Diana Manos
At Health Datapalooza this week, exactly how information gets analyzed is up for new ways to be disrupted, revamped and rethought. The theme: endless possibilities. In fact, the ways that the gathering of the appropriate data and the analysis of it can improve health outcomes is astounding. But first the right data must to be collected.
Innovators, cutting-edge thinkers, policymakers, disrupters are fanning an ever-growing flame of interest in how Big Data can ultimately lead to better healthcare.
The Food and Drug Administration, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and Federal Communication Commission hosted a workshop this past week where panel members representing the IT and mobile world participated. For the most part, the constituencies endorsed the risk-based regulatory approach proposed in FDA's Safety Innovation Act.
The way John Berneike, MD, sees it, being an early adopter of electronic health records has put him in line for unintended punishment under Stage 2 meaningful use.
When it comes to the topic of meaningful use, Colin Banas, MD, is driven by fear. And he's far from being the only one.
It seems just about everybody has a gripe or two concerning the meaningful use program: software vendors that make electronic health records systems, hospital CIOs, the very people charting the related committees and, of course, physicians.
HIE among U.S. non-federal acute care hospitals has been trending upward since 2008, in fact, and it took some major leaps forward in 2013.
The hits keep on coming for the new EHR certification criteria, as the American Medical Association and Telecommunications Industry Association send their complaints to ONC on the heels of similar criticism submitted earlier by the EHR Association.
With the maturing of the meaningful use incentive program, federal advisory groups are beginning to re-evaluate their roles and the best way to support providers moving forward. At the April 24 HIT Standards Committee meeting, federal officials announced changes in leadership along with proposals about how the organization might reconfigure itself.
Jonathan Blum, principal deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and advocate for ACOs, will be stepping down from his position on May 16. The announcement came by way of an internal email via CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner.