Bernie Monegain

A physician might qualify for $44,000 in government incentives for meaningful use of an electronic health record – but "if you have a system that's a disaster, who cares?"

The uptake of electronic health records among physician practices could stall as physicians face yet another threat of cuts in Medicare reimbursement, said William F. Jessee, MD, CEO of the Medical Group Management Association.

Iowa’s largest integrated healthcare system announced Monday a new initiative, called ePrescribe Iowa, aimed at getting physicians to switch from paper prescriptions to electronic ones.

Ezekiel Emanuel, a White House adviser on healthcare policy, says high-touch is the way to fix the nation’s failing – and costly – healthcare system. In his keynote talk at the Medical Group Management Association in Denver on Sunday Emanuel called for patient-centered, data-driven physician practices.

Health Level Seven, the global authority on standards for interoperability of health information technology with members in 57 countries, has added Hong Kong to its growing number of more than 30 affiliates.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded a $4.8 million grant to researchers at Indiana University and the Regenstrief Institute to create the Indiana Center of Excellence in Public Health Informatics, one of only four such centers in the nation.

LiveData, Inc., a real-time data integration technology company, has been awarded a $730,000 grant from the U.S. Army Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center to pursue standardization of information integration technologies.

At least 50,000 new health information management jobs will be needed as the nation moves from a paper to a digital healthcare system, the nation's healthcare IT chief said Tuesday.

The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology is set to launch its 2011 certification program, designed to help hospitals and physician practices show the meaningful use of IT that is required to qualify for federal incentives.

With security and privacy of patient information paramount as the government and healthcare industry work to transform the system, the American Health Information Management Association is calling for national standards to protect patient information.