As the lights dim and you begin crunching on some buttery popcorn, the theater is illuminated by a forest green screen. After the first trailer ends, the screen changes to a dark red. The words on the screen say that it’s been approved for a restricted audience only.

When it comes to movie trailers, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) created a set of standards that help determine whether a film is deemed appropriate for every viewer.

In the same way that the MPAA has used their rating system to try and make the film industry better, so have Standard Development Organizations (SDOs) created health data standards to improve interoperability between healthcare organizations and their Electronic Health Record (EHR) system.

With the holiday season fast approaching, people everywhere will turn to online marketplaces like Amazon® or eBay® to purchase gifts for friends and family. Now, imagine the frustration that would ensue if these companies made a decision to only allow access through a single browser and on a specific type of mobile device.

Users want the freedom to be able to access a website from any browser, on any device, and on any operating system. This same need for independence and ease of use carries over when providers need to access healthcare data between EHRs. FHIR is the means of achieving this.

‘Awash in data, ankle deep in information’

Modern healthcare generates seemingly endless amounts of data, from Progress Notes, exams, and lab tests, to emergency room visits, hospital stays, health trackers, and more. By next year, according to an estimate from Stanford Medicine’s Health Trends Report, the U.S. will have more than 2,314 exabytes (an exabyte is a trillion megabytes) of data.

The more relevant point, author Michael E. Thompson notes, is that healthcare today is “awash in data, yet barely ankle deep in information.”

What if you were the new coach of the team with the worst record in the NFL? How would you improve the organization’s performance? One approach might be to benchmark what’s working for the best teams in the league and use available assets to adapt your processes to what makes those other teams a success.

In healthcare, too, benchmarking can be a critical component in improving efficiency, quality of care, patient safety, and patient satisfaction.

From overwhelming to manageable

Many medical organizations talk about having a roadmap to the future, but following one is hard. Adopting new healthcare IT can feel overwhelming when you’re trying to keep up with your daily patients.

But overwhelming becomes manageable when a practice remembers the principles that go into a good roadmap.

In spring 2012, at a time when Electronic Health Records (EHRs) were still far from universal, the journal Perspectives in Health Information Management published a study examining how EHRs can impact practice workflows.

After 42 years, the Star Wars Skywalker saga is coming to an end. Fans hope that Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker will be an epic conclusion to the series, captivating the audience with quality filmmaking and storytelling rather than cashing in on past success and ideas that will sink the sequel into obscurity. To put it simply: quality over quantity.

What could be said about quality in cinema could also be said for the world of healthcare. Volume-based care puts less focus on quality or the type of service they give to patients and more on the numbers and cost of care – those who were the most successful were those who could see the greatest number of patients.

Consider the following paragraph:

11-5-5-16-9-14-7 16-1-20-9-5-14-20-19 5-14-7-1-7-5-4 1-14-4 3-15-13-9-14-7 2-1-3-11 20-15 25-15-21-18 16-18-1-3-20-9-3-5 3-15-21-12-4 3-15-13-5 4-15-23-14 20-15 19-15-13-5-20-8-9-14-7 1-19 19-9-13-16-12-5 1-19 7-15-15-4 3-15-13-13-21-14-9-3-1-20-9-15-14. 23-8-5-14-5-22-5-18 20-8-5-18-5’19 1 16-18-15-2-12-5-13, 11-14-15-23-9-14-7 1-14-4 21-14-4-5-18-19-20-1-14-4-9-14-7 20-8-1-20 20-8-5-18-5 9-19 1 19-5-20 15-6 20-15-15-12-19 20-8-1-20 3-15-21-12-4 19-15-12-22-5 20-8-5 16-18-15-2-12-5-13 3-15-21-12-4 13-1-11-5 25-15-21-18 12-9-6-5 5-1-19-9-5-18 1-14-4 11-5-5-16 25-15-21-18 16-18-1-3-20-9-3-5 1-6-12-15-1-20.

Does the paragraph make sense to you?

Thirteen years ago, Urban Health Plan made the switch

Since our partnership began, our practice has gone through a period of growth and development that mirrored eClinicalWorks’ expansion as an EHR company. After beginning our strategic partnership with eClinicalWorks, we expanded from 3 health centers to 11 health centers and 12 school-based clinics.

The ways that we were able to implement and use the EHR allowed us to improve care by assuring that all of our patients, no matter their location in the Urban Health network, were connected.

Women of all ages and at all points in their lives turn to OB/GYN practices to stay healthy. As medical technology advances, eClinicalWorks® continues to create and refine tools to improve practice efficiency and keep patients engaged in their health.

Functional, faster, and more efficient

eClinicalWorks V11 contains gynecological templates designed to improve practice efficiency. For practices that include obstetrics, the OB Flowsheet is a multimodal tool that helps the physician speed up workflows.

Here’s a familiar script: Your practice delivers quality care. You attract more patients, perhaps more than you can easily handle. You’d love to call a timeout to decide how to better serve the patients you’ll be seeing tomorrow, but you’re just too busy serving the patients you’re seeing today.

What to do? You could stop reading this and go chip away at any unfinished tasks. Or you could read on for a refresher on basic principles that could transform your practice.

When you can’t kick a cold, who do you go to? Primary care physicians are there for you when something’s feeling off and are also often the first to notice underlying health issues. The Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) model is a means to help strengthen primary care, promote health, and lower healthcare costs.

What is CPC+?

CPC+ is a multi-payer initiative led by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) designed to improve primary care with two five-year rounds that are location specific. It provides practices with a comprehensive learning system and data feedback that can help guide a practice’s decision-making and deliver better care.

Facing common medical challenges

While every medical practice has distinctive characteristics — from its providers and location to the way it approaches daily workflows — the medical challenges that practices face do not vary all that much from place to place.

Every practice can benefit by emphasizing preventive care. And every practice can use some help in implementing IT solutions to reach at-risk patients.

Compass Medical, a 25-year-old primary care organization & an Accountable Care Organization in Southeastern Massachusetts, recognized that their 80,000-patient population faced the same problems seen anywhere else in the U.S. That’s why, following their March 2015 Go-Live with eClinicalWorks, Compass Medical took aim at one of the most widespread killers of all — lung cancer.

“We are a family-care driven organization focused on prevention and health management," said Dr. Dhrumil Shah, Chief Medical Information Officer.

Thank you for attending the 2019 National Conference with us in Orlando. We hope that you learned a lot, attended every session that interested you, and had fun. Let’s take a look back at some highlights over the last few days.

Capture the power of #eCWNC19

Where did the great music go? What happened to those illuminated palm trees? Who silenced the silent disco? By dawn on Sunday morning, all trace of Saturday night’s amazing celebration was gone. Just a few thin hours stood between the final memorable chords from the sound stage and the serious business of Day 3 at the 2019 eClinicalWorks and healow National Conference.

In the lobby of the Orlando World Center Marriott, the rhythmic patter of torrential rain washed across the glass ceiling in waves as thousands gathered for the second day of the eClinicalWorks and healow National Conference.