Interoperability
Coastal Women's Healthcare, a seven-physician practice located in a town of nearly 20,000 residents along the Southern Maine coast, is among a group of elite meaningful users of electronic health records nationwide.
Hospitals, physician practices and health plans across the country are boosting care -- and saving millions -- by employing quality measures, information technology and plenty of innovation. A new book tells the stories behind the successes.
No sooner had the American Hospital Association submitted its comments on the proposed rule for Stage 2 meaningful use than they came under fire for "spurious" arguments on patient access to online information.
Just in time to consider for comments on ONC's proposed rule on meaningful use Stage 2 (comment period ends May 7), John Loonsk, MD, makes a case for data transfer standards more functional than SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) called for in MU Stage 2 - Loonsk describes SMTP as a "dead end."
Kate Berry, CEO of the National eHealth Collaborative, which recently released a roadmap for establishing and operating successful health information exchanges (see page XX), figures she caught the healthcare bug from her family. Her parents met in a hospital. Her mother, a dietician, ran the cafeteria and later did public health research. At the time, her father was studying for his doctorate in biochemistry. Her sister is a physical therapist.
As National eHealth Collaborative CEO Kate Berry sees it, patient care will improve with the secure, easy and sustainable exchange of medical records between healthcare providers. To that end, NeHC, a public-private partnership focused on accelerating progress toward widespread, secure and interoperable nationwide health information exchange, last month released a roadmap for establishing and operating successful health information exchanges. The map addresses building, operating and sustaining the HIEs.
At a time when the value and sustainability of public health information exchanges are being questioned, Inland Empire Health Information Exchange (IEHIE), which was slated to go live on April 1, is making a case for both.
No longer a pilot in any regard but name, the Nationwide Health Information Exchange is ready to enter a new phase as a non-federal, nonprofit entity enabling public-private interoperability and data exchange.
A new study from HIMSS Analytics and Kroll Advisory Solutions shows that, a diligent focus on security compliance notwithstanding, healthcare providers are still badly lacking when it comes to privacy protections. In fact, data breaches have only increased in recent years.
With some federal agency either launching or crowning the winner of a new developer contest seemingly every week these days, Wil Yu, HHS special assistant of innovations and research and director of ONC's SHARP program, discusses the challenges' true value -- and explains what happens after the winners collect their prizes.