Stemp Systems support is available when YOU need it, day or night.  We’ve added a new help desk slot, enabling us to provide help desk services to our clients throughout the night, every night of the business week.

If you’re up all night in the office working on a project and loose your connection to your server, what can you do?  Or you wake up at 2am with a thought, run to turn on your laptop only to discover it booting up with a blue screen, who can you call?  No matter the scenario, you need help and you need it now.  Just pick up the phone and call Stemp.  Asad is waiting for your call and ready to help you!

Our new 9:30pm to 7:30am shift overlaps our weekday early morning and late night shifts to insure that we have coverage 24 hours a day on every business day.  Of course we continue to offer help desk on Sundays, from 9:00 to 5:00.  This support initiative at Stemp is designed to both respond to client support requests at any time of the day or night and to proactively work on server and workstation patching during client off-hours.  We believe that keeping current with vendor patches and upgrades is key to maintaining performance, stability, and security. In order to not disrupt our clients’ operations, we use these nighttime and Sunday off-hours to install these patches.

What makes us different?  Unlike many of our competitors who subcontract off-hour help desk services from other countries or other companies, Stemp employs a full-time staff member who is fully trained on our client’s systems and key business applications, working in our Long Island City office with all of our support resources available, to serve our clients throughout the night.  So when you call, instead of an answering machine or instructions to call an outside help desk service, you get immediate help from someone with the same technical background and client specific knowledge that you expect from Stemp.

Call us anytime.  We’ll be here!

Stemp Systems CEO Morris Stemp, CTO Aleem Quadri and COO Ben Brukner were in Dallas all week (May 7-10), for the 2012 HTG Summit.  In addition to providing a place to network and share best practices, the Summit provides an opportunity to recognize HTG leaders.  Our own Ben Brukner was voted as HTG Member of the year of his peer group in recognition of his leadership and contributions to the group.

HTG Peer Groups provide a unique forum for technology industry solution providers, from non-competing markets, to share and collaborate on best practices.  “No single company has a monopoly on good ideas.  IT companies … face the same issues, ask the same questions, and face the same problems.”  Companies are matched to network with similar companies based on size, number of employees, relative lines of service, ownership structure, and markets served.  Due to our growth, this year Stemp moved from a peer group of smaller companies to a new group of companies, all with 35 and more employees, to share best practices and business issues related to larger companies.

In addition to 2 private group meetings a year, all HTG groups come together twice a year for a Summit in May and IT Nation in November.  (Read about last year’s Summit in our blog.)  There were close to 600 technology professionals attending HTG Summit 2012, and over 50 booths at the vendor fair presenting the latest technologies related to disaster recovery, proactive monitoring and systems management.

Ben and Aleem attended a full day workshop covering disaster recovery and business continuity while Morris learned how to leverage digital media for marketing purposes.  They all attended various educational sessions on leadership, business development, service operations management and sales management.

Stemp Systems participation in HTG Peer Groups, and our attendance at the annual events, benefits our clients as we learn vital systems and business management ideas from our peers.  The meetings provide us with fresh solutions, as well as feedback from other IT professionals regarding our operations and challenges we face providing the highest levels of customer service and support.

We are honored that one of our executives was recognized as a leader in his HTG group, and we are thrilled to now be a part of new peer group of larger companies from which to learn as we continue to grow.

At Stemp, we feel that we can best support our clients by getting to know them both professionally and personally.  For us Stempies, joining our clients on relaxing hikes is a great way to enjoy the outdoors while connecting with our clients on a more personal level, meeting their families and learning more about each other.

Last weekend on Sunday, April 29, 2012, Stemp Systems staff and clients, along with spouses and friends, enjoyed a moderately challenging 7-1/2 mile hike starting at the Lake Sebago Board Launch in Harriman State Park, NY.  The first part of this trail was a bit steep giving this section the nickname of Cardiac Hill.  From that point on, however, the rest of the day was easier, but still challenging, with fine views and lots of points of interest highlighted by our knowledgeable, Appalachian Mountain Club certified guide.

We look forward to spending the day together with even more of our clients at our 5^th annual fall hike tentatively planned for October 21, 2012.  Mark your calendars.  We hope you will join us.

“Is it possible for different application roles to be hosted on the same server?”  This is one of the many questions asked and answered at the Lunch and Learn Stemp Systems sponsored this week (Wed. May 2, 2012) with speakers from Dell and VMware.  The answer is, yes, it is possible through virtualization.

