Media coverage of health IT
Regular readers know I’ve not been shy about criticizing other media when they misunderstand health IT. Possibly because of my outspokenness, the Reporting on Health project at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication asked me to write a piece to help other journalists cover health IT and EHRs.
Three months after I turned it in, my story is finally up. I’ve also included a glossary of key terminology that I hope helps stop the confusion between EMRs, EHRs and PHRs, particularly the use of heinous terms like “personal electronic medical records.”
If I reach just one local news reporter, I’ll feel like I’ve succeeded.
Neil,Excellent article. Healthcare is the only industry I know that has more acronyms than tech, and that is saying something.We need for articles like this one that are readable and understandable by the masses of interested parties.Nice job!
Kudos to you, Neil, especially on the glossary. Everytime I think I've learned all the acronyms, I read one that either I hadn't come across before or is brand new. This article blazed through the techno-babble that we are immerced in and broke things down for the common reader. Thanks.
Neil, that was a good piece on EHRs…there is a lot of confusion out there that is being sorted out and your piece helps to make that happen. I have some info for someone like you that influences the debate. Ontologies are great for data mapping that correlates data from disparate sources. Data disparity is endemic to EMR/EHR due to different systems storing the same data differently. I am aware of a company that has made a significant break-thru with respect to ontological engineering and disease control that is worth note. It's a small privately held SaaS development company based in Colorado that has developed and deployed an ontologically-based, GIS integrated disease management decision support system in Africa to fight malaria. This is a significant system that was funded by the global combatants of this disease and the system can be rapidly customized for deployment to other disease environments…especially if you are talking about vector-borne disease. The company, TerraFrame TerraFrame is interested in leveraging its technology to fight global diseases or other problems requiring better decision support systems (like the EHR debate) and is happy to entertain creative conversations to that effect. For more information please contact Ray Hutchins at rh@terraframe.co