Health Care It Scope

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...

For most of my career as a family doctor, I kept track of my patients' health histories by scribbling hand-written notes in a paper chart. For a healthy child, I'd include dates when vaccines were given; for an adult with, say, diabetes, I'd make sure to...

Two new studies suggest that a Kaiser Permanente population health management application can help physicians provide better care for a large, diverse panel of patients with diabetes and heart disease. (We're bracing ourselves for a certain anonymous...

Lest anyone think the issue has been settled, national health IT coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal says there is a "raging debate" in scientific and policy circles about whether standards or competition should drive EMR development, MassDevice...

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...

In what may as well be part of "Meaningful Use 101" curriculum for physicians, American Medical News this week examines a key but potentially problematic element of the federal standards required to earn Medicare or Medicaid bonus payments for EMR usage:...

As healthcare providers examine the final "meaningful use" regulations, perhaps too much focus is centered on IT system requirements and gap analysis. Hospitals must not fail to recognize a significant reality: Federal incentives for utilizing EHRs...

Jackie Judd, Kaiser Family Foundation; Mary Agnes Carey, Kaiser Health News; and Drew Armstrong, Bloomberg News Insurers, lawmakers and state insurance regulators continue to debate what may and may not be included in a calculation of the medical...

OREM, UT – A new study from KLAS shows that, while there's no enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor that overwhelmingly satisfies clients, the limited options in that market mean that migrating to a new one may not be worth the cost. For...

We're finding more and more that electronic health records, as defined by the standards for "meaningful use," are far less than comprehensive. Mental health providers, with the exception of psychiatrists, aren't eligible for federal subsidies. Dental...

Changes included in the final rules governing the meaningful use objectives for Medicare and Medicaid incentive programs for electronic health records (EHRs) will improve the odds that more providers can qualify for government stimulus funding. The...

As providers gear up to go after government incentive payments for meaningful use of electronic health records, there's been a nagging fear that vendors won't be able to increase staff and other resources quickly enough to meet demand. That's a legitimate...

By John Moore Regional extension centers are gearing up fast to help healthcare providers quickly get up to speed on the newly released final rule on meaningful use. The Office of the National Coordinator has funded 60 centers nationwide, so far....

Last week Michael Kleinman, vice president for investor relations at WellPoint, Inc., put a label on the insurance industry consolidation that has been underway for years. The market is becoming an 'oligopoly', dominated by just a few companies, and...