Health Care It Scope

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The government's soaring healthcare bill will be high on the agenda of Congress's new deficit-cutting "super committee," which has been assigned the task of finding by November 23 at least $1.2 trillion in savings. Few major...

Maria DeLeon, MD, (sitting) of Southwest Orlando Family Practice says she appreciated that the practice's information technology director, Jason Casorla, (standing) was in the office during its 2004 electronic health record system transition.primary care...

President Obama on April 13 rebutted a House Republican plan to trim $4 trillion worth of federal deficits over a decade with his own proposal that he said would protect guaranteed benefits in Medicare and Medicaid. Obama also proposed that the...

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), recently signed into law by President Obama, provides welcome news to technology suppliers who are facing a 0.1 percent 2009 U.S. growth rate, according to new research from IDC's Industry Insights...

By Mary Mosquera The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has awarded a total of $80 million more for its regional extension center, state health information exchange and community college workforce programs to boost their support of...

CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT have announced that registration for the Medicare incentive program for the meaningful use of  EHR (electronic health records) will begin on Jan. 3, 2011, Modern Healthcare reports. Under...

Hospital chief information officers are less confident than they were only a few months ago about their ability to meet federal requirements for meaningful use of electronic medical records. The biggest obstacle, they say, is getting physicians to use...

Electronic health records play an important role in advancing the goals of improved public health, said Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaking Wednesday at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health...

San Diego -- With stage 1 regulations for meaningful use released and discussion begun on stage 2, a federal official speaking at the AMA Interim Meeting called for more feedback to ensure these regulations will be workable for physicians. "We need to...

HIPAA and HITECH final rules could be published by the end of this year or early next year, a top lawyer for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) says. Adam H. Greene, JD, MPH, senior health information technology and privacy specialist for OCR, gave...

In July 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued their long-anticipated rules governing "meaningful use" of electronic medical record (EMR) systems. These updated rules (compared to the old rules) will make it easier for healthcare...

Recently, I decided to do a little investigation. We all keep hearing about and thus talking about the new levels of mandated compliance. Not only hospitals have to adhere to the changes, but clinics and physicians offices as well. Of course, my impetus...

HHS awarded more than $14 million in grants to support programs that the agency said will promote more informed health decisions and options that are best suited to an individual patient's needs and preferences. The funding is part of investments made...

The recently installed “blue button” on the Veteran Affairs Department’s MyHealtheVet portal represents a first step toward the type of full access to their personal health records veterans can expect to see when the VA stands up the virtual...

(Editor's Note: The following is a response to a July 15, 2010 posting by Leslie Kane about the ease of demonstration of "EHR Meaningful Use -- So Easy, Even a Caveman Could Do It?". The Kane Scrutiny blog on Medscape.) As President of Geriatric...