Health Information Exchange (HIE)

Walgreens will use Surescripts' Clinical Interoperability services to electronically deliver patient data directly to primary care providers. The intent, say Walgreens officials, is to improve the coordination of care.

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.

For physicians, the proposed rule for meaningful use Stage 2 offers some changes that make it easier for healthcare providers to demonstrate the requirements, including aligning measures with other quality reporting programs.

When Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki met at the Pentagon earlier this week, EHRs was one of the topics on the table.

While there has been much talk in healthcare about using information technology on the clinical end to build an interoperable industry, the financial side of healthcare has been given short shrift.

Premier healthcare alliance has partnered with Carmel, Ind.-based Clinical Architecture in an effort to normalize disparate healthcare data and help care providers better understand and use health information.

Atul Gawande, MD, a surgeon, public health researcher and a writer for The New Yorker, advocates a mindset switch from docs as cowboys to docs as pit crews. Gawande also urges the smart use of data and a well-designed checklist for better and safer care.

The GOP primary candidates head to Nevada on Saturday, a state with poor healthcare and few healthcare resources -- also one that has plunged in and begun implementing what it can of the Affordable Care Act, even though many in the state don't agree with the politics of it.

With Minnesota's GOP caucus set for Feb. 7, we spoke to the North Star State's health IT honcho about public-private partnerships, electronic health records, health information exchange, telehealth and more. Often billed as the healthiest state in the U.S., Minnesota has long been a healthcare IT leader.

A think tank with a healthcare task force chaired by former Senators Tom Daschle, a Democrat, and Bill Frist, MD, a Republican, is advocating for improved and better-used health information technology. Among the group's recommendations is "robust" data exchange.