR Systems are Affirming Flexibility

Dr. David Blumenthal | December 23, 2010

Today on our FAQ page, we are posting a revised Question and Answer regarding an issue that has recently caused confusion in our meaningful use regulations:  namely, the flexibility that providers have to defer performance on some Stage 1 meaningful use objectives; and how that squares with the requirement that providers must nonetheless possess fully-certified EHR systems. 

Read Full Post.
Portrait of Aaron Schwartz

Health IT workforce training connects ONC to Nobel Prize

Aaron Schwartz | October 22, 2010

Last week, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Peter Diamond, Dale Mortenson, and Christopher Pissarides, whose work addressed questions about how unemployed workers find jobs and what role economic policy plays in unemployment. The Recovery Act, of which HITECH is a part, was designed to boost employment and make infrastructure investments that would pay off for the country over the long term. At ONC we’ve focused heavily on the pay-offs to investment in health IT in the forms of better quality and efficiency in care delivery.

Read Full Post.