In a study conducted by REACH Health, nearly 400 healthcare executives, physicians, nurses and other professionals gave their feedback regarding the impact of telemedicine in their own practices. The REACH Health 2016 U.S. Telemedicine Industry Benchmark Survey found that 62 percent of practices currently utilizing telemedicine believed it was highly successful in improving patient convenience. An additional 36 percent regarded it as "moderately successful."

In our last blog article, we took a look at how human behavior is the most frequently encountered threat to data security. So, what to do? You can’t have 100 percent control over every problematic aspect of human behavior, after all. However, there are some ways for you to simply remove the human element from your data security equation, such as purchasing a private, HIPAA compliant Cloud or adopting a SaaS-based EMR/EHR solution.

The future appears to be bright the ambulatory EHR market.. According to Frost & Sullivan's US Ambulatory Electronic Health Record Market: 2015-2020 report, the ambulatory EHR market is expected to grow by a whopping 30 percent throughout the next five years, increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 5.3 percent. This projection comes after prior mass expansion of the market due to incentives from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Ever since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was introduced in 2009, the healthcare industry has placed an enormous priority on implementing more electronic software in clinics.

Whether they were highlights or lowlights, healthcare stories dominated the news in 2015. The skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs, expanded medical coverage, the meltdown of blood-testing startup Theranos and the arrest of pharmaceutical industry entrepreneur Martin Shkreli, criticized for raising the price of life-saving drugs, were some of the stories that took center stage. Last year also saw a continuation of themes, including the (surprisingly quiet) transition to ICD-10, ongoing massive data hacks and the threat of cybersecurity, M&A activity, and the impact of consumerism on the industry. With all this in mind, we give you our top 3 predictions for the New Year:

With few days left in 2015, it's often this time where we like to reminise about all of the memories from the prior year. On the Nextech Blog, we've posted a lot of stories in 2015 that cover a wide variety of topics. As we looked through the past year's stories, we've compiled the eight most popular posts on our blog from 2015. One look at the list and you'll notice one predominant theme -- compliance. ICD-10 dominated the conversation on the Nextech Blog in 2015, and while it was a huge story throughout the year, there are certainly other exciting topics covered as well.

Depending on a vote by Congress this week, physicians working in ambulatory surgery centers (ASC) could be on track to receive long-awaited incentive money. H.R. 877, also known as the Electronic Health Fairness Act of 2015, is set to be voted upon on Wednesday. Spearheaded by Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn), the bill is designed to included ASC doctors in the EHR incentive payments that other physicians have been eligible to receive. Co-sponsoring the bill along with Black are nine Republicans and five Democrats.

Every year, Black Book Market Research releases 2015 healthcare industry surveys across multiple specialties, ranking the top electronic health record vendors in each specialty. We’re thrilled to announce that Nextech was ranked as the No. 1 Plastic Surgery EMR vendor in Black Book’s 2015 Plastic Surgery Survey! This newest accolade adds to what has already been a very exciting year for Nextech as we’ve introduced new tools, solutions and improvements since January. Our recognition as the top Plastic Surgery vendor further proves our position as the market leader in Plastic Surgery software.