Glory Tuesday

A certain segment of the population is prone to paranoia. They see the threat of Big Brother everywhere and are terrified that each new advance is technology is going to expose information about them to those who would use it against them. As a result, they have attempted to stall some of the major developments in modern digital technology. This includes the use of electronic health records, more commonly referred to as EHRs.

A simple EHR definition : Electronic health records are patient health records that are stored, updated, and transmitted electronically. They are part of an enterprise system that allows the record to be accessed at multiple sites.

The medical community as a whole as well as the federal government believes that EHRs will significantly improve the quality and efficiency of medical care. As such, there are a variety of incentives currently be offered to doctors, hospitals, clinics, and other health care facilities to assistant them in converting to electronic systems by 2015.

The advantages of eliminating paper records in favor of electronic ones are much the same as in any field. Copying, storage and sharing of records becomes significantly easier and more cost effective. In the medical field there is an even better reason to switch: electronic records, which are typed into computer, are far less likely to be misread or misinterpreted. Impossible to read charts lead to thousands of patient deaths in hospitals around the country. Errors in prescriptions compound those numbers. EHRs virtually eliminate those problems — and related problems — thereby improving the qualify of medical care across the board.

Tax season is in full swing. W-2s, 1099s , and other income and investment forms have been sent out and now it’s just a matter of sitting down and filling out the forms. Anyone with a business, no matter how small, should consider having a professional accountant or other tax preparer handle their taxes. The deduction and exemptions that apply to business are just too complex for the average person to navigate. However, when it comes time to do personal returns, most people can tackle those on their own.

Over the past decade the major tax preparation companies have taken to the web. They’ve created internet versions of their tax software and provide ways for people to fill out their forms and even file their taxes online — no paper or pencil required. These programs walk users through a series of questions designed to determine what deductions and credits apply to their situation. They allow for easy entry of data from W-2s and other records. Most can easily transfer the federal return information to the appropriate state forms and then finish filling those out as well. Users can then efile their returns to the IRS and their state department of revenue.

The main advantage to these services is that they do the calculations automatically, so there’s no chance of someone adding or subtracting incorrectly or copying the wrong tax bracket information into their form. The sites usually offer extensive tax help to those who are doing their own returns and also offer consultation with qualified tax professionals should a return prove too complicated.