Health Care Info Tech Trade Show Highlights Innovation

Published February 1, 2005

When Toward an Electronic Patient Record (TEPR), a leading health care technology trade show, takes place in Salt Lake City this May, the event will be celebrating its twenty-first year.

“Each year, TEPR attracts 4,000 health care professionals by selecting expert thought leaders as faculty, providing valuable educational programs, and showcasing cutting-edge information technologies (IT) in the exhibition hall,” said Peter Waegemann, CEO of the Medical Records Institute (MRI), which organizes the show.

Exhibitors and attendees will gather at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah from May 14 to 18, 2005 to explore the widest array of up-to-the minute information available in the rapidly changing world of health care information technology.

The five-day event will offer more than 400 expert presentations describing challenges, successes, and market trends in the health care information technology industry. In addition, the exhibit hall will present an array of solutions for those looking to advance their health care setting technologically, featuring more than 175 technology vendors and their products.

Attendees will include professionals ranging from all fields of health IT, including physicians, medical directors, nurses, CEOs, systems analysts, CIOs, administrators, CTOs, payers, benefit managers, and CFOs.

Highlights of the TEPR 2005 program include the following:

  • e-prescribing: when will everyone be doing it?;
  • why physician offices are implementing electronic health record (EHR) systems in increasingly large numbers;
  • what makes a legal e-signature;
  • the current state of speech recognition and natural language understanding and processing in computers;
  • building blocks for electronic medical record (EMR) systems for ambulatory care;
  • strategies for implementing essential EHR features according to health level seven (HL7) standards;
  • how to achieve continuity of care among physician offices, nursing homes, and home health care without adding expensive, complicated systems;
  • current document imaging technologies;
  • the role of quality improvement organizations (QIOs) and regional health information organizations (RHIOs) in the transition to EMRs;
  • a return on investment (ROI) workshop;
  • the best EHR approaches for long-term care, acute care, and home health care;
  • how to include patient safety issues in an EHR strategy; and
  • how to determine whether a disaster recovery plan for an IT system is adequate.

“We’re an organization that has been surveying the EHR market for the last year,” said 2004 TEPR attendee Chris Tonozzi, M.D., a family practice physician at Mountain Family Health Centers in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. “The conference gave us a wealth of information that has enabled us to confidently enter the final phase of choosing an EHR system and implementing it. We’ve now budgeted for the system, and we’re on our way to choosing a system and rolling it out.

“The amount of information at the conference could be considered overwhelming,” continued Tonozzi, “but it’s a fast-paced environment, and without the kind of exposure that is available at TEPR, it would be difficult to confidently implement an EHR.”


Maddy Shedno ([email protected]) is a marketing and PR specialist for the Medical Records Institute in Boston, Massachusetts.


For more information …

on the Toward an Electronic Patient Record (TEPR) conference is available at http://www.medrecinst.com. To register, contact Maddy Shedno at [email protected]. To exhibit, contact Ray Whelan at [email protected].