Related Links

Judy Murphy, R.N., led Wisconsin-based Aurora Health Care’s electronic health records initiative for more than 15 years before becoming a deputy national coordinator for health information technology in December 2011. She’ll wear both hats during a presentation at the CIO Forum on March 3 before the start of HIMSS13 in New Orleans.

Murphy will go back to the early days of Aurora’s EHR journey and remind I.T. leaders of the progress made and how the technology today is not perfect, but quite viable. “Fifteen years ago, we didn’t even have wireless,” she notes.

She’ll give a brief update on the status and statistical accomplishments of initiatives of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, including meaningful use, state health information exchanges and Beacon Communities, among others.

And then she’ll focus on tomorrow and the different ways to leverage past and present lessons and challenges to improve the future. Murphy hopes to convince the audience of the meaningfulness of meaningful use and leveraging it to improve care and efficiencies. Regional health information technology extension centers, for instance, are disseminating best practices learned as they assist physician practices in adopting EHRs.

Murphy will discuss increased HIE capabilities and the barriers that remain, identifying resources they need and tools that ONC offers and will offer to help. For instance, ONC is developing five toolkit modules focused on creating inoperability with state HIEs. They include introductory, care transition, public health, view/download/transmit, and lab data exchange modules.

She hopes to leave at least 15 minutes for questions and will hang around after the session to talk more one-on-one.  Her overall message: “We’ve come a long way and made a lot of strides, but we still have a ways to go.”