Final rule on meaningful use finally released

Less than three months before the start of fiscal 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has finally released its final rule on “meaningful use,” which will drive the health IT industry’s installation of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) under last year’s HITECH Act.

(To the right, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius, from the department’s Web site.)

The release was done at a Webcast and included Donald Berwick, now director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

A summary of the rule has also been published at the New England Journal of Medicine, but the main change from the initial proposal, released in December, is that requirements have been split between a “core” group of required objectives and a “menu set” of procedures so clinics can get partial credit.

The first vendor press release on the new rules came from Allscripts, whose CEO, Glen Tullman, was an Obama adviser on health care in 2008 and served on the advisory committee that helped come up with the rule. More reaction is expected to follow, and we will cover it at ZDNet.

Along with the meaningful use rule a final rule on certification of systems was also published. The companies which will do the certifying have yet to be chosen, after which vendors will have to line up to assure customers of stimulus cash.

Now that the rules for getting that cash are in place, vendors and customers are in a race against time. The first set of deadlines will be based on six months of use during fiscal 2011, which means software or gear needs to be in place by next April 1 to meet the deadline.

And we don’t even know who will certify whether the gear meets requirements. But at least we know the rules under which both certification and use will be measured.

Source: - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/healthcare/final-rule-on-meaningful-use-finally-released/3814

CMS: We'll publish our 'Meaningful Use' final rule by July 14

CMS: We'll publish our 'Meaningful Use' final rule by July 14
July 1, 2010 — 12:49pm ET | By Wendy Johnson

Many dates have been thrown around regarding when CMS plans to publish its final rule for meaningful use. This highly anticipated regulation, of course, will spell out how providers and organizations can become eligible for HITECH's electronic health record incentive payments.

Some news outlets have reported that July 13 is the magic date. That sounds about right, give or take a few days. FierceEMR spoke with a CMS official directly involved in writing and publishing the final regulation, and she assures us that although there's no "official" publication date (CMS missed its own self-imposed June 30 deadline), "I would be very surprised if it's published any later than July 14."

"We hoped to have it out by the end of June, but it's looking more like mid-July," the official told us this week. "There are so many moving parts and so many people are involved. This is a long regulation." No doubt! The proposed rule was thicker than many novels. We expect nothing less from the final reg.

CMS also plans to unveil its plan for aligning its Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) with the EHR incentive program in mid-July. "We propose to include many ARRA core clinical quality measures in the PQRI program, to demonstrate meaningful use of EHR and quality of care furnished to individuals," CMS states in an advanced copy of the proposed reg, CMIO magazine reports. "We propose the selection of these measures to meet the requirements of planning the integration of PQRI and EHR reporting."

Source: - http://www.fierceemr.com/story/cms-well-publish-our-meaningful-use-final-rule-july-14/2010-07-01?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

Document Management Systems make your paper work very fast

Doctors are always looking for an intelligent way with the burdensome administrative process and to focus on the health of their patients. You want to keep track on the medical history of their patients, not juggling documents. document management software provides this service to collect, store and assimilate to financial and other scanned documents are instantly and easily accessible by simple click.

document management software has some specialties. It is designed in a user mode and allows a person to arrange graphic according to their practices. The user can simply create folders and store documents with names, then he can find. The software is also considered for the efficient and proper functioning. The burden of proof to the fax storage and stacks of bills to reduce considerably, because the trial made by automation and other applications, including EMR.

The document management software is now strongly preferred by the pros. It reduces stress and keeps a good track of important data that can be viewed later without any problem. Doctors consider the software as one of the fastest document management solutions in the health care profession. The software allows users to draw online and offline by storing the maps on a local server that makes it safer to believe it can be seen both offline and online. The image storage reduces the risk of data loss. The software also provides the condition to find a simple and fast.

The software also allows premium users to share and gather information easily and at the drop of a hat. The user can also send, print and e-mail scanned documents as required (hospitals, doctors, colleagues, pharmacies), adding simple.

Document storage is easy as pie. Collect one or more cards and analyzed using a scanner. That is, it suffices to say that the document management system, it includes the patient and it will automatically save. The document management software also allowed to import Adobe PDF and an impressive number of different types of documents in a single click.

UK based Whiz Solutions is very excellent in services like Document Storage London & Graphics Designer Middlesex

Source: - http://articleresource.org/computers-and-technology/software/document-management-systems-make-your-paper-work-very-fast-30752

Document Management Roll-up: Google Adds Docs Functionality, Oracle Updates BPM Suite 11g

This week, with the general release of Office 2010, Google challenges with updates to Docs, and gets some added support from other companies like OpenDrop. On the BPM front, Oracle followed its ECM Suite 11g release with an upgraded BPM 11g.

