Meaningful Use
As two top leaders prepare to leave health IT's highest government posts, another ONC official -- a family physician, who also spent some time working at an EHR company -- prepares to take the reins.
The start date for Stage 2 of the meaningful use incentive program, expected to begin Oct. 1, 2013 for hospitals and Jan. 1, 2014 for eligible providers is once again up for discussion.
Outgoing National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, MD, spoke with Government Health IT Editor Tom Sullivan recently about the difference between applying his passion for improving healthcare through health IT at the local level and federal level.
The $2.4 billion hospital RCM software and services industry expects double digit increases in 2014 because of business shifts, reimbursement and payment reforms, accountable care participation, ICD-10 coding challenges, physician practice acquisitions, collection issues, and overall declining margins.
The Houston City Council approved this week more than $1.6 million in funding to implement an electronic health record system at the city's Health and Human Services Department.
The HIMSS Interoperability Showcase, held on Capitol Hill Sept. 17 and 18 was a highlight of this year's annual National Health IT Week, educating some 500 members of the public, congressional staffers and members of Congress about health IT.
The federal government could do a better job helping to transform the nation's healthcare system, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said at a Capitol Hill press conference Sept. 18. The conference was part of the HIMSS HIT Policy Summit held during National Health IT Week.
Approximately 68 percent of hospitals have purchased technology from a software vendor that has been certified to the 2014 Edition certification criteria, according to data collected through June 2013 in the HIMSS Analytics Database. Other HIMSS research also support the findings.
The Scorecard provides the first state-by-state comparison of the healthcare experiences of the 39 percent of Americans with incomes less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or $47,000 a year for a family of four and $23,000 for an individual.
As patient engagement grows, a new survey indicates that a growing number of U.S. consumers would be willing to switch doctors to gain online access to their own electronic medical records. Doctors, though, are not as eager to make the change.