Network Infrastructure
The Joint Commission has found that communication breakdown is the overwhelming root cause of sentinel events. Terry Edwards, CEO of PerfectServe, an intelligent clinical communications platform, is trying to do something about it.
3M Health Information Systems opened access Wednesday to its Healthcare Data Dictionary, under an agreement with the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs. 3M President Jon Lindekugel explains how this will enable semantic interoperability for the joint DoD/VA integrated electronic health record (iEHR), and discusses other innovations the project could lead to.
When ONC stands up the NwHIN-Exchange in October, there will be at least 25 partners spanning military, private and public health entities sharing patient records with each other on the back of various standards.
In their Views from the Top session, "Mercy Rising in Joplin: How Advanced Planning and Resolve Are Helping Us Rebuild," Lynn Britton, president and CEO, and William Showalter, vice president and CIO, both of Mercy Health, shared their experiences of recovering essential information and services, reestablishing information and workflow and rebuild.
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.
Former Microsoft Health Solutions Group executive Peter Neupert will join Health Evolution Partners, a venture capital firm launched by former National Coordinator for Health IT David Brailer, MD, as an operating partner.
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it has signed up 30,776 veterans so far to participate in pilots around the country for the virtual lifetime electronic record (VLER) program. VA CIO Roger Baker discusses VLER and the other initiatives that make it tick.
Physician groups are pleased with their initial take of the final accountable care organization (ACO) rule issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Oct. 20.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office argues that, while "federal law provides CIOs with adequate authority to manage IT for their agencies," some "limitations exist that impede their ability to exercise this authority."
Patient data lost while in the hands of a business associate becomes "extraordinarily" difficult to track, says one expert, who identified data-centric protection as a way to safeguard information like that recently exposed at Stanford Hospital and Clinics.