Google Adds Docs Functionality
Who would ever have thought it! The day before Microsoft (news, site) puts Office 2010 out on general release, Google adds new functionality to Google Docs.

According to the Google Docs official blog their new documents and spreadsheets editors have been released making both easier to use and manipulate, as well as adding some more sauce to draw users away from Office 2010 and its online version, Web Apps.

As of this week, all new documents will be created using the new documents editor. According to the blog, the new editor was built for faster real-time collaboration, better imports and more control over document’s layout.

Since the preview, they have also added new features including a table of contents, a special characters dialog, a dictionary, search as-you-type and re-sizable images.

A new version of spreadsheets is also available as the default to everyone starting this week too. New features here include formula highlighting, sheet dragging, sheet menu, faster scrolling, an editable formula bar, autocomplete in cells, copy sheet from one spreadsheet to another and range sorting.

These new editors will become the default editors for Google Apps users too. Google will begin activating the new editor for documents on June 21 and for spreadsheets on June 30.

Office 2010 Finally Available For All
And because you can’t have Google Docs without Microsoft Office a short word to say Office 2010 is finally on general release as of later today so that all those that haven’t been able to access it in work will finally be able to see what all the fuss is about.

There has been a lot of talk about Office 2010 here over the past few months so the features are probably familiar to most.

And the recommended pricing has also been released. Office Home and Student 2010, the most basic bundle of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, will cost US $150 and can be installed on as many as three computers.

A US $280 version includes the Outlook e-mail program while a US $500 bundle adds Publisher and Access. Along with the Office 2010 suite, users can now purchase Visio 2010 and Project 2010 both in stores and at the official Microsoft store online.

Computers will now be shipped pre-loaded with Office 2010 within the next 12 months. These pre-loaded Office 2010 suites can be activated by purchasing a product key card at a retail outlet or online.

OfficeDrop Puts Pressure On Microsoft
However, competition for Microsoft and Office 2010 is going to be stiff as other companies start getting in on the Google Docs act.

This week, for example, online document management company OfficeDrop has just launched a new product feature that will allow customers to automatically get their paper scanned and into Google Docs as text-searchable PDFs.

Using the new service, users can send paper documents to OfficeDrop in pre-paid envelopes and boxes. OfficeDrop then scans and uploads the files to a secure online document management portal that is both a search engine and organizational tool for paper and digital files.

When OfficeDrop folders or files are linked to Google Docs, the documents are automatically uploaded to Google Docs as text searchable PDFs.

This is a powerful collaboration tool for offices that struggle with the location and exchange of information, especially since the OfficeDrop system makes everything searchable by adding OCR (optical character recognition) to any document uploaded to the OfficeDrop document management system.

Currently, Google Docs does not provide OCR for non-text rich files, but OfficeDrop makes files text searchable, so any documents sent to Google Docs from OfficeDrop can then be searched effectively.

If you want to sign up for OfficeDrop you can do so through the Google Apps Marketplace or on OfficeDrop's website.

SAP Extends Open Text Agreement
An extended agreement between Open Text (news, site) and SAP (news, site) means that SAP is to start selling Open Text’s information management solution that includes file managements capabilities for personnel records and effectively streamlines their human resources operations.

This is not the first time the two have gotten together. SAP already sells Open Text solutions for document management including access and archiving as well as digital asset management.

This latest agreement will see Open Text’s solution for human resources management sold as SAP Employee File Management application by Open Text and will enable companies to create and complete digital records of all personnel-related documents natively integrated with the SAP ERP Human Capital Management platform.

The result is that all paper and electronic documents can be pulled from digital files relating to employees cutting the amount of time needed to administer human resources related tasks.

Oracle BPM Upgrade Follows Suite Upgrade
Last week Oracle (news, site) announced a major upgrade to its enterprise content management suite. This week it has announced it is upgrading its Business Process Management suite.

As a part of Oracle’s Fusion Middleware 11g, the new BPM Suite 11g is said to support all kinds of processes with a new process foundation, user-centric design, as well as new social BPM abilities.
Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g includes a native implementation of BPMN 2.0 with new components including:

•Oracle UCM for document-centric processes
•Unified management and monitoring of business processes
•Role-based modeling and design using BPM studio
•Process Composer: for web-based process modeling and deployment.
•Business visibility, process status and operational reporting through business reporting
The new social abilities also enable enhanced collaboration by including wikis and blogs as well as customized team spaces through all phases of the business lifecycle.

Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/document-management/document-management-rollup-google-adds-docs-functionality-oracle-updates-bpm-suite-11g-007811.php

The Rise of "Intelligent" Enterprise Content Management

Despite the pessimism from some corners, the impending death of Enterprise Content Management is overstated. Rather, from what I see, the intelligent content race is on.
The Commoditization of Content Management

One of the things that you hear quite a bit in the Content Management circles these days is how the management and storage of content is becoming a commodity. With the rapid spread of SharePoint and the emergence of cloud-based document sharing services like Box.net, Google Docs and Dropbox, it is a trend that is becoming hard to ignore.

While the basic storage and sharing of content slowly becomes a commodity out in the mystical cloud and in the depths of SharePoint sites, the vendors have been leaning on the advanced features that they offer in their platforms today. The challenge is that the "commodity" systems can easily see those needs and add them to their platforms. As this occurs, the reach of the commodity factor extends.

Why We Need Intelligent Content Management

At the recent EMC World in Boston, Alexandra Larsson of the Swedish Armed Forces discussed how their system uses TIBCO’s Spotfire to stream actions occurring within the Documentum repository live to a screen. The tool is used to spot trends among users, allowing HQ staff to respond to situations more quickly and efficiently. This example generated quite a lot of buzz from attendees and those remote participants tracking the show via Twitter and the blogosphere.

In most organizations, content never stands alone. It may be part of a transaction, an employee record, a website, a creative project, a medical case, or any number of things. The ability to bring the content and all of the information (context) that went into the creation and use of that content is becoming more critical as organizations realize that simple access to content is simply not enough.

Governments want to know who might have ever looked at, or searched for, one particular file out of millions. Web managers need to know which pieces of content are driving traffic. Customer service reps need all relevant content and data for every client available and readily digested. The need to know how content is used extends across all industries.

Thus enters Intelligent Content Management.
Three Forms of Enterprise CMS Intelligence

The concept of Intelligent Content Management is the idea of deriving more value from existing Content Management systems. There are a few ways that the vendors are looking to deliver that value to their customers.

1. Content Analytics
The first part of the story is Content Analytics. The proposition behind Content Analytics is to mine the content already resident in the repository and identify trends and exceptions.

The search engines that are being embedded are offering improved algorithms and allowing the display of results in ways that go beyond the simple list. Faceted search capabilities are allowing users to look at their results from different angles, providing instant filtering on several dimensions of your content.

2. Business Intelligence Tools
The second effort at enhancing the value of existing information is focused on the application of Business Intelligence tools to better visualize what is happening at any given moment. This goes beyond just placing all of the metadata into a data warehouse for analysis — it involves constant monitoring of key components within the repositories themselves. The value, potential, and interest for this capability was evident in the response to the Swedish Military system.

This is likely, and hopefully, part of the logic behind the new partnership between EMC and Informatica. While it appears on the surface to be a resale agreement, you get the sense talking to the EMC people that they want to build solutions using tools from Informatica that will allow users to access more precise information from their repositories, not just the hoards of data that they can get today.

As always, the devil/implementation is in the details. IBM and Oracle already own BI tools, so they can also have the potential to provide a one-stop-shop for this functionality.

The blending of all that metadata, audit logs, and Content Analytics should offer people a new way of looking at their content. Context is the key here, and this is just the beginning.

3. Content Management Interoperability (CMIS)
Most content is not just content. Starting with documents which contain “unstructured” information, you then add metadata and presentation, creating content. When you provide that content in context, it becomes information.

This is where integration and federation comes into play. With CMIS, the ability to pull content into other applications is much easier, but the information also needs to flow in reverse. The most successful systems that I have seen have information from all systems come into a single, purpose-built dashboard.

The ability to talk to other systems is going to become more important to the Content Management vendors. Historically, they have worked hard to integrate with systems, but integration only works within an organization. The necessary context for content is becoming more likely to reside outside of the control of IT, where those old integration efforts fail.

Being able to interact with the same piece of content from within both SalesForce and SharePoint, while sharing it with external partners, is becoming the common scenario and not the exception.
Moving into the Future

There are a lot of things that will make this all easier, and those are hurdles that the Enterprise CMS vendors must master in order to bring their vision of Intelligent Content to fruition.

The key will be to create an approach that unifies the traditional business intelligence field with the next generation of content management systems. Once that happens, we won’t need Intelligent Content Management because we’ll have true Information Management

Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/the-rise-of-intelligent-enterprise-content-management-007682.php

State of the ECM Industry 2010: Enterprises Still Battling Content Chaos

While figures from AIIM’s State of the ECM Industry 2010 report indicate that the management of content across enterprises is still, to a large extent, chaotic and disorganized, they also show that there has been a considerable improvement on last year, and that many enterprises have finally seen the writing on the repository walls.

In the last year alone, for example, the research found that 12% of organizations have completed the deployment of an enterprise–wide enterprise content management system, a further 28% are still in the process of doing so and 15% are integrating projects across different sections of the enterprise.

