The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) included $17 billion in incentive payments for the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health records (EHR). The payments began in 2011 and will end in 2016. In 2015, providers who have not adopted an EHR system will face financial penalties. But health care providers should proceed with caution. While the switch to EHR should improve the quality of care and increase [...]
The sweeping health overhaul law turns 2 years old this Friday. And as it heads toward a constitutional showdown at the Supreme Court next week, the debate over the measure remains almost as heated as the day President Obama signed it into law. In fact, public opinion about the law remains divided along partisan lines to almost exactly the same extent it was when the law was signed on March [...]
A national network of cancer hospitals that has relied heavily on laptop computers for clinicians accessing electronic health records is phasing in iPads and iPhones, taking steps to mitigate the security risks involved. As it rolls out Apple mobile devices, Cancer Treatment Centers of America initially is limiting users to view-only access to clinical information, says Chad A. Eckes, CIO. At first, clinicians won’t be able to use the devices to place [...]
President Obama tapped as the federal government’s chief technology officer Todd Park, who had been serving as the CTO at the Department of Health and Human Services. Park replaces Aneesh Chopra, the government’s first CTO, who resigned last month [see Aneesh Chopra Resigns as Federal CTO]. Chopra also had been serving as the associate director of technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, a position Park [...]
There’s consensus that the architecture of a nationwide health information network (NwHIN) is shifting. But there’s less agreement as to whether this change is a favorable development. That’s the upshot of a panel of experts, addressing the issue in a roundtable discussion held this week by the National e-health Collaborative, a public-private partnership established by a grant from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) to foster [...]
When Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki met at the Pentagon earlier this week, EHRs was one of the topics on the table. The meeting on Monday was one in a series the two secretaries have held on issues of common interest to both Departments. “The vision Secretary Panetta and I share is to provide an integrated, seamless experience to our people across their [...]
The Department of Health and Human Services on Feb. 16 issued a statement announcing its intent to push back the Oct. 1, 2013, compliance deadline for ICD-10 “for certain health care entities:” As part of President Obama’s commitment to reducing regulatory burden, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen G. Sebelius today announced that HHS will initiate a process to postpone the date by which certain health care entities have to [...]
LAS VEGAS – At HIMSS12 this week, Health Level Seven International (HL7) announced a pilot program that will offer some of its intellectual property, free of charge, in an effort to spur further EHR implementations. “HL7 is keeping its promise to lower the barriers to adoption of electronic healthcare records by making portions of our valuable intellectual property freely available to our stakeholders,” said Charles Jaffe, MD, CEO of HL7. [...]
As you likely know, 2011 was the first pay-out year for doctors choosing to implement EHR (electronic health records) and choosing to take advantage of up to $44,000 in ARRA incentives. Over $2 billion has already been paid to providers and hospitals for achieving meaningful use in 2011. That includes chiropractors. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in the entire process, including interacting and meeting at HHS with many of [...]
In the “real” world, people expect to pay more for something if it’s of higher quality or offers superior performance. That free-market standard promotes higher-quality products and services. The healthcare industry, however, generally does not operate in this manner. Patients have few options for “kicking the tires,” so to speak, before electing to start a drug treatment, undergo surgery or therapy, or choose a physician. This inability to get a [...]
Many health information exchanges lack staff with strong information technology skills, but are not likely to hire graduates of a government-funded health I.T. training program, according to a report. Advocacy organization eHealth Initiative asked several questions related to workforce issues during its 2011 survey of 196 HIEs, turning the findings into a free issue brief now available. Responding HIEs noted that jobs remain open because there are not enough candidates with [...]
A provider’s essential critical knowledge is often so obscured that the EHR becomes more of an obstacle than a useful source of clinical information. The meaningful use-compliant electronic health record (EHR) has quickly become very adept at capturing and sharing standardized, structured clinical content that can be communicated, stored, and to some extent consumed by other systems. Unfortunately, this strength is also the EHR’s greatest limitation. Amid the structured templates [...]
Mobile devices, data breaches and patient privacy rights were some of the most talked-about topics in health IT in 2011, and according to expert opinions complied by ID Experts, 2012 won’t be any different. In fact, experts continue to predict an upswing in mobile and social media usage, response plans, and even reputation fallout. Eleven industry experts outlined healthcare data trends to look for in 2012. 1. Mobile devices could [...]
It’s easy to make predictions about health IT for the year to come, but what if someone asked what your IT wishes were for 2012? What would you like to see happen most in the health IT space? We asked Wendy Whittington, MD, a practicing pediatrician and chief medical officer of Anthelio Healthcare Solutions, to list her top 10 IT wishes for 2012. From interoperability to telehealth, Whittington outlined what [...]
With Medicare’s push toward shared savings and accountable care organizations, healthcare business models are getting more complex, said Shahid Shah, software IT analyst and author of the blog The Healthcare IT Guy. The industry needs software to implement these new models. “Due to the new intricacies of organizational connections between different providers, standardization of workflows on existing EHRs won’t really be possible,” Shah says. “Most EHRs are not up to the [...]
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