The session about virtualization and choosing the optimal IT infrastructure solutions was introduced by Morris Stemp.  He wowed the audience with a picture of a computer rack recently configured by Stemp for a nursing home management company.  The rack holds a Dell Compellent SAN and Dell blade servers hosting 200 virtual servers including a SharePoint farm, Citrix farm, Microsoft Remote Desktop Server (RDS) farm, 20 SQL servers, SQL cluster, File & Print cluster, Exchange High Availability environment with dual Client Access Servers and three Mailbox servers in Database Access Group hosting 2000 mailboxes.

Mike DiChiara from VMware gave an overview of the strength of the company and the Dell / VMware Alliance.  Jason Gallagher, a VMware engineer, explained how virtualization works.  Each application uses only about 8% of the resources of a server, but applications cannot simply be installed on the same computer because they may conflict with each other.  Virtualization allows you to run multiple operating systems and applications on a single physical machine because the OS and applications are isolated from one another in virtual servers, allowing for typical hardware utilization of 80%.  Shared servers reduces the number of physical hardware servers needed to support your business thus reducing capital expense and operating expense (less power and cooling).  While you’ll be spending money to purchase virtualization technology, you’ll spend less on servers, storage, energy and maintenance, thus reducing your overall expenses.  In addition, virtualization makes redundancy possible which enables server maintenance with no service interruption and enables automated disaster recovery, both of which eliminate lost revenue due to downtime.

Bruce Cadovius from Dell spoke about Dell’s new Generation 12 servers optimized for virtualization and manageability.  He went on to describe Dell’s storage options and explained how both the Compellent and EqualLogic solutions scale seamlessly to meet today’s exploding data management and retention requirements.  He also announced the grand opening of a new Dell Solutions Center in Penn Plaza where clients can learn a more about Dell solutions and test drive Dell hardware.

To really understand the power of virtualization, it’s best to see it in action.  Morris invited all participants to the Stemp office across the river in Long Island City to see a demonstration of how virtualization provides a way for a company to practice redundancy without purchasing additional hardware.  He also promised to allow any visitor to “pull any plug” on the equipment in the Stemp virtual server lab and see its effect on running applications.  (He would not make this offer if he was not confident that applications will keep running as if nothing happened.)

All attendees left with a better understanding of how implementing a virtualized infrastructure based on advanced storage and server technologies can dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of their IT environment while increasing their agility to adapt, manage and grow their server infrastructure.

“My laptop died!” I texted to Morris.  He replied “What do you mean, it died?”  The screen went grey and then I got a message that said it could not find the operating system.  I didn’t know how else to describe it.  However, after a very brief discussion, I found out.  My hard drive crashed.

It’s not like my hard drive crashed “out of the blue.”  It had provided the appropriate warning signs of a physical failure; it infrequently made a high pitched whiny noise sometimes followed by a banging noise that sounded like car engine problems.  But it never made the noises when I brought it to our techs for diagnosis.  It was only after the crash, and knowing the correct terminology (“hard drive crash”) to Google it, that I found out that clicking, clunking, grinding, pinging or whirring sounds are likely the sounds indicating an imminent hard disk failure.

The hard disk can be replaced and the operating system and software reloaded, though it can be very expensive and time consuming.  However, much of the data – including your holiday photos, family movies, business documents and other personal documents that you accumulate over time – can never be replaced.  Save yourself the headache of dealing with a crash by taking some precautions.

Here’s what I learned.  To improve your PC’s performance and minimize the chance of a crash, you should keep your computer away from direct sunlight and make sure that it is properly ventilated so it stays cool.  Prevent dust buildup on the outside and inside of the computer (but leave it to a professional to clean the inside.)  You should defragment your hard disk once or twice a month to reorganize otherwise randomly scattered data; this will both make it easier for your hard drive to process data and it will make it easier to recover the data if your hard drive does crash.  On Windows 7, click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, Systems Tools, Disk Defragmenter, and click on Defragment Disk to start this process.  Depending on how large and how full your disk is, this process can take hours.  It is best to do this overnight.

Besides physical hardware malfunction, the other major reason for a hard drive failure is software corruption.  To prevent this, keep your antivirus software updated and run regular scans for viruses and malware which can corrupt data and operating system.  Also, delete unnecessary files from your computer and clear out all “temp” files, but don’t randomly delete files because you might delete files that are important for your computer’s processes.  Keep your operating system and software drivers patched with all the latest vendor updates to insure stability and security and maximize performance.  You may get the same errors if the crash is caused by a physical failure or software corruption so it is a good idea to consult with a professional before attempting to troubleshoot a problem yourself.

If you think your computer has crashed, you should immediately turn off  your computer to decrease the chance of permanently losing the information that is stored on it; there is a chance that the data might still be recoverable from the hard drive.

To be prepared in the event that your hard drive crashes, keep your install discs available to make it more convenient to install the operating system and software on the new hard drive.  And, most important of all, to prevent the possibility of losing your data if the data cannot be recovered from your old hard drive, you absolutely must back up regularly.  Use an external hard drive, USB flash drive, or internet based backup service.

When all efforts at preventing a crash fail, and the backup you thought was occurring regularly was not, and a mental meltdown is coming on because you need your data, you might want to consider a data recovery specialist (DRS).  A DRS is trained to perform a variety of technical procedures to recover data from seemingly non-recoverable hard disks.  One of the most experienced data recovery service providers is Kroll Ontrack.  Aleem Quadri, Stemp Systems CTO, was trained by Ontrack to perform some of the possible recovery techniques at Stemp’s office or in the field thus establishing Stemp Systems as an Ontrack Data Recovery Certified Partner.

If your hard drive crashes, you won’t really care whether it was a physical crash or software corruption.  You’ll just want to know how quickly you can get your computer up and running and if/when you can get your data back.  Following this advice will help to shorten the recovery time and ease the headache you’ll suffer if it is YOUR hard drive that crashes.

Stemp Systems wants you! If you’re a veteran of the US armed forces and you have the technical skills needed to serve as a Help Desk Tech or Field Tech, we want you to be a part of our team!

Stemp Systems is patriotic. We recognize that the freedom, safety and security that we all cherish come at a cost. We know that the men and women who serve in our country’s military put their lives on the line every day to protect these liberties. Now it’s our turn to provide opportunities for them. Our veterans have earned the right to come home to companies that need and want to hire them.

Is there any more technologically advanced organization in the world than the US military? Who better can Stemp hire to service and support our clients than a vet who has been exposed to this technology and the high level training received while on duty?

We recognize that our military has provided many of these men and women with technical skills that will help them succeed at Stemp Systems, including training in electronics, hardware, software, programming and networking. In addition, it teaches them to follow instructions and to work in small teams, qualities essential to servicing the IT needs of our clients. Military training also teaches them discipline and gives them confidence. All of this professional training and on the job experience is preparation that can help vets succeed at any company, and especially at Stemp.

We’ve joined with America Wants You, “a unique private sector initiative that is teaming up with corporate America to find job opportunities for those men and women who have served in our Country’s military.” As quoted on their website, when “America wanted them to leave their families, to face indescribable danger, to make unimaginable sacrifices, they were there.” I think it is imperative for all business owners to ask ourselves “will we be there for them?” I invite you join Stemp Systems in reaching out to our veterans to provide career opportunities for them. All you have to do is follow the simple steps outlined here. You get a free job posting on the Career Builder job site and the opportunity to help our vets.

Who’s with us?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Morris Stemp

In a wired world, it takes wisdom to bring together the best technology so that it inter-operates seamlessly and with stability.  While at HIMSS12 in February 2012, Stemp CEO Morris Stemp and Account Manager Beverly Wachtel scoured the exhibit hall for new technology that would make it easier for our medical clients to use their Electronic Medical Records systems.  We identified a number of products that can improve workflow thus saving time for our clients, while at the same time improving the patient experience.  (We even found devices that simplify document management and workflow in any type of business.)

The security provisions of HIPAA require that providers log-in under their own User IDs and passwords.  But taking the time to enter this log-in information, every time a clinician needs to use the EMR system, takes away valuable minutes that add up over the course of a day.  Thinking about the login process, while focusing on diagnosing patients, is also a distraction.  In fact, some surveys indicate that almost 40% of health care providers say that the biggest frustration in using health IT systems is that there are too many passwords to memorize.  The HID’s smart card reader is a solution to these problems.  Each clinician has an ID card with user login encoded in it.  This card could even be the same card a provider already uses to unlock doors into the office.  The provider swipes the card over the reader, a small box located next to the computer, and all of the login information is automatically entered so that the user can begin work within a second or two of approaching the workstation.

Checking in patients, entering patient demographics, checking insurance eligibility and copay amounts as well as outstanding balances, and collecting payments, are time-consuming steps taken by the front desk staff for each patient who walks in the door for a visit.  Ensuring that every patient reads and signs a HIPAA form also takes time, not to mention time spent tracking patients to know who has checked in, who is in an examining room, and who has checked out.  We’ve mentioned patient kiosks in the past and particularly like the one manufactured by Phreesia.  Morris mentions the orange tablet on Page 81 of The EHR Guru where he describes how the Guru’s team recommends the use of the “orange tablet computer for patients to fill out their intake forms.  The tablet computer is almost free, and the practice gets a legible document that can be automatically uploaded into the EHR.”  In addition, the tablet enables the patient to pay his/her copay and balances online (using a credit card) before going into the exam room, with the option of paying with a monthly payment plan, saving staff time and reducing errors.

The newly released Zignature Pad is another device that enables paperless signing of the HIPAA form during check-in, and it can also be used in any type of business that requires a secure, real-time, electronic signature.  The device eliminates the steps of first printing a paper copy of the document to obtain a signature and then scanning the signed document to archive it.  The device works by “printing” the document to the Zignature Pad (not paper) which enables the signer to simply sign the document on the pad.  The signed document is digitally sealed and tamper evident so that the signature can only be used exactly as intended, and the executed document can be distributed to all parties involved and to a designated server for storage.  The device also has internal safeguards that restrict the ability to close out a document if a signature or initial is missing.

When a medical practice implements an EMR system, it is necessary to input patient information and to bring in patient history by scanning documents from the paper chart.  However, while scanning pages from a chart will attach the pages to the patient’s record, the pages will only be viewable as images; the data on those pages will not be readily available in the EMR because it does not fill the discrete fields within the patient record.  In order to standardize medical records so that the data is readily available, the data in the Electronic Medical Records system needs to be structured – in other words, it needs to reside in fixed fields within the record.  A new solution integrating Fujitsu scanners and Inofile Chart MD software brings unstructured documents into EMR systems, converting them into structured data.  The batch scanning workflow allows users to quickly scan an entire chart or a pile of documents that needs to be filed.  This makes documents (such as patient narrative and faxes) searchable within the practice and it also allows standardized patient information to be accessible through health information exchanges (HIEs) so that a patient’s full community of providers will have access to the patient’s information to enhance patient care.  This user-friendly solution is affordable for the smallest practices to the largest healthcare organizations and meets the interoperability requirements for Stage 2 Meaningful Use.

Many practices enter some information into the Electronic Medical Record but continue to reference the paper chart for the patient history.  This hybrid environment negates the efficiency benefits of working within an electronic system.  The practice needs to enter information in the medical record but still needs to store, look for, pull and file charts.  Rather than working in a hybrid environment, and to save the time needed for staff to scan all of the medical records, a medical practice might choose to use a scanning service.  CTI Healthcare Solutions offers innovative document management services for Healthcare Organizations, scanning records on or off-site with high-volume scanning equipment, and converting paper records into electronic format for upload into an EMR.  They also provide document identification and indexing services for easy, on-demand access to your records as well as accurate data entry and data capture / optical character recognition (OCR) services.

Using new and advanced technology should enhance the way you do business – for better patient care and improved business operations and efficiency.  Implementing an Electronic Medical Records System requires learning new workflows that initially add to the time needed to maintain and update records. But there are also solutions that can eliminate steps to save time and expense, increase accuracy, and even improve the patient experience.  Our goal in attending the HIMSS12 Conference was to learn about some of these new technologies and share them with our clients.  Feel free to reach out to us with any questions you may have.

Stemp Systems CEO, Morris Stemp and Account Manager, Beverly Wachtel spent all day, Wed. Feb. 22, navigating the 1 million square feet of the Sands Convention Center at HIMSS12, the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference in Las Vegas.  That’s Morris wearing his signature orange tie on the left, speaking to HID engineers about smart card technology to make it easier for doctors to login and logoff of a workstation without having to enter a password.  The exhibit hall is the place to meet all of the vendors offering Healthcare IT products and solutions and learn about the latest technologies.  The vendor booths ranged from a simple display on a six foot table with a banner to mini-cities with huge overhead banners, recorded visual and audio messages, and interactive demos.  With over 1,000 vendors all claiming to “transform health care” and proclaiming themselves as “the solution to your healthcare needs”, the exhibits can be quite overwhelming.

