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More than one-third of hospitals aren't meeting National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators performance metrics, a new Ohio State University study on chief nurse executives finds. At the same time, it showed that evidence-based practice – a care-delivery approach that integrates problem solving, best practices, clinician expertise and patient preferences – is a low priority across the United States. Although multiple studies show evidence-based practice results in high-quality care, improved patient outcomes and lower costs, and nurse executives recognize its effectiveness, implementation is relatively low. [Also: IBM Watson to help tackle heart disease] "EBP isn’t being implemented to the state that it really needs to be to accomplish high quality healthcare safety and cost," said Bernadette Melnyk, MD, dean of Ohio State University's College of Nursing. "There's a major disconnect between the priorities of chief nurses and evidence-based practice." While the majority of surveyed nurses placed quality and safety as top priorities, EBP was ranked at the bottom. Melnyk said this suggested that nurses "don’t truly understand that EBP is a direct path to get their hospitals to quality safety and reduce costs." A lack in budget allocations is one of the major reasons for this gap, the survey found. Hospitals and CNEs aren't investing resources into this evidence-based culture to help implement EBP measures for a care foundation. [Also: Clinical decision support: It's about more than technology] "Hospitals need to invest in getting all providers and clinicians, really up to scale in EBP," Melnyk said. "Then create a culture and environment that support their clinicians to consistently practice this way. "There are a lot of barriers that exist in the healthcare system; there are misconceptions, politics and the tradition of 'that's the way we do it' that's alive and well in many institutions across the U.S," she added. When most Americans head to the hospital, they assume they're getting evidence-based care, but that's not the reality, the report suggests. Nurse executives need EBP education and skill-building to implement the practice, the survey found. But furthermore healthcare systems need to support staff to utilize EBP. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] Research shows EBP teamwork leads to better care quality and outcomes, but hospital must promote the practice as essential and expect clinicians to implement them. "We also need to get academia up, where they're creating students steeped in EBP and they come into a healthcare environment where that is expected," Melnyk said. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

Respiratory care provider Lincare has been ordered to pay $239,800 in penalties for violating the HIPAA Privacy Rule. An administrative law judge ruled in favor of the Office for Civil Rights, which is charged with enforcing the rule. OCR had asked the judge to approve the penalties, and the judge granted them on all issues, the agency announced on February 3. [Also: Obama gun control push leads HHS to change HIPAA rule] "While OCR prefers to resolve issues through voluntary compliance, this case shows that we will take the steps necessary, including litigation, to obtain adequate remedies for violations of the HIPAA Rules," OCR Director Jocelyn Samuels, said in a press statement. "The decision in this case validates the findings of our investigation."  Lincare claimed it had not violated HIPAA rules because the protected health information was "stolen" by the individual who discovered it on the premises previously shared with the Lincare employee. The judge rejected this argument. Lincare provides respiratory care, infusion therapy and medical equipment to in-home patients. The company operates more than 850 branch locations in 48 states.  [Also: Oncology group slapped with $750K HIPAA fine] OCR's investigation of Lincare began after the agency received a complaint that a Lincare employee left behind documents containing the protected health information of 278 patients after moving to another home. According to OCR, the employee removed patients' information from Lincare's office, left it exposed where an unauthorized person had access, and then abandoned it altogether.  [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] The OCR investigation found that Lincare had inadequate policies and procedures in place to safeguard patient information that was taken off site, although employees, who worked in patients' homes, routinely removed PHI from Lincare offices. Moreover, evidence revealed Lincare had an unwritten policy requiring certain employees to store protected health information in their own vehicles for extended periods. Even when Lincare was aware of the complaint and the OCR investigation, the company "took only minimal action to correct its policies and strengthen safeguards to ensure compliance with the HIPAA Rules," OCR officials stated. Twitter: @HealthITNews

(SPONSORED) What if you could know in advance which patients would benefit from certain therapies? Or could intervene in a medical crisis before it's too late? While doctors have traditionally had to rely on instinct to make these calls, predictive analytics could be a game changer for hospitals, healthcare providers and patients.

Three weeks after the Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50, they will meet again at HIMSS16 in Las Vegas.

