News

The funding will span more than 20 projects to address several of healthcare’s biggest burdens, according to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Only 30 percent of respondents to a recent poll want the Affordable Care Act repealed, as Republican contenders Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are promising. Another 30 percent support expanding the law, which Democrats Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have said they will do. 

The technology, seen as a potential move toward bionics, could one day enable wireless updates for corrective lens prescriptions, if it comes to fruition.

The health system credits clinical and financial improvements to a CDI initiative that resulted in more accurate coding and greater physician engagement. 

Project ECHO, a health IT pilot that launched in 2003 in rural New Mexico to connect rural doctors to specialists, is now front and center in Congress as lawmakers consider employing the model across the country. Senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, introduced the Expanding Capacity for Health Outcomes Act this past week. The bill calls for studies on how best to expand the model. In New Mexico, Project ECHO has recorded unprecedented success in treating patients with hepatitis C. "Project ECHO has proven that technology can help overcome traditional barriers to adequate healthcare treatment, such as distance, income and lack of specialized medical professionals for underserved communities with no access to treatment," Sanjeev Arora, MD, project director, told Healthcare IT News back in 2008. [Also: IT employed in hepatitis-C fight in rural New Mexico] The initiative is underpinned by a Web-based application developed by Infosys Technologies. Project ECHO – it stands for Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes – was funded by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, so the federal government already has a hand in the effort. "In states with large rural populations like Utah, it's vital that we do everything we can to ensure that patients have access to quality health care – no matter where they live," Hatch said in an April 29 statement posted on his website. "Our bill would help connect primary care providers in underserved areas with specialists at academic hubs, making it easier for medical professionals to access the continuing education they need and provide health care to more people," added Schatz. The bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services to work with the Health Resources & Services Administration to prioritize analysis of the model, its impacts on provider capacity and workforce issues, and evidence of its effects on quality of patient care. It calls on GAO to report on how increased adoption of a Project ECHO model might boost efficiencies and potential cost savings and improve healthcare. It also requires HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell to submit a report to Congress on the findings of the GAO report and the HHS report, including ways such models have been funded by HHS and how to integrate the models into existing funding streams and grant proposals.

The sheer number and variety of providers that patients see after leaving a hospital make medical mistakes and poor transitions in care all too common today. 

Andrew Bindman, MD, will take the helm at the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services, AHRQ is charged with finding ways to improve healthcare by making it more accessible, affordable, equitable – and safer.

Microsoft purchased 10 million long oligonucleotides – DNA or RNA molecules used for genetic testing and research – from San Francisco startup Twist Bioscience, and is using them to encode digital data.

Michael Middleton, MD, credits online patient portals with helping him grow his Orlando, Florida-based pediatric practice more than three-fold in two-and-a-half years – while keeping staff cost increases at 20 percent.

A group of Republican senators who have been looking to "reboot" meaningful us since 2013 released new draft legislation this week they say aims to make the incentive program work better for providers and taxpayers. U.S. Senators John Thune, R-South Dakota, Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, Richard Burr, R-North Carolina and Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana – all of whom voted against the 2009 ARRA law that helped establish meaningful use through the HITECH Act – wrote this week to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt, looking for feedback on the bill. [Also: Republican senators want to ‘reboot’ MU] The draft legislation would shorten the reporting period for eligible physicians and hospitals from 365 days to 90 days, which would give providers more time to implement EHR systems, relax the all-or-nothing nature of the current program requirement, and extend the ability for eligible providers and hospitals to apply for a hardship exemption from the meaningful use requirements. "These policies seek to provide CMS with the tools and guidance necessary to advance the use of EHRs as part of utilizing health IT to the benefit of patients in a manner that protects the significant taxpayer investment in our nation’s health care system," the legislators write. Thune, Alexander, Enzi, Roberts, and Burr are original members of the Senate’s health IT working group, known as Re-examining the Strategies Needed to Successfully Adopt Health IT, or REBOOT. Back in 2013, they published a white paper outlining their complaints about lack of momentum toward interoperability, patient privacy concerns, EHRs' potential to enable fraud and abuse and other concerns about federal health IT policy. [Also: EHRA critiques GOP's MU 'reboot' plan] "We received critical feedback in response to our 2013 report which has informed our work on these issues," the senators wrote to Burwell and Slavitt this week. "We also engaged with stakeholders including health IT developers, providers, and patient-focused organizations to assess their experiences with the meaningful use program, as well as their concerns with the state of health IT, specifically EHRs, over the years. "In response to this feedback we have identified a few key policy changes outlined in the enclosed draft legislation, and we respectfully request feedback as part of our continued constructive dialogue on these issues."