As we walked around the exposition, it became clear that most of the exhibitors were displaying products and services which can be classified within a limited number of general categories.  Central to the exhibition are the EHR vendors giving demonstration of the latest features of their EHR systems.  One of the primary features demoed was the Meaningful Use Dashboard which highlights the current status of meaningful use compliance for a practice.  A provider can use this dashboard to find out what he/she must do to maintain compliance with the many statistical quality measures such as for how many patients they have recorded a blood pressure during a given monthly time period. Also of note during the demonstrations were the updated patient portals which allow patients to view their medical records, download patient education, and possibly schedule appointments and securely communicate with their doctor.

Other major categories of software vendors include voice recognition systems, document management systems and business intelligence (BI) products.  BI graphs and charts were everywhere as vendors look to meet demand by hospitals for tools capable of analyzing all the data collected by the new EHR systems including Meaningful Use metrics, disease reporting, clinical decision support and financial data support.

Hardware vendors were also out in force at the conference.  As the use of mobile devices, primarily iPads, used as EMR input and monitoring tools increases, so does the need for wireless infrastructure.  As providers move from location to location, the wireless connection must continue to remain secure and stable.  This requires a bit of sophisticated technology and software to manage that infrastructure.  We saw at least 6 wireless infrastructure management vendors including Aerohive Networks which Stemp has deployed as our standard solution for our clients.

Vendors displaying ergonomic wall mounted and robotic arms to configure your workspace to fit your workflow, along with Mobile computer and diagnostic equipment carts, could also be found.

Finally, global consulting companies (IBM, Deloitte, Ernst and Young) are seeking to meet hospital Chief Information Officers (CIO) to discuss how the consulting companies can help the hospitals improve efficiency and profitability.  Most large technology companies also have global healthcare consulting and services divisions.  Thus Xerox, Dell, Microsoft, and others were in attendance displaying their technologies as well as presenting consulting success stories.

We also checked out the interoperability showcase.  A “hypothetical use case tour” offered us a look at the future of healthcare.  The demonstration showed how patients and their information move from referring doctor to specialist to hospital and then how de-identified statistical data is collected by state and federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  Our “tour” looked at the case of a pregnant woman whose information was captured in the EMR software of her OB/GYN.  The information was available when she was admitted to the hospital.  Her baby was born with complications and was admitted the NICU.  Vitals as well as medications prescribed and administered were recorded through monitoring devices, eliminating the errors that can occur through numerous handwritten communications.  This information was then available at the pediatrician’s office when the baby was brought there for follow-up care. Through the use of numerous technologies, patient care, patient safety and workflow efficiency will all be improved once interoperability is fully operational across the health care spectrum.

Most of the education sessions and exhibits at the conference are oriented toward hospitals and large provider practices, while most of Stemp’s current clients are smaller group practices and community health centers.  In our experience, however, solutions that first target the larger organizations eventually are optimized and reworked to be cost-effective for the smaller organization.  Thus, we feel that our clients still benefit from Stemp’s investment in attending HIMSS.

The HIMSS Annual Conference is a forum for Health IT vendors and end-users to share information regarding the latest health IT technologies and implementation methodologies.  Stemp CEO, Morris Stemp and Account Manager, Beverly Wachtel, are at HIMSS this week (Feb 20 thru Feb 24, 2012) attending educational sessions and speaking with exhibitors about what’s new.  At the center of the discussion are electronic health records (EHR) systems and supporting infrastructure, both hardware, and software.

Our first day at the conference was spent at an all day workshop called “EHR Vendor Evaluation, Selection and Implementation: Mission Possible – Choosing and ‘Meaningfully Using’ Health IT for Quality Care Delivery” led by Jacqueline B. Rosenblatt, PhD, CPHIMS.  Ms. Rosenblatt is the Director of Ambulatory Quality Improvement at MPRO (The Michigan Quality Improvement Organization for the State of Michigan) and specialized in EHR implementation consulting.  A summary of some of the more salient issues covered in this workshop follows.

