Mike Miliard
There is no turning back from data anymore, and now is the time to embrace it, federal health leaders say.
Earlier this month, we reported how healthcare is increasingly embracing a new C-suite position: chief data officer. Now, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is getting in on the act, with the appointment of its first CDO, Niall Brennan.
We often hear about streams of data. Sometimes, the flood can seem like a data deluge. In its new analytics project with EMC Corporation, Partners HealthCare extends the watery metaphor, with a new initiative meant for shared use: the Partners Data Lake.
As ONC puts forth the government's long-term vision for nationwide interoperability, four industry stakeholders -- the EHR/HIE Interoperability Workgroup, HIMSS, Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise and ICSA Labs -- have joined forces to tackle more immediate challenges of data exchange across state lines.
The Institute of Medicine has issued a new report calling for standardized social and behavioral data to be included in electronic health records. That may be good for population health research, but could be unwelcome news for system developers, and for physicians who already complain that EHRs are burdensome and distract from care delivery.
With just 2 percent of physicians having managed to attest to Stage 2 meaningful use, clearly something is holding back the vast majority of docs from succeeding in the program. The American Medical Association says they should not be penalized.
Persistent regulatory and reimbursement roadblocks notwithstanding, nine out of 10 providers are moving forward with telemedicine projects, according to a new survey.
As industries of all types recognize the importance of data, a new role is emerging in healthcare to harness that information and make it integral to business strategy and execution. Seattle Children's Eugene Kolker is one such Chief Data Officer.
As chief data officer at Seattle Children's Hospital, Eugene Kolker has a fairly unusual job title -- especially for this industry. "In healthcare it's extremely, extremely rare," he says. But that may be changing.
A fresh batch of disheartening Stage 2 attestation numbers has prompted several industry groups to once again implore the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to shorten the meaningful use reporting period in 2015 and offer more leeway on some of its more problematic measures.