Diana Manos

At the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology 2012 Annual Meeting, held Dec. 12 in Washington, DC, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) told attendees that interoperability is a lynch pin for health IT advancement, and it is currently lacking.

Electronic tools, including smartphones, can help patients, but the adoption of apps for healthcare is still lagging, according to a new report released by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

A report issued Nov. 29 by the Office of the Inspector General calling for more oversight of the meaningful use program has been mostly well-received by stakeholders. Doctors, however, are concerned about the burden of pre-payment audits.

A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) might not entirely spill the meaningful use apple cart, but it certainly isn't going to make things any easier.

Jonathan Linkous, CEO of the American Telemedicine Association said during a panel discussion that the corner telehealth was expected to turn "has come and gone," and the next year will some "very important people joining the telehealth bandwagon."

Now that the election is over and the Affordable Care Act has been made permanent by the Supreme Court's decision, governors who have been sitting on healthcare decisions have "a lot of pent up energy" for moving forward, said former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist at a post-election healthcare meeting held in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

With so much of America's healthcare future on the line after the election - partisan budget battles looming and talk of either moving forward with Obamacare or starting over under President Romney (depending what has happened at the ballot box by the time you read this) - one thing has stayed relatively stable over the past eight years, and hopefully will continue to: the bipartisan advancement of healthcare IT.

The U.S. is making strong and fast headway on the adoption of electronic health records, said National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Farzad Mostashari, MD, at a recent event in Washington, D.C.

Moving the meaningful use of health IT forward has called for an increase in the workforce to provide doctors and hospitals with help establishing their EHRs.

A new global study by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics shows that the use of healthcare IT to increase medication adherence could be a key factor in saving some $500 billion in healthcare spending worldwide.