The first steps for doctors moving from paper to electronic medical records involve selecting an EMR/EHR vendor and managing workflows with an EHR.  This process is all about the significant change implementing an EHR system will require.  Change is the central issue; managing the change from paper to electronic medical records can only be successful with the involvement of a team of users, a practice assessment, goal development and process flow mapping.  Implementing EHR is not simply automating the paper process.  To achieve the benefits of an electronic system, and especially to achieve Meaningful Use as defined by the government, involves learning and adapting to new workflows.  The workflow has to involve capturing data in real time, in the right order, by the responsible user.

During the vendor selection process, it is necessary to identify those vendors which have the functionality important for a given practice/specialty and to identify a set of key differentiators which set one vendor apart from the others.  The fact that an EHR is certified for Meaningful Use does not mean the EHR will meet your needs.  Training is essential and should be scheduled as close to go-live as possible – when staff will be most engaged.  When getting started, it is essential to set realistic and measurable goals, understanding what the system will and will not do.  For example, an EHR will eliminate the need for chart hunts, but it will not initially save the provider time during patient encounters.

The second day of the conference started off with the keynote address by Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, who spoke about the events that led up to his creating Twitter.  He described how he wanted to build something that would quickly and easily connect people and the criticism he first encountered that Twitter was not useful.  He soon discovered the power of his emerging system when in 2007 a user tweeted that the party he was attending was too loud and he was going to a different party across the hall.  Biz noticed that within 8 minutes, 800 people had moved to the second party.  We expected that Mr. Stone would discuss how the use of social media would influence healthcare, but he fell short of drawing a parallel to healthcare.  This keynote address was, unfortunately, quite disappointing.

We subsequently attended a session describing the current state of interoperability between EHR systems from various vendors with hospitals and each other.  One of the most sought after goals of implementing an EHR system and a pivotal target of Meaningful Use Stage 2 is to electronically share patient data.  Benefits of interoperability include that a patient will only need to fill out forms at one medical facility to have the information available at other medical facilities, unnecessary repetition of medical tests will be eliminated, and a patient’s history will be available when a patient is brought to the Emergency Department.

As you can imagine, sharing data between totally disparate systems is quite a difficult and sophisticated challenge with many technical barriers.  This is the challenge that the session called “Connecting EHRs to HIEs: Defining a new level of interoperability” addressed. The Interoperability Workgroup which now consists of 10 states and 26 vendors including EHR vendors and Health Information Exchange (HIE) vendors, and led by the NYS eHealth Collaborative, is working to create standard specifications to allow “out of the box” connectivity between health information exchanges (HIEs) and EHRs, and thus between EHRs and EHRs.  Their goal is to adapt existing standards to format and present the totally of a patient’s records in a manner which can be transferred from any EHR system and uploaded into any other EHR system at a private practice or hospital.  While this information sharing methodology requires a great deal of collaboration between competing EHR systems, the EHR vendors have come together and the benefits of this collaboration should be available in new software releases in the near term.

We intend to visit the Interoperability Showcase at the conference to learn more about how the sharing of patient medical records will actually work.  Vendors plan to demo pre-release versions of their software actually transmitting data back and forth between competitive systems.

The first days of the conference have proved to be a very informative.  Tomorrow we’ll share some of the new technologies being shown in the exhibit hall.

Stemp CEO, Morris Stemp and Account Manager, Beverly Wachtel are going to the HIMSS12 conference and exhibition at the Venetian Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas. We plan to report back to our readers about the latest news in Healthcare IT with a daily blog. The Healthcare Information Management Systems Society is transforming Healthcare through IT. At this annual conference, Morris and Beverly will network with other Healthcare IT professionals, participate in educational sessions, learn about the newest technologies at the exhibition booths and showcases, and explore emerging healthcare IT models.

We’ll hear keynote speaker Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter, discuss his view of how social media can influence the changing healthcare landscape. We’ll also hear news from keynote speaker Farzad Mostashari, MD, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We’ll gain in-depth knowledge about what’s new in Health IT including mobile health, business and clinical analytics, connecting with patients, care coordination, accountability for care and meaningful use. We’ll attend lectures about topics such as quality measurement, standardizing electronic patient-reported outcomes, health information exchange, use of standard terminologies in clinical decision support, and evaluating usability of an EMR.

We look forward to sharing with you some of the most salient and useful information we learn and discover. Be sure to check our blog every day next week to see what’s new in the world of Healthcare IT.