A little over 35 years ago, on Feb. 8, 1984, astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart left the space shuttle on mission STS-41-B for the first-ever untethered space walk, becoming what the New York Times called “the first human satellites.”

Today, in clinical settings all over the world, healthcare clinicians benefit from the same sense of untethering from wired technology, thanks to the evolution of the cloud.

Having a clear view of a patient’s prescription history is one of the most important tools a doctor can have during the opioid crisis. That’s why we recently integrated our EHR with the Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS) at Chippewa County War Memorial Hospital.

In a recent survey conducted by KLAS, 45 percent of physicians disagreed with the concept their EHR helps them provide quality care. That’s an astounding — and troubling — number, especially when you consider that EHRs are becoming just as widespread and integral to health care as tongue depressors.

When Kelly Del Gaudio started working at Galen Healthcare Solutions, her interest in clinical optimization drove the direction of their MEDITECH consultancy offerings focusing strongly on rule driven clinical workflow redesign.

What a year it’s been! On the MEDITECH blog, we’ve been lucky enough to connect with industry thought leaders and healthcare innovators on important topics such as new government regulations, interoperability, and the future of nursing. We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading and learning with us, and we’re excited to see what’s to come in 2019!

MEDITECH Associate Vice President Cathy Turner was featured in Minority Nurse's blog called "The Latest Technology in Health Care." Turner, along with other industry thought leaders, gives her take on what technology is coming in the not-too-distant future and how it will impact nurses. 

In this episode of our thought leader podcast series, I chat with John Haffty, CEO of Navin, Haffty & Associates, on the importance of EHR value & sustainability in the vendor selection process. With extensive experience helping healthcare organizations maximize the value of their EHR, John shares his insights into how to make a wise EHR investment.

As an EHR vendor, it’s our responsibility to know where the industry is going and why. We drive innovation in the healthcare IT space so we can provide the tools clinicians need to care for their patients. The healthcare spectrum is complex, and we know that our technology has to provide interoperable data across care settings.

Over the past year, we’ve seen the term ‘gameplay’ popping up in more and more places. People seem to be quite taken with the notion that the logistics and patterns surrounding games and their rules can be applied to business, politics, and everyday obstacles. As I would discover at the 2018 MGMA Annual Conference, gameplay can tell us a lot about how to succeed in healthcare today.

Developing standards for healthcare is nothing new — in fact, you could say the concept of identifying quality measures started in the early 17th century, when a Hungarian Doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, championed handwashing in his clinic.