Tom Sullivan
When ONC stands up the NwHIN-Exchange in October, there will be at least 25 partners spanning military, private and public health entities sharing patient records with each other on the back of various standards.
Leveraging NwHIN-Exchange has enabled Community Health Information Collaborative (CHIC) to win contracts with federal agencies such as the SSA and VA, improve patient care locally and become the HIE people look to as an example in its region. CHIC CEO Cheryl Stephens discusses how it all works.
Moving toward a true open source approach with Connect, the Federal Health Architecture plans to hold an industry day to understand existing options. FHA director Lauren Thompson says the group is also working on a governance structure for its federal partners.
HL7: not just for IT anymore. That thinking is the catalyst behind a triptych of recent moves designed to open the standards process up to more health professionals, notably caregivers.
By involving more health professionals -- caregivers specifically -- the organization hopes to not only enhance aspects of HL7 such as usability, workflow, domain content, but also to enable a more comprehensive and specific manner of decision support at the point of care. Well, that and other initiatives in genomics and mobile health.
Past president Bonnie Cassidy explains that regardless of the forthcoming new ICD-10 compliance deadline, healthcare organizations need to map out their training efforts and then be sure to retrain those coders, particularly once they've achieved certification.
"This is a bit ironic today," Sue Bowman said, pointing to a CMS-borrowed slide stating that the compliance deadline for ICD-10 is October 1, 2013. "The government threw a big curveball toward many presentations."
At HIMSS12 ICD-10 Symposium, industry associations explain the benefits of ICD-10, and the need for the new classification system.
With the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services signaling a potential delay for ICD-10 implementation -- and the AMA cheering that prospect -- one physician says the move could adversely impact health reform.
Wendy Whittington, CMO of Anthelio Healthcare Solutions, explains what impact a delay could have on the broader healthcare industry if CMS ease its stance on the ICD-10 compliance deadline.