Meaningful Use
The enhanced set of protections finalized in the omnibus HIPAA privacy and security rule released Jan.17 now becomes the new baseline for anyone who handles health information. It doesn't change meaningful use requirements, but combined, the two may drive more providers to protect patient data, according to privacy and security experts.
Bill McQuaid, CIO of Parkview Adventist Medical Center in Brunswick, Maine, discusses Parkview's health IT accomplishments and preparations for meaningful use Stage 2 with Bernie Monegain, Editor of Healthcare IT News.
Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record payments are estimated to have blasted through $10.3 billion to a total of 180,200 physicians and hospitals through December since the program's inception. December's payments of $1.25 billion were driven by the largest amount of hospital payments for an individual month.
Watertown, Mass.-based athenahealth announced Jan. 7 that it would acquire San Mateo, Calif.-based Epocrates. It's a match hailed by the executives of both companies, and also by industry analysts, as a smart move. Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush explains his vision for athenahealth and for a connected healthcare system.
The year 2012 was the year when data showed its muscle, whether in the presidential elections or in demonstrating how deeply entrenched the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health records had become.
Once considered the leading edge of information technology, computerized physician order entry is now simmering on the back burner of healthcare priorities. While it is not forgotten, attention toward CPOE has been deflected in favor of other concerns, such as meaningful use, interoperability, RAC audits and ICD-10 coding projects. Yet it is a critical piece of meaningful use.
ACOs are an idea whose time has come, according to Gene Lindsey, MD, president and CEO of Newton, Mass.-based Atrius Health.
Hospitals can have hundreds of IT systems. Vendors have built proprietary databases. Not everyone follows the same standards. Health systems fear sharing data with competitors. Policymakers have not focused on health information exchange or EHR usability.
There are many elements of business intelligence in play within the healthcare IT continuum, but without a specific focus, the initiative is stuck in neutral. In fact, that is where many healthcare providers find themselves with their BI programs, system specialists say - wondering how to proceed and in which direction to move.
Telehealth used to be something few people knew about, or understood. Today, it is fast taking its place as a major aspect of healthcare, according to experts at the National eHealth Collaborative's Technology Crossroads Conference in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 27.