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The PC maker also signed an agreement to enable the Dubai Health Authority to make an insurance program work with new EHR.

NTT Data announced today it has agreed to buy computer giant Dell's IT service operations for $3.05 billion. The Japan-based NTT provides software and systems, including EHRs, surgery management, billing and insurance claims technologies. Analysts note the NTT acquisition of the Dell unit comes at a time when the global technology services firm NTT is working to broaden its traction in North America. [Also: 'Innovation means accepting risk,' Michael Dell says.] To that end, NTT is expected to add about 28,000 Dell employees with the purchase, mainly from North America and India, bringing its total global workforce to more than 100,000. The move will reportedly enable Dell to pay down some of the $43 billion debt it is taking on to fund its pending $67 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of data storage provider EMC Corp. Twitter: @Bernie_HITN Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

Many analytics programs are well underway but demand more resources, while just as many are nascent and require more development, Stoltenberg Consulting said.

Arguing that too many well-meaning providers are facing financial penalties from meaningful use, the American Hospital Association called on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this week to offer more flexibility. Specifically, AHA says hospitals that meet 70 percent of meaningful use requirements should be deemed as having complied with the program. With the current "all-or-nothing approach," writes Ashley Thompson, AHA's senior vice president of public policy analysis and development, "failure to meet any one of the requirements under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs has meant a provider would not receive an incentive payment; more recently, it has meant a provider would be penalized." [Also: Hospitals press HHS on meaningful use] Given the huge complexity and high hurdles of meaningful use, the fact that a hospital missing a given threshold by small amount leads to overall failure is "unfair to providers that make good faith efforts to comply," according the March 22 letter to CMS Acting Principal Deputy Administrator Patrick Conway, MD. CMS has told AHA that it doesn't have the statutory authority to offer anything less than that absolutist approach, according to the letter. But AHA offers a legal analysis that suggests that's not true: "We believe that CMS possesses the authority to eliminate the all-or-nothing approach to meaningful use and that the agency should do so." Among the arguments put forth by CMS for the necessity of an all-in requirement: The law requires more stringent MU measures to improve quality over time; certain measures capture policies, such as health information exchange, that are specifically required by statute; use of a "qualified EHR" must meet all the requirements, not some, in order to meet the law's objectives. The agency has also argued that a more flexible framework wouldn't reduce providers' reporting burden anyway – a contention with which AHA "respectfully disagrees" but points out isn't statutorily binding anyway. "We strongly believe that CMS is not legally required to maintain its  all-or-nothing approach to meaningful use," AHA argues, but instead has "ample legal authority" to adopt a more forgiving approach like the 70 percent threshold it suggests. "This flexibility would support providers who have implemented IT functionality but may not have optimized each function sufficiently to meet the full set of requirements in the EHR Incentive Program in order to avoid a payment adjustment." Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

Physicians are embracing electronic prescribing more rapidly than ever before, according to new data from Surescripts – especially in New York. In the Empire State, more than 48,000 providers have embraced digital prescriptions as a way to avoid fraud and abuse of prescription drugs – and a way to avoid fines. The deadline for complying with the state’s Internet System for Tracking Over Prescribing, or I-STOP, mandate for digital prescribing is March 27. [See also: NY e-prescribing law takes effect March 27, doctors now face fines for pen-and-paper.] Since March 1, the number of New York providers adopting electronic prescribing of controlled substances increased 28 percent, Surescripts reports. New York Is ahead of other states in e-prescribing adoption with 47 percent uptake, compared with numbers nationwide at just 8 percent. “The industry has made remarkable progress in adopting this critical technology that can have a direct and immediate impact on improving patient care and saving lives,” commented Surescripts CEO Tom Skelton, in a news release. Skelton pointed out that pharmacy adoption of the technology is nearly universal, with 95 percent of pharmacies in New York ready to prescribe controlled substances electronically. In 2013, more than two million Americans abused prescription painkillers such as hydrocodone, oxycodone and methadone, according to Surescripts. Drug diversion is a significant concern when it comes to controlled substances, officials say, with between three and nine percent of diverted drugs for abuse tied to fraud or forgery of paper prescriptions.  Twitter: @Bernie_HITN Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

Leading providers are already thinking about how to transform themselves from data-driven to information-driven organizations, able to offer drastically improved patient experience akin to Amazon and Google. But it's not easy.

Substance use disorder treatment centers are notoriously behind in technology, but Kemah Palms Recovery has implemented the tracking tech and an EHR to improve outcomes and report value.

HIMSS Analytics said the Epic shop saw a return on its investment in half the expected time.

Tested at YMCA, this marks the first time a CMS Innovation Center preventative service has become eligible for expansion in Medicare.

EHR makers including Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner, drchrono, Epic and McKesson said they will embrace open specs including S4S APIs and FHIR to connect research apps to electronic health records software.