Mike Miliard
In the first settlement of its kind, Skagit County, Washington will pay the Department of Health and Human Services $215,000 to make up for deficiencies in its HIPAA compliance program.
There's been a whole lot of capital invested in health information technology these past few years. And some people -- especially those who are in charge of spending more of it -- want to know whether it's money well spent.
With more than 50 percent of practices and 80 percent of hospitals having adopted electronic health records and attested for meaningful use by now, it's time to talk about next steps.
In a year where "compliance and enforcement is really where the action is going to be," it might help to have some advice on how to keep on the right side of patient privacy law.
With two hospitals, 800 physicians and more vendors than you can count on two hands and two feet, Hartford, Conn.-based St. Francis Care has a tall order when it comes to data sharing and care coordination.
Too many hospitals depend on outdated and inefficient practices to backup and archive their troves of patient data, according to a study published this week by HIMSS Analytics.
New this year at the 2014 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition, YourTurn has a democratic spirit. The slate of discussions on Tuesday -- from patient ID to EHR usability to telemedicine -- was drawn from ideas submitted by conference attendees.
"There are a lot of providers out there who are feeling a lot of anxiety and a lot of pressure," admitted Mat Kendall, director of ONC's Office of Provider Adoption Support at HIMSS14 on Monday.
HIPAA "has seen a lot of action lately," said Susan McAndrew, deputy director for health information privacy at the Department for Health and Human Services' Office For Civil Rights, at HIMSS14 on Monday.
"Rural is not a smaller version of urban," said Tom Morris, associate administrator for rural health policy at Health Resources and Services Administration, speaking Sunday at the pre-conference symposium, "Health IT and Rural Healthcare: Embracing Opportunities and Overcoming Challenges."