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Become "pioneers" in health information management, Wil Yu urged the audience at his keynote speech Oct. 2 at AHIMA's 84th Annual Convention and Exhibit.
As director of the HIT Initiatives Group in the Office of E-health Standards and Services at CMS, Elizabeth Holland is front and center at the rules table, shaping the meaningful use rules that many view as driving healthcare transformation. Holland is a veteran policymaker. She joined CMS in 1991, right around the time the proposed rule for the Medicare fee schedule was in the works. CMS received 100,000 comments - all on paper.
The added work anticipated from meaningful use requirements, the pressure to achieve data sharing and the clock ticking toward the 2014 deadline for conversion of diagnostic and medical billing codes from ICD-9 to ICD-10 code sets has driven the demand for consultants, creating what some call a boom.
Whether it's within their own practices or the healthcare continuum within their community, physicians need to set up well-defined pathways of information for patient care, system vendors say.
Healthcare organizations have a lot on their plates nowadays, and the challenges are only growing. Meaningful use is a big one, of course - not least Stage 2's new focus on patient engagement.
HIMSS Analytics' Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) has been tracking hospitals' slow upward climb towards advanced health IT use - an eight step ladder, from paper-based to totally wired - since 2005.
Imagine a clinical database containing medical histories, diseases and demographic data taken from millions of patients across the U.S. Imagine data analytics that could help eliminate healthcare disparities and socioeconomic inequalities, could help pinpoint certain diseases in particular populations, reduce morbidity numbers, and rather than improve healthcare for a single patient, could potentially improve the healthcare of millions across a geographic area.
In an epoch of HIPAA breaches and privacy lawsuits that leave healthcare providers keeled over with clinical, financial and legal headaches - oftentimes meltdowns - more state medical organizations are adding Direct Messaging to their to-do lists.
The ever-increasing ability of both doctors and patients to send and receive healthcare data on the move is adding some weight to the health information exchange debate, but issues remain with security and a reluctance to share information.
Health insurers are embracing social media, mobile health applications and even games as they position themselves for accountable care and try to encourage their members to take more interest in their wellness, according to a recent report from Chilmark Research.