The Medical Record Institute's main activity was creating medical communities between hospitals and doctors' offices, keeping the spotlight on CCR development.

Awards were presented in two different categories: one for electronic medical-records system vendors who have done the best job of bringing CCR capabilities into their software -- and the other for providers who have implemented IT projects using CCRs.

While vendors were much further along incorporating CCRs in their applications this year, a new element was added to the mix: the portable document format, or PDF, developed as a document format by Adobe Systems in 1993, is now an open standard and the de facto standard for printable documents. The marriage of the CCR and the PDF was the subject of two overflow panel sessions at TEPR.

The Northern Illinois Physicians for Connectivity received the TEPR award for implementing a CCR. The company also created a Web-based portal to serve as the RHIO’s exchange for CCR-based documents.