Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)
Driven by increasing demand for clinical information technology and administrative tools, the North American healthcare IT market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.4 percent, set to reach $31.3 billion by 2017 from $21.9 billion in 2012, according to a new report from Research and Markets.
In a year-end set of new regulations, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the HHS Inspector General finalized the Stark law exemption, which allows hospitals to fund up to 85 percent of EHR costs for physicians, and the OIG outlined the related anti-kickback "safe harbor" for "protected donors."
Physicians in the first subspecialty of clinical informatics, spearheaded by the American Medical Informatics Association, got their board certifications this month -- a pivotal moment in healthcare's "systemic overhaul," according to AMIA.
HHS appointed a new chief to head the Office of the National Coordinator Dec. 19, and so far the decision has been lauded by industry leaders.
"In 2003, fewer than 5 percent of hospitals in the U.S. had any form of electronic records," said David Brailer, MD, who became the nation's first "heath information czar" in 2004. "A smaller percentage of doctors' offices had them, probably less than 1 percent. It was something everyone knew was inevitable, but the fire had not been lit," he tells Healthcare IT News.
The Office of the Inspector General found that nearly all of the more than 800 hospitals it surveyed in late 2012 had federally recommended EHR audit functions in place, but "may not be using them to their full extent," while only a quarter of them had policies on the notoriously problematic practice of copying-and-pasting.
In the wake of HealthCare.gov's botched launch, analysts -- and Congressional leaders -- contend the private sector would have done it better. That's not necessarily so, says Karen Evans, who offers five tips for successful rollouts.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has big plans for Blue Button, the mechanism that enables consumers to securely download their health information, as part of an overarching effort to enhance patient engagement.
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.
"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."