Analytics functionality has improved measurably in recent years, according to Chilmark Research, but  workflow integration remains a key hurdle.

A bipartisan group of Senators this week unveiled legislation to remove Medicare barriers to telemedicine use in a bill that proponents say can generate $1.8 billion in savings over 10 years. Led by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the CONNECT for Health Act seeks to create an opening for more providers to incorporate telemedicine into their practices. The Senate group hopes to use the platform to further study its effects on healthcare. [Also: Doctor on Demand expands telehealth services to include psychiatry] Currently, many providers are restricted in telemedicine use by geography, strict rules around originating sites, restrictions on store-and-forward technologies, limitations on reimbursable codes and more. Under the CONNECT act, the Senators propose a bridge program to assist providers in the transition to the new Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, with its the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, by removing many restrictions to telehealth and remote patient monitoring under Medicare. Qualifying providers participating in MACRA's alternative payment models, for example, will be allowed to use patient monitoring for patients with chronic conditions. In addition, it would allow new originating sites – dialysis facilities, telestroke evaluation and management sites and Native American health service facilities – and permit further telehealth and remote patient monitoring in community health centers  and rural health clinics. The bill would also allow telehealth and RPM to be basic benefits in Medicare Advantage. That optimism will be scrutinized by the Congressional Budget Office, which has been skeptical of telehealth's ability to reduce government spending. The act is endorsed by a long list of organizations including American Medical Association, Kaiser Permanente, Cerner, AARP, Anthem, Telecommunications Industry Association, American Academy of Physicians and National Association of ACOs, amongst others. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

Healthcare businesses added more than 37,000 jobs in January, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday, as the first month of 2016 seemed to extend the sector’s job-creating trend over the past year. Overall, the U.S. economy added 151,000 jobs in the month and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.9 percent. [Also: The 29 best jobs in healthcare] The highest job gains in January came from hospitals, which added 23,700 jobs in the month, followed by ambulatory centers, which added 10,700 jobs. According to the labor department, healthcare has added 470,000 jobs in the past 12 months, with 40 percent of those jobs being created by hospitals. On the other hand, a few sub-sectors of healthcare actually lost jobs in January, the labor department said. Dentist offices shed 1,500 jobs in the month, data show, while medical and diagnostic laboratories lost more than 3,700 positions. Here's the seasonally adjusted breakdown for the healthcare sector. All numbers are in thousands: Industry Jan. 2015 Nov. 2015 Dec. 2015 Jan. 2016 Change Industry Jan. 2015 Nov. 2015 Dec. 2015 Jan. 2016 Change Healthcare 14,869.40 15,267.00 15,302.30 15,339.10 36.8 Ambulatory healthcare 6,752.20 6,967.50 6,989.20 6,999.90 10.7 Physicians offices 2,497.00 2,564.20 2,568.00 2,574.00 6 Dentists offices 898.6 917.3 925.9 924.4 -1.5 Other healthcare offices 798.3 823.7 827 831.1 4.1 Outpatient care centers 730.6 757.4 760.9 760.5 -0.4 Medical and diagnostic laboratories 254.3 261.1 259.7 256 -3.7 Home health care services 1,291.50 1,349.60 1,354.10 1,360.40 6.3 Other ambulatory healthcare 282 294.2 293.7 293.5 -0.2 Hospitals 4,834.90 4,987.60 5,000.00 5,023.70 23.7 Nursing and residential care facilities 3,282.30 3,311.90 3,313.10 3,315.50 2.4 Nursing care facilities 1,652.80 1,659.20 1,660.10 1,659.20 -0.9 Residential mental health facilities 605.9 609.3 608.7 610.6 1.9 Community care facilities for the elderly 862 882 881.7 883.3 1.6 Other residential care facilities 161.7 161.4 162.6 162.4 -0.2 Twitter: @HenryPowderly

The administration's 2016 year-end goal was to have 10 million people covered through the exchanges.