However, the flip side of that is 21% have still to start an ECM project — although the report doesn’t say whether that means they haven’t started, or they haven’t started to plan — while 17% are only implementing a system for the first time. Let’s look at some of the key areas.

ECM Drivers

The massive increase in the amount of information arriving in enterprises appears to be the main driver for companies to deploy ECMs. While many have put it off until now, 60% of companies cite “content chaos” as being the principal driver in deploying an ECM.

Document management

Not surprisingly, if “content chaos” is the principal theme running through this year’s report, then document management issues are also going to be a major problem too.

Taking document management and records management together, the highest current priorities for ECM activity are implementing electronic records management and managing emails as records, followed by the integration of multiple repositories.

This is not altogether surprising given that 41% are not confident that their electronic information (excluding emails) is accurate, accessible and trustworthy.

In addition, 56% of those surveyed said that there were not confident that the emails documenting staff commitments and obligations are recorded, complete and retrievable.
SaaS Document Management

Moving from document management on-premise to document management as a SaaS is also an emerging trend with the numbers of enterprises taking this route in the next 18 months set to double from 6% to 12%.

Records management as SaaS is also set to rise from 2% to 6% over the same period, and email management from 4% to 6%.

SharePoint

On the SharePoint front things are looking good, even if they could be better. Over half of those surveyed had either deployed SharePoint 2007 or were currently implementing it, breaking down into 32% and 21% respectively. This is a proportionate increase of 26% on last year’s user base.

Another interesting figure is that in terms of a SharePoint strategy, while 46% recognized the need for a formal plan for using SharePoint with other ECM investments, they don't have one, and 12% don’t even know where to start. This is particularly telling considering:

* 11% cite SharePoint as their sole ECM
* 20% say they are integrating it with existing systems,
* 23% say it is working in parallel to their other systems
* 5% say it is competition with their other systems.

Social Media

Regarding social media and enterprise 2.0, 29% of respondents view internal E2.0 as imperative or significant to their organization’s business goals, citing knowledge sharing, team collaboration and project coordination as the main drivers

Open Source

Open source solutions are being used by 6% of organizations for ECM. This is set for growth, with a further 9% planning to adopt open source for ECM, WCM (Web Content Management) or portals within the next 2 years.
ECM Still Going Strong

The report concludes by saying that while there is still work to be done, the ECM industry entering a new decade is actually in quite a healthy state despite its many failings.

In particular, it notes, good information governance is now accepted as essential to good business, and ECMs are key in this respect, bringing the added advantages of collaboration, knowledge sharing, better business processes and ultimately cost savings.

The report can be downloaded from the AIIM website after you register for free.

Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/state-of-the-ecm-industry-2010-enterprises-still-battling-content-chaos-007576.php

Specialized Document Management Products Challenging ECM Mega-Suites

Real Story Group 2010 Market Analysis Reveal Tech Buyer Risks

The divide between "Enterprise Content Management Suite" platform vendors and more specialized Document Management product suppliers is becoming more pronounced, giving buyers more choices to address a broad range of content management challenges, according to new research by The Real Story Group (formerly CMS Watch).

The Real Story Group just released its annual Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Document Management Marketplace overviews earlier this week, including "Cross-Check" charts for both sets of vendors. The overviews assess changes that have occurred in the previous 12 months, as well as trends emerging in today's marketplace. This research differs from other market analyses by focusing on needs and impact for the buyers and users of technology, not the sellers.

"It's a risk mitigation report," notes Real Story Group analyst Alan Pelz-Sharpe, "giving you an inside look at what is really going on among the vendors and what you need to know to make the right procurement decisions." Given the divide between the more focused Document Management market and ECM suites, The Real Story Group has created two Cross-Checks.

Note that there are no "leading" vendors or "magic" segments here. A vendor's suitability may depend on the enterprise customers' risk profile, as well as the "fit" of the technology itself, which The Real Story Group evaluates in its subscription-based research.

Other key takeaways from this analysis conclude that:

•There is continued consolidation at the top end of the market
•More focused Document Management vendors continue to thrive
•International and non-traditional options (open source/cloud) continue to disrupt both markets
•SharePoint 2010 will be remain a strong contender and competitor — but typically not a replacement system

Just as importantly, the ECM market is strong and continues to grow, with dozens of viable supplier options targeting specific business problems. "When it comes to selecting the best technology for your enterprise, you must look beyond ‘the top right quadrant,’" argues Real Story Group founder Tony Byrne. "Otherwise you'll blind yourself to many other great options."

The complete research can be found at http://www.eiwatch.com/Research/Channel/ECM/.

Source: - http://www.ebizq.net/news/12544.html?grss