News
It's an ironic story. The Office for Civil Rights, the division of HHS responsible for investigating HIPAA privacy and security violations, is now facing scrutiny after its own security practices failed to meet federal requirements.
There it was -- the clear-as-a-bell prediction. Call it the "wow factor." Andrew Watson, MD, medical director of the Center for Connected Medicine at UPMC, made an assertion about the future of digital health at the mHealth Summit on Dec. 9 that sent a hushed "wow" rippling across the room.
The numbers do the talking. There are 110 million sexually transmitted infections among women and men nationwide, with 20 million new STIs reported each year. New mobile health innovations, however, are seeking to bring these numbers down, big time.
"I'm surprised that we continue to see the status quo in revenue cycle management," says Sean Wieland, managing director and senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, adding that, "If any other industry had a revenue cycle like that, we'd all be living like the Amish."
The mHealth Alliance plans to transition its base of operations in 2014 from the United Nations Foundation in Washington, DC to South Africa. In the coming months, the Alliance will finalize a full transition plan for 2014, including a proposal to co-locate with the Johannesburg-based Praekelt Foundation.
A joint CMS and ONC blog post today divulges the government's intentions to extend the timeline for meaningful use Stages 2 and 3. Under the revised schedule, Stage 2 would be extended through 2016 and Stage 3 would begin in 2017 for those providers that have completed at least two years in Stage 2.
Among this week's people on the move, Valence Health welcomes two new hires, and Kareo gains a vice president of sales.
The Mount Sinai Health System in New York City will create the Mount Sinai Institute of Technology with $5 million in funding from the New York City Economic Development Corporation. The goal is to radically transform biomedicine through technology-based solutions.
Cerner Corp., one of the top EHR vendors in the country, is teaming up with Claritas Genomics to advance personalized medicine by building tools and connectivity that will better integrate next-generation, sequence-based diagnostic testing into clinical practice.
Eleven hospitals have received the 2013 Hospital Website Transparency Award, which is given by URAC and The Leapfrog Group to recognize organizations that embrace quality measures.