Digitizing clinical quality measures, also known as eCQM, isn’t just about meeting government requirements. It’s also about healthcare organizations smartly using electronic data to drive decisions, said Keith Woeltje, MD, director of healthcare informatics at the Center for Clinical Excellence at BJC HealthCare. “It’s not just about the government, but what we choose to do ourselves,” he added. Woeltje is responsible for informatics, analytics and reporting at BJC HealthCare, in addition to leading its clinical quality measurement group. He will deliver a presentation on eCQM at HIMSS16. See all of our HIMSS16 previews Woeltje said his team found electronic measures easy to use on patient adverse events and other subsequent events. However, while BJC HealthCare met the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services meaningful use requirements, there were “enormous discrepancies” with the health system’s EHR data. Woeltje will present on eCQM and BJC HealthCare’s successful implementation at HIMSS16 in Las Vegas. In his session, “Reconciling Abstracted to Electronic Quality Measures,” Woeltje will discuss BJC HealthCare’s integrated transition to electronic quality measures and his findings and recommendations, using abstracted measures. [Also: CMS makes annual update to 2016 eCQMs] It was the aforementioned discrepancies that led BJC HealthCare to partner with Encore, a healthcare IT consultancy, to analyze these gaps and manage workflows and EHR data. “We wanted to tease those out,” Woeltje said. “We met the requirements, but given that this will be the way we report clinical quality in the future, we needed to it reflect our actual quality of care,” Woeltje said. Going through the audit and discrepancy process was enormously helpful for successfully implementing eCQM. But there’s no tool that can fix these gaps, Woeltje said. While BJC HealthCare could have continued to use certified EHRs and forced the workflows to capture data to reduce gaps and improve the quality of care, the health system turned to the physicians to discover what was needed to “use electronic data to focus on internal issues for electronic surveillances,” Woeltje said. “No health system is thinking about adding more projects,” Woeltje said. “Hospitals want to focus on solutions to reduce errors and become as efficient as possible.” [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] Woeltje and his team at BJC HealthCare planned the integrated approach when they noticed more quality programs were moving into eMeasures. The results from BJC HealthCare’s transition can prove helpful for those organizations considering similar changes. The session “Reconciling Abstracted to Electronic Quality Measures” is scheduled for Tuesday, March 1, 2016, at the Sands Expo Convention Center in Palazzo D. HIMSS16 runs from Feb. 29-Mar. 4. Twitter: @JessiefDavis This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

More than a year after its implementation, Charles Jaffe, MD, CEO of HL7, is scheduled to return to the HIMSS Annual Conference to update the industry on the accomplishments to date and shed light on developments coming in the near future.  HL7 launched the Argonaut Project in collaboration with healthcare IT vendors and providers to accelerate the adoption of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources and, according to Jaffe, there are several exciting developments to discuss. See all of our HIMSS16 previews “First of all, the key that separates FHIR from some of the other standards is that it was created from the start for the implementation community,” Jaffe said. “The focus has been around making their process faster, cheaper and incrementally easier.” One of the most tangible achievements has been the development of a rheumatology app by Geisinger Health System and xG Health Solutions, a company founded by Geisinger, that talks directly with Epic and Cerner EHRs in real-time. [Also: Duke liberates Epic EHR data with Apple HealthKit and FHIR] “This provides data access for everyone in the healthcare continuum,” Jaffe said. “And it works out-of-the-box.” Other continued Argonaut developments, according to Jaffe, are focusing on accessing data, not necessarily writing it. Both Partners HealthCare and Lockheed Martin have recently developed programs to give users access to data across platforms, and Jaffe credits FHIR for much of the progress. The Argonaut Project is also working with EHR providers to speed up the development process. “Within Argonaut we have a series of rapid development protocols we call ‘sprint,’” Jaffe said. Rather than a typical 3-5 month development cycle, they’ve implemented a 2-3 week cycle to come back more quickly with enhancements and improvements. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] “It’s worked extremely well,” Jaffe said. “A lot of the success we’ve had is based on the success of the sprint program.” FHIR is now being utilized on four continents and brings developers together at HL7 meetings, but also smaller groups at events like connectathons that offer unique collaboration opportunities for the implementation community. The session “HL7 Argonaut Project: One Year Later,” is slated for Wednesday, March 3, 2016 from 4:00 – 5:00 pm in the Sands Expo Convention Center Rock of Ages Theater. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.