Frank Irving
Karen DeSalvo is certainly more than qualified to head up ONC, having brought post-Katrina New Orleans up to snuff on electronic health records and more. How well do you know her background? Here are some lesser-known facts.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has big plans for Blue Button, the mechanism that enables consumers to securely download their health information, as part of an overarching effort to enhance patient engagement.
The agency's state grants are funding surveillance, detection, and outbreak response efforts in zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, food-borne diseases, influenza, and healthcare-associated infections.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this year implemented pre-payment audits on Medicare and dually eligible -- Medicare and Medicaid -- providers participating in the EHR Incentive Programs. The audit programs target between 5 and 10 percent of eligible professionals attesting for meaningful use, according to Elizabeth Holland, director of the HIT Initiatives Group within CMS' Office of E-Health Standards and Services.
Anand Shroff, CTO of Health Fidelity, explains the most fundamental misconception about cloud computing in regard to data security and privacy. He also addresses how data-driven healthcare can improve care coordination.
Saying the U.S. is "on the cusp of a crisis," a statement announcing the Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act explained that the proposed legislation would work toward eliminating the workforce shortage by 2025.
U.S. doctors' use of health IT has been sharply increasing, up from 46 percent who used an EMR in their practice in 2009 to 69 percent in 2012, according to a survey of nearly 9,800 primary care physicians representing 11 nations. The Commonwealth Fund released findings of the survey in November 2012, and expanded on several drill-down topics during an online presentation Feb. 5.
PhysBizTech Editor Frank Irving discusses the benefits and challenges of cloud computing for small physician practices with CDW's Jon Karl.
President Barack Obama and GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney will have to strike the fine balance of containing costs while deciding where they stand on Medicare expansion, as Tuesday's primary in Pennsylvania displays.
Temporary EHR certification program will end with publication of final rule for meaningful use stage 2 in late August, ONC says