Government & Policy
Capturing the right data at the point-of-contact with patients, then storing it in the EHR in a readily usable form, sets the stage for disparate providers to exchange that information.
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.
Some front-runners are wanting desperately to harness mobile technologies to improve care for individual patients, but so much depends on the changing payment model.
The question is how to support and encourage changes in healthcare even as it is being molded by a digital tidal wave. Policy surely can't keep up, though the federal government and its host of volunteer advisory boards are losing sleep in a valiant effort to do so.
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.
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.
As providers ready for meaningful use Stage 2 attestation and policymakers start designing Stage 3, CMS announced that the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs have paid out just shy of $17 billion to spur adoption thus far.
A new House bill endorsed by BIOCOM, BayBio, Qualcomm, CONNECT, the American Telemedicine Association and the California Healthcare Institute proposes using mobile medical apps to cut costs on chronic diseases.
HealthCare.gov, the government's hobbled health insurance website, is fixed and running smoothly, CMS officials announced Dec. 1 in a rare Sunday telephone news briefing.
HealthCare.gov, the government's hobbled health insurance website, is fixed and running smoothly, CMS officials announced Dec. 1 in a rare Sunday telephone news briefing. It took 400-plus software adjustments, hardware overhaul and a revamp of the decision-making process, they said.