Meaningful Use

Legislation was introduced this week by four congressmen seeking to ensure that multi-campus hospitals receive their health IT incentives fairly.

One of the greatest boons on the journey toward achieving meaningful use is having physicians champion health IT, according to Greg Ator, MD, chief medical informatics officer for the University of Kansas Hospital.

The Joint Commission’s 2011 National Patient Safety Goals for hospitals should be included in electronic health record certification and criteria for meaningful use, say authors of a commentary that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Healthcare in the United States has its own myriad, manifest and much-discussed problems. But they're nothing compared to those afflicting the primitive and limited systems in many other parts of the world.

The comment period ended on June 6 for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) proposed rule on accountable care organizations (ACOs).

What if CMS threw a meaningful use party and nobody showed up?

As the need for certified electronic health record specialists grows, it is important that healthcare organizations are able to recognize whether potential candidates are EHR-ready, says one consultant.

With the prohibitive and rising cost of healthcare, there has never been a greater need for accountable care organizations, according to Mark McClellan, MD, former administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Farzad Mostashari, MD, the nation's healthcare IT chief, pronounced the graduates of a new health information technology program at Columbia University and Weill Cornell Medical College to be leaders in a healthcare movement that's critical to the nation, as he addressed the graduating class on June 24.

Healthcare IT News interviewed three solo practitioners who have met Stage 1 meaningful use guidelines, and asked what advice they might have for other solo practitioners or small practices.