Diana Manos
The sheer volume of uncoordinated measures are overwhelming clinicians and until they are narrowed down and made uniform across all sectors of healthcare, the task of improving care will remain elusive. So say former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and former HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt.
A renowned cancer researcher says genomics have put America on the brink of a much better treatment for cancer, but it is going to take a megawatt petabyte effort and that old stickler, standards.
Malcolm Gladwell, the best-selling author and New Yorker staffer, likened the change required for healthcare to clear the interoperability hurdle to several events of this generation, "three lessons in culture, framing and consequence," as he put it during a talk Thursday at Health Care Innovation Day in Washington.
Karen DeSalvo, MD, newly appointed national coordinator for health information technology, gave some insight Thursday on how ONC plans to proceed under her leadership. Interoperability will be top priority.
Strong momentum continues for the meaningful use program as CMS revealed that it has disbursed more than $19 billion in reimbursement incentives. There were 440, 998 registered providers participating in the federal electronic health record incentive program as of the end of 2013, with $19.2 billion paid out in incentives, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
A fistful of kinks need to be worked out before social media can truly help patients with chronic diseases.
New national coordinator reveals that there has been "some internal thinking" about how ONC and other federal agencies might better align the spectrum of rules and regulations.
Leon Rodriguez will be vacating his post as HHS Office for Civil Rights director to assume a new position as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director at Homeland Security, leaving a vacancy open for the job of HIPAA's chief enforcer.
OCR Director Leon Rodriguez, the man responsible for enforcing HIPAA during the past three years, has been nominated to take the hot seat at the Department of Homeland Services.
Bill would require HHS to alert individuals within 48 hours of security breaches on health exchanges.