Government & Policy

Sure, the EHR Incentive Program, with its $22 billion plus paid out thus far to meaningful users, might have helped bring the healthcare sector out of the Dark Ages and into the 21st Century, technologically speaking, but do these systems really improve the quality of patient care? A new study out says: for the most part, no.

Is it wrong to be skeptical about the integrity of quality measures in meaningful use, particularly in the wake of what one quality improvement expert called "patient safety's first scandal"? Those at the forefront of healthcare quality and patient safety movements say, "no," but also believe any problems have been contained.

At a Capitol Hill event on Thursday, National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo shared thoughts about ONC's history, its plans for the future and the promise of big data.

Reports indicate that President Obama will nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, head of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace Kathleen Sebelius.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius seemed to have weathered the maelstrom surrounding the botched rollout of the government's health insurance exchanges back in October and come through the other side where more than 7 million people signed up for health insurance through the exchanges. But on Thursday, after five years at the HHS helm, Sebelius resigned.

ONC chief Karen DeSalvo, MD, envisions an agency with new workgroups and a less siloed approach, with consumer and privacy advocates participating across all the groups.

As the HITECH grant era comes to a close, national coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD, wants to change with the times.

KLAS spoke with more than 100 providers for the recently published ICD-10 consulting services report, in which providers revealed who they used for ICD-10 assessments/road maps, implementation/PMO resources, on-site training, eLearning and application testing. KLAS re-contacted several of these providers to ask how the delay will affect their strategy. Guess who is relieved, and who is frustrated.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a highly regarded teaching hospital in Boston, but in 2012, the hospital found out it had one of the highest rates of readmissions among Medicare patients in the country. That meant federal fines of more than $1 million -- and a lot of soul searching for the staff, says Dr. Julius Yang, the head of quality for the hospital.

mHealth is a moving target and at the center of much debate. A key long-awaited report, issued April 3, appears to show the regulatory arms are united in their views of how mHealth should be regulated. But, should they be front-running mHealth regulation at all?