Business Intelligence
"Location, location, location" is a phrase that's long been associated with real estate, but in recent years it's also played a role in attempts by healthcare professionals to track disease. Now, some are putting health IT to work in adding location information -- where patients have lived -- into their EHRs.
If there was an overarching theme at the HIMSS Media/Healthcare IT News ICD-10 Forum on June 17, it was this: Don't wait to get your house in order for ICD-10. Though the Oct. 1, 2014 deadline for the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 is more than a year away, most of that time will be required for getting ready, experts warn.
Healthcare organizations will need to be more effective, cost efficient and productive in the future to not only survive, but also to maintain positive cash flows, according to Brian Fugere, COO of RemitDATA.
The Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have formed what they call a first-of-its-kind partnership with San Francisco-based healthcare modeling and analytics company Archimedes to provide free and easy access to CMS synthetic claims data for any software developer.
"Big data" must be near the top of its hype cycle by now. As with other technologies, it may eventually deliver on a great deal of this hype, but the outcomes will probably come later than the current frenzy would suggest.
Chicago health information technology company EMRapproved recently announced a partnership with a new collaboration called HealthITxChange, an online community where healthcare practitioners and health IT professionals can share best practices and lessons learned, or "pearls" on EHR adoption.
The HIPAA Privacy and Security final rule -- also known as the HIPAA Omnibus Rule -- became effective March 26. One expert predicts enforcers will have a heyday with expanded ability to crack down on providers and their business associates.
Accountable care organizations might be today's hope for grappling with healthcare costs and bumping up quality, but according to one expert, they are doomed to fail without one key element.
There's little question that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ACA, has demonstrable benefits already -- even if, as a Kaiser Poll found this week, Americans still don't understand them. What's less clear is how the ACA will fare long-term given today's tumultuous political environment.
With big data promising enormous clinical and financial rewards for healthcare, but posing just as many technical and strategic challenges, the Institute for Health Technology Transformation (iHT2) has published a study mapping the way forward for providers at the starting line.