Meaningful Use
Even as Oklahoma and Kansas recently said ‘no thanks’ to federal money aimed at helping them with the health information technology platform needed to create health insurance exchanges, the Departments of Health and Human Services and Treasury last week awarded $185M more to drive the creation of the exchanges across the country.
Arien Malec, who coordinated the development of the Direct Project exchange protocols, is leaving the government's Office of the National Coordinator to return to the private sector.
Meaningful use expert Jim Tate has written that the Medicaid EHR incentive program reminds him of "zero entry" swimming pools: very easy to get into, with almost no barriers. Given its less stringent requirements compared to the Medicare EHR incentive program, Tate writes, he's surprised that more eligible professionals are "not jumping into this incentive program with both feet."
Rep. Renee Ellmers sent a letter Thursday to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in which she requested that HHS consider a study of health IT's benefits and cost effectiveness, with a focus on gauging medical error rates.
This summer, pre-med students at Penn State have been coaching doctors at Mount Nittany Medical Center on how to transition from paper to electronic health records as as they strive to implement an EHR system by the end of 2011 and receive meaningful use incentives.
The government's meaningful use guidelines for healthcare reform have caught the attention of mobile health and telemedicine advocates, who say their programs are right in line with efforts to adopt IT to improve healthcare delivery.
Mac McMillan, CEO of Austin, Texas-based IT security firm CynergisTek and chair of the HIMSS Privacy & Security Policy Task Force, has some strong opinions about privacy protections in healthcare nowadays. The short version? Things could be a lot better.
A new report from the UnitedHealth Group indicates rural Americans will face an increasing need for healthcare and more challenges in accessing it, and recommends telehealth and telemedicine technology as a possible solution.
The American Medical Association and 91 state and specialty medical societies have submitted formal comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expressing concern over the proposed changes to the electronic prescribing penalty program.
John Halamka, MD, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, announced last week that he will be "passing the baton" as CIO of Harvard Medical School to a "new IT leader."