Meaningful Use
Farzad Mostashari, MD has said he intends to step down from the national coordinator post this fall. Mostashari spent four years with ONC, first as a deputy national coordinator, then taking over as the national coordinator in 2011. Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made the announcement in a letter to HHS staff.
Healthcare organizations are seeing their top talent poached, even after offering big bucks. Many hospitals are "robbing Peter to pay Paul" just to keep their projects staffed up. At a pivotal moment in healthcare, that's putting a damper on progress.
Stage 2 of the Meaningful Use Program requires that at least 5 percent of patients view, download, and transmit their health information and send a secure electronic message to their provider. But this objective, lowered from 10 percent, still worries the healthcare community.
The case has been made many times that technology will help healthcare organizations become more efficient. But even for those who manage to implement new EHR systems, how many actually know how to make the best use of them?
In the Boston marketplace, Partners Healthcare is is replacing 30 years of self developed software with Epic. Boston Medical Center is replacing Eclipsys (Allscripts) with Epic.
In a report, released July 25, the American Hospital Association calls for "redirecting" the existing requirements for digital clinical quality measures. As it stands, the process raises costs and effort for providers, AHA said, without leading to accurate data.
Following last week's call from Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to pause the meaningful use program and determine whether "the bar is too low," a federal hearing Wednesday included testimony from providers and a tech vendor who recommended expanding the timeline because the next phase is overly-prescriptive and threatens to hinder hospitals.
A new MGMA compensation survey shows that CIOs and information systems directors received median pay increases of more than 7 percent since 2011, as demand for health IT services continue to rise.
Providers are increasingly using electronic health records, both to manage their patients' care and to provide more information to those patients, according to new data published Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
As we reach the "tipping point" of electronic health record adoption, the Office of the National Coordinator has issued a mark for EHRs and other health IT products that's meant to serve as visual proof that they can offer functionality, interoperability and security.