Government & Policy

David Lareau, CEO of Medicomp, discusses successful single payer systems in other nations, how other countries view our healthcare system, and what it will take to bend the cost curve here in the U.S.

Deborah Peel, MD, was trained as a Freudian psychoanalyst and worked as a psychiatrist in Austin, Texas, for nearly three decades before becoming a privacy activist, founding the group Patient Privacy Rights in 2006 after being appalled by HIPAA's evolution into what she sees as a weak baseline for privacy and security.

In 2013, HIEs may be evolving in regions where there previously wasn't a huge need for information sharing. 2013 is also likely to bring a new focus on HIE interoperability, sustainability and clinical and business value.

The continuing saga around the deadline delay for states to decide whether they'll establish their own health insurance exchanges doesn't change the final upshot: All states are anticipated to have an online insurance marketplace, one way or another. The delays may also make a federal/state partnership model for the exchange more palatable and a way out for unprepared states, at least in the initial years, according to an expert on state healthcare issues.

As more health organizations use cloud-based IT services, a patient privacy advocacy group is urging HHS to issue guidance on HIPAA and the cloud.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT wants to use EHR certification criteria to make it easier for physicians to report patient safety events. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality will encourage providers to report adverse events to patient safety organizations, and ONC will propose certification requirements that, where appropriate, EHRs can report safety events in AHRQ's Common Formats.

IDC Health Insights group vice president is expecting that, by early March, the healthcare realm will see more HIPAA-compliant cloud services and an influx of organizations willing to sign HIPAA Business Associate Agreements.

Under terms of the $!7 million contract, SAIC will provide operational support for the USCG's Integrated Health Information System.

Now that states have declared their plans for health insurance exchanges, the focus can move from which model to choose -- and its political implications -- to the details of their progress as they prepare for enrollment in October 2013, just 10 months off.

Leon Rodriguez, director of the Office of Civil Rights, foreshadows what the office will be focusing on moving forward when it comes to HIPAA audits and enforcement.