Digital Government
EHRs Not So User-Friendly
The usability (or lack thereof) of electronic health records is a key factor in their adoption, yet vendors do a poor job of systematically focusing on convenience of use throughout the development and testing of EHRs, concluded a recently released report.
Digital Government
Curbing the Red Flags
Lawmakers introduced a bill this week in the U.S. Senate that would exempt doctors from a new law that seeks to protect consumers from identity theft.
Digital Government
Uncle Sam Wants You (for HIT)
Scrapping the country's paper medial records and replacing them with health ITsystems is a massive undertaking requiring human capital that currently does not exist. Moreover, producing tens of thousands of health IT experts requires an infrastructure--certified training programs, curricula, instructors and competency exams--that is not yet in place.
Digital Government
AMA to Insurers: Get Well Already
Provisions relating to the use of health IT are included in a new health insurer code of conduct released this week by the American Medical Association. The set of principles seeks to "bring transparency and accountability" to the multibillion-dollar health insurance industry, AMA said in <a href="http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/news/news/insurers-code-of-conduct.shtml">a news release</a>.
Digital Government
Controlling the Flow of IT Dough
Digitization of the country's healthcare data has released deep wells of previously untapped capital. The resulting gusher is spewing billions of dollars across government agencies, private companies and healthcare providers.
Digital Government
An Earful of Meaningful Use
The federal government's push for the rapid adoption of electronic health records is engendering considerable pushback. The fiercest clash is over proposed "meaningful use" rules for electronic records that must be met by health-care providers serving Medicare and Medicaid patients, reported Politico this week. Compliance will make providers eligible to share in $19 billion appropriated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as an incentive to digitize medical records. Failure to abide by the guidelines will result in lower reimbursements. A proposed "meaningful use" eligibility rule published in January by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service (CMS) has drawn protests from more than 50 professional associations, chief among them the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, Politico reported. The groups are spending millions of dollars to lobby elected officials and sway opinion through media messaging. The thrust of those efforts is to relax the meaning of meaningful use by giving providers more time to comply with fewer requirements. The campaign seems to be working. In March, "249 members of the House sent a letter to CMS, calling the new regulation 'too much, too soon for the vast majority of America's hospitals,'" according to the Politico report. "Twenty-seven senators sent a similar letter."
Digital Government
Health IT Cuts Heart Attack Risk
Electronic medical records played a key role in lowering cholesterol in people at very high risk for heart disease to levels considered by many health experts to be unattainable, reports Kaiser Permanente.
Digital Government
Health IT Industry, Heal Thyself
No one would use an e-mail provider that is slower than the U.S. Postal Service. A television remote control that required more effort to use than getting off the couch to manually change channels also would be a nonstarter. So is it any wonder that the uptake of health information technology has been painfully slow?
Digital Government
HIT Windfall? Trust but Verify
Expansion of health information technology could result in healthcare savings of $261 billion over 10 years, according to a <a href="http://thepresidency.org/storage/documents/Health_Report.pdf">report</a> released this month.
Digital Government
Reforming Reimbursement Rules
In the superfast mobile computing era of iPhones, iPads, Kindles and net books, telemedicine is stuck in a rut.
Digital Government
Shining a Light on Health IT
Communities large and small--from San Diego, New Orleans and Indianapolis to Stoneville, Miss. and Brewer, Maine--are among 15 named this week as models for advancing the use of health information technology.
Digital Government
Are Digital Records Losing Steam?
Arm twisting by powerful health care lobbies stands a good chance of persuading the Obama administration to relax its ambitious timetable for digitizing the country's medical records.
Digital Government
A List of Top Docs
Keeping up with health IT policy these days is akin to solving a crossword puzzle while skydiving through a cloud of volcanic dust. It's just that easy.
Digital Government
Two Bits, Four Bits, Six Bits, A Dollar
To be or not to be a meaningful user of electronic health records? That is the question that has many doctors scratching their heads, says David Blumenthal, whose job as national coordinator for health information technology includes changing physicians' uncertainty into enthusiasm.
Digital Government
Dirt Roads and the Digital Divide
Rural areas of the country that have some of the highest rates of chronic disease are far less likely than urban areas to benefit from health information technology. It's not just a dearth of electronic health records. In many cases, rural health care providers don't have access to reliable broadband.
Digital Government
VA to Cure Healthy IT Budgets
Despite having what is arguably the most successful, large-scale health IT program in the world, the Veteran Affairs Department is under pressure to trim its budget for information technology programs.
Digital Government
Giving Health IT a Hard Look
More robust oversight of health IT and better reporting of errors are needed to ensure patient safety as the country's health care providers adopt electronic health records, concluded a <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/30235775/Health-IT-Policy-Panel-s-Draft-Letter-on-Patient-Safety-Recommendations#about">draft report</a>, released today, of an Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology policy workgroup.
Digital Government
A Pattern of Better Health Care
The potential of health IT to improve patients' outcomes is undermined by information systems that "are not designed to collect data to support quality improvement as the primary purpose," says a report released this week by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Digital Government
Health Care Data Gets Personal
The California HealthCare Foundation yesterday released results of what it is calling a <a href="http://www.chcf.org/topics/view.cfm?itemid=134205">"ground-breaking study"</a> of personal health records. Interestingly, the foundation emphasized findings that tend to fall in the "duh" category.
Digital Government
Health IT + iPad = iSalvation
First there was tulip mania, circa 1637. More recently there were tech stock and real-estate bubbles. Now, enthusiasm for the iPad as a game-changing health IT device is swelling like the string section in a romantic movie score.
Almost There!
Help us tailor content specifically for you: