Guide to Reducing Unintended Consequences of Electronic Health Records

I researched unintended consequences of implementing an EHR (electronic health record)  in the design process of courses for an HIT certificate.  There are some great sites.  AHRQ has an online guide at http://www.ucguide.org/

Unfortunately, many providers do not contact a REC (regional extension center) for advise when implementing an EHR.  You would think that they might seek advise before spending thousands of $$$$ to purchase an electronic system.

I am certain that one was at the HealthIT website, but I cannot locate it (I do not like their search engine).   

Comparing Healthcare

It is interesting to talk with healthcare providers and nursing students (some who are already RNs) regarding hospital comparisons and patient satisfaction.  Several of the RN students thought that the patient satisfaction initiative was only at their facility.  They did not understand that it related to reimbursement.  The Medicare site explaining HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems).
Medicare site - comparing outcomes of HCAHPS (https://www.cms.gov/HospitalQualityInits/30_HospitalHCAHPS.asp) http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/

Until recently, I did not realize that the AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) provides the ability for users to view measures of state performance by region (State Snapshots - http://statesnapshots.ahrq.gov/snaps10/index.jsp) for the following:
"•Overall health care quality
•Types of care (preventive, acute, and chronic)
•Settings of care (hospitals, ambulatory care, nursing home, and home health)
•Five clinical conditions (cancer, diabetes, heart disease, maternal and child health, and respiratory diseases)
•Special focus areas on diabetes, asthma, Healthy People 2010, clinical preventive services, disparities, payer, and variation over time"

If you haven't already done so, take a few moments to compare performances of healthcare agencies in your region.

Data Exchange Software

Tracy is better than an RSS feed because she analyzed resources that she knows interest me.  She sent this site - MONAHRQ http://monahrq.ahrq.gov/ .  MONARQ is free downloadable software that provides the ability for data exhange.  Interesting!  The prerequisites for use are .NET 2.0 and Microsoft SQL.  The download site provides links to both and they are free apps. I am really looking forward to learning more.

Quote from the web site:
"MONAHRQ analyzes, summarizes, and presents information in a format ready for use by consumers and other decision-makers on:

• quality of care at the hospital level,
• health care utilization at the hospital level,
• preventable hospitalizations at the county level, and
• rates of conditions and procedures at the county level."