HELENA, MT – The Montana Senate voted to restore the $35 million in federal incentives for electronic medical records for hospitals and community health centers across the state this week. The Montana legislature initially denied the state’s Department of Health and Humans Services (DPHHS) the authority to accept and distribute the money to hospitals four times on party-line votes – making it the only state to do so. But, under [...]
Apple’s iPad has been a pathbreaker of sorts in the technological field. They were many naysayers during its launch regarding its utility, but I suppose the tremendous success of the product have shut up their mouths. The craze and euphoria has not died yet, and with the launch of iPad 2, the buzz is getting stronger. And the all-important question comes to the fore: can the iPad serve as an [...]
This week, a loose federation of left-leaning groups is convening nearly 200 gatherings to peddle the virtues of health-care reform. A women’s speak-out in Philadelphia. A small-business round-table discussion in Albuquerque. A fish fry for seniors in Columbia, S.C. From the Obama administration alone, 42 officials are fanning out to events in 22 states. The choreography coast to coast is a birthday party, of sorts, to mark the year that [...]
Getting your two major office technologies to work together may mean investing in new systems
Stan Wiley, former hospital administrator of Winkler County Memorial Hospital, Kermit Texas, pleaded guilty to abuse of official capacity for his role in the firing of two nurses who had complained about a doctor to the Texas Medical Board, according to the Texas attorney general’s office. Wiley was sentenced to 30 days in the Winkler County Jail by visiting Judge Robert H. Moore III as part of a plea deal [...]
By Mary Mosquera The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should reduce the duplicate requirements in its two programs that pay incentives to healthcare providers who use health information technology. It should also reconcile areas in the two programs that are similar but inconsistent to relieve some of the reporting burden for participating physicians, according to the Government Accountability Office. CMS administers two programs, for electronic prescribing and electronic health [...]
By Mary Mosquera The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT could include in the requirements for the next stage of meaningful use some functions that would build toward the comprehensive information exchange system that a presidential commission recommended last year. These functions could include a patient’s ability to download information to a personal health record (PHR), simple search by providers and sharing immunization data, according to an advisory [...]
The Department of Health and Human Services on March 17 will publish a proposed rule enabling federal funds to be used for state Medicaid fraud control units to conduct mining of their states’ Medicaid claims data. The rule, from the HHS Office of Inspector General, amends current regulations that prohibit use of federal matching funds for data mining. Fraud units currently rely on referrals from state agencies, providers and private [...]
Improved patient control leads to better outcomes
Chances are, you agree with your patients on key requirements for information technology (IT) to increase the quality, safety, and cost-efficiency of care, as well as core privacy protections, according to results of a national survey released by the Markle Foundation. Agreement between physicians and patients was strongest on requirements to ensure that new federal health IT incentives will be well spent. Of the doctors surveyed, 94% said their patients [...]
HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration has awarded three contracts totaling $9.2 million to the Georgia Health Policy Center to support programs that use health IT and other strategies to promote access to health care in rural areas of the U.S., the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports. GHPC is part of Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies (Atlanta Business Chronicle, 3/10). Under the contracts, GHPC’s Community Health Systems [...]
The National Library of Medicine has updated the RxNorm standard clinical drug vocabulary with more accurate and complete connections between national drug codes and standard non-proprietary names of medications recommended for use in electronic health records (EHR). The vocabulary standard also includes for the first time the set of national drug codes from First DataBank, which provides drug databases that are widely used in the health care industry. The additional [...]
With changing times there has been considerable change in the way professionals work and now there are specialists for everything. Growing scrutiny on part of the government has placed the onus of providing good quality services on the concerned professionals while maintain stringent standards. Medical profession is no exception to this changing trend. In the past doctors were concerned only about taking care of the patients and paid little attention [...]
SAN FRANCISCO – The overwhelming majority of Americans believe doctors using a computer system, rather than paper, to store their records provides them with better care, according to a new survey. The survey of 1,004 adults was conducted by GfK Roper on behalf of Practice Fusion, a San Francisco-based EHR provider. The survey found no measurable change in the percentage of physicians reported by patients to be using a computer [...]
Many physicians are eligible for federal incentive payments for the meaningful use of electronic health records but lack a basic EHR system, according to a study published in the journal Health Affairs, Healthcare IT News reports. Under the 2009 economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHRs can qualify for incentive payments through Medicare and Medicaid. Eligibility for the incentive payment programs is based on [...]
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