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As National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Farzad Mostahari, MD, has, since 2011, led the government's efforts to transform the nation's healthcare structure into a 21st century digital system. The goals are to improve patient care, increase efficiencies and lower costs. Mostashari delivered a rousing keynote talk at HIMSS12, and he is slated as a headliner again this year (Thursday, March 7, at 8:30 a.m.).
It was a task that extended beyond hammers and nails. After the blow of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the greater New Orleans area was faced with the challenge of rebuilding its internal public health structure - beyond the material repair of roofs and floors, waiting rooms and patient rooms.
2013 has already proved to be a big year for patient privacy. HHS released the long-awaited HIPAA final rule. Legislation that would regulate how mHealth app developers collect data was drafted. And the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) started the year off with stricter enforcement relating to privacy breaches.
Healthcare IT insiders regard interoperability as the key to effective health information exchange, and some might say, the hardest to pin down thus far. Industry leaders agree there can be no true exchange without interoperability. How can healthcare transformation occur unless doctor A's EHR can process the information received from doctor B's EHR?
In a Jan. 14 letter to National Coordinator Farzad Mostashari, MD, commenting on the Health IT Policy Committee's proposals for Stage 3 meaningful use, James Madara, MD, executive vice president and CEO of the American Medical Association, put forth some of the AMA's "concerns and recommendations" about the program.
Described by one participant as "the greatest assembly of engineering talent in one room," the IHE North American Connectathon strove hard to advance healthcare interoperability to new levels during demonstrations held in January.
Computer mistakes like the one that produced incorrect prescriptions for thousands of Rhode Island patients are probably far more common and dangerous than the Obama administration wants you to believe, says Drexel University's Scot Silverstein, MD.
Multiple models of health information exchange are at work, with varying degrees of success. At least one critic calls the nationwide network of HIEs an "unmitigated disaster," while proponents in the trenches say it will take time for the the systems and standards to mature, and also to work through some very complicated issues, policy and governance among them.
In his March 5 keynote at HIMSS13, Eric J. Topol, MD, will discuss the need to escape from ways of practicing medicine that have outlived their usefulness.
An accountable care organization is liable to be fraught with many disparate organizations and practitioners. How can analytics help bring them all together, and drive communication and change moving forward?