News
Addressing challenges, building relationships and jumping on desks. Throw in ringing a cowbell for celebrating successes and you have just described a Benefitfocus client visit. The business model of personally visiting clients is not a new concept, but it is one that is gradually being replaced by businesses around the globe with conference calls and virtual meetings.
Earlier this year, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) authorized $1.1 billion for healthcare comparative effectiveness research (CER), which is expected to guide a growing number of treatment protocols moving forward.
Whole Foods co-founder and CEO John Mackey contributed a very compelling commentary on healthcare reform to the Aug. 12 Wall Street Journal.
t's flu season. Just yesterday (Sept. 22), I heard on the news Michael Kurtz, a pediatrician in Centennial, Colo., south of Denver, say that in the last 10 days his three-office practice, which has 35,000 patients, had diagnosed 30 to 50 cases of swine flu a day. These diagnoses were not lab confirmed, he said, but the pediatricians in Centennial were confident they were on the mark. They tested for two strains of flu – influenza A and influenza B. State officials told them that 98 percent of positive influenza A tests are the H1N1 flu.
Calling its role in the healthcare IT realm “mission accomplished,” officials at the National Health Alliance for Health Information Technology ended a seven-year run on Sept. 30.
The heads of the federal Health IT Standards Committee, Jonathan Perlin, MD, and John Halamka, MD, moved the panel at its meeting last month to the next phase of work – guidance for implementation.
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology will launch new certification programs on Oct. 7.
Millions of Americans are concerned about the control of their personal data, lawyer and privacy activist Deborah Peel told the federal Health IT Policy Committee at a hearing last month. Peel said ensuring data privacy and security is the only way healthcare IT can move forward successfully.
President Barack Obama has laid out an ambitious plan for reforming America’s healthcare system that includes evidence-based care, an aspect of the plan embraced by both parties.
Experts and federal officials close to the issues surrounding healthcare IT adoption and the promotion of meaningful use under the new stimulus package say the goals are high, but the work that lies ahead is monumental.