Where Does the Money Go?
Beyond EHRs: With kiosks, mobile access, and e-visits, this group practice is taking things to the next level of tech
Healthcare units to receive IT incentives?
In a bid to develop the Nationwide Health Information Network and ensure that hospitals utilize IT systems to the best of their ability, a new bill will give incentive payments to centers that implement them. The bipartisan bill, put together by Rep. Pete Stark, Chair of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio), Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Chair Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) and Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) [...]
Health Care Politics: Possible Senate Medicaid Vote This Week; Parties Dispute Tax Reporting Requirement
News outlets covered various aspects of health care and politics. Congress Daily: The Senate is expected to try once again this week to pass enhanced Medicaid funding, but Democratic leaders acknowledge it will be a tough fight. “First up is a $16 billion injection of Medicaid assistance that states have been clamoring for, attached to an FAA reauthorization set for a cloture vote [Monday night]. The amendment is similar to the [...]
Health care ranks lower in U.S. than in other countries
The U.S. spends more than other nations, a recent survey found, but it fares poorly in care quality and access.
First Bifurcation Stents Implanted in Israel
Tryton Medical Inc. announced that the company’s Tryton Side Branch Stent System has been used in three cases in Israel for the first time. Yaron Almagor, M.D., director of the Interventional Cardiology and Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel, performed the first implants. “I am very pleased with the Tryton Stent System,” said Almagor. “Recently I had successful outcomes treating two patients with cases of [...]
EMR Selection Primer: Four Essential Features for FQHCs
Selecting electronic medical records software is notoriously difficult. The EMR market is flooded with several hundred vendors that cover the full spectrum of pricing and functionality, and clinics often have trouble cutting through the marketing noise. Federal qualified health centers (FQHCs) are certainly not exempt from this predicament. They too will be required to use electronic medical records by 2015. Since most are using paper charts, the transition to electronic [...]
The Year in Review
By Healthcare IT News Staff It has been an up-and-down year for healthcare informational technology. The biggest story, no doubt, was the impact that national recession had on healthcare investments – way back in January, the picture was bleak. But with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the industry received a $19 billion shot in the arm from the new Obama Administration. While the money – to [...]
$60M aimed at 'breakthrough' healthcare IT research
By, Bernie Monegain WASHINGTON – The government announced Friday $60 million to support healthcare IT research projects aimed at “breakthrough” advances. David Blumenthal, MD, national coordinator for health information technology, said the money would support the development of Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP). SHARP projects will conduct focused research in critical areas where breakthrough advances are needed to address existing barriers to the adoption and meaningful use of [...]
Rep. Kirkpatrick Announces More Than $1.4 Million in Funds to Expand Clinics, Improve Northern Arizona Health Care
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick announced today that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be making $1,437,515 available to North Country HealthCare to help improve access to quality care in Greater Arizona. The funds are part of $851 million in grants that HHS will release to address facility and equipment needs at health care centers nationwide through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The announcement comes as the Congresswoman [...]
Healthcare IT is the means, but not the end, says Blumenthal
Diana Manos, Senior Editor Getting healthcare IT up and running in doctors’ offices is not the main objective behind the incentives provided by the federal government under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to David Blumenthal, MD, national coordinator of health information technology. Improving health is. At the 17th Annnual National HIPAA Summit held Sept. 15-18 in Washington, D.C., Blumenthal called the HITECH Act — included in ARRA — [...]
HIT policy committee holds privacy hearing today
Diana Manos, Senior Editor The HIT Policy Committee is holding a hearing today in Washington, D.C. to discuss the privacy aspects of healthcare IT found in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Jodi Daniel, director of the Office of Policy and Research at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), who opened the meeting this morning, said privacy and security are fundamental building blocks for meaningful [...]
Blumenthal open letter seeks support for ONC's health IT plans
Healthcare IT News Staff Healthcare IT chief David Blumenthal has joined the White House e-mail campaign for healthcare reform with a public letter sent via e-mail expounding the virtues of electronic health record systems as a critical piece of transformation. Blumenthal’s e-mail Wednesday follows one sent last week by senior White House adviser David Axelrod aimed at countering what he called “the viral e-mails that fly unchecked and under the [...]
Obama endorses healthcare IT before joint session of Congress
Diana Manos, Senior Editor President Barack Obama took his health reform cause to a higher level Wednesday night in an address to a joint session of Congress. It’s rare for a president to address a joint session of Congress, aside from the annual state of the union speech, but Obama has felt that the hotly debated healthcare reform issue merits the attention. Obama has long supported healthcare IT as a [...]
White House: Obama may detail health plans soon
By the Associated Press President Barack Obama, faced with falling approval ratings and increasingly impatient with Senate negotiations over health care, is weighing a shift in strategy that would offer more details of his goals for overhauling the nation’s healthcare system. The president is considering a speech in the next week or so in which he would be “more prescriptive” about what he feels Congress must include in a bill, [...]
Obama sticks by healthcare IT in prime time plea for reform
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says the nation can use healthcare IT to dig itself out of the ever-increasing burden of escalating healthcare costs. In his fourth prime time TV press conference Wednesday night, Obama said he would like to see a bill pushed through as early as this summer, but he won’t sign a bill that puts the majority of the burden on the backs of the middle class. [...]
