Meaningful Use

Mac McMillan, CEO of Austin, Texas-based IT security firm CynergisTek and chair of the HIMSS Privacy & Security Policy Task Force, has some strong opinions about privacy protections in healthcare nowadays. The short version? Things could be a lot better.

A new report from the UnitedHealth Group indicates rural Americans will face an increasing need for healthcare and more challenges in accessing it, and recommends telehealth and telemedicine technology as a possible solution.

The American Medical Association and 91 state and specialty medical societies have submitted formal comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expressing concern over the proposed changes to the electronic prescribing penalty program.

John Halamka, MD, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, announced last week that he will be "passing the baton" as CIO of Harvard Medical School to a "new IT leader."

Legislation was introduced this week by four congressmen seeking to ensure that multi-campus hospitals receive their health IT incentives fairly.

One of the greatest boons on the journey toward achieving meaningful use is having physicians champion health IT, according to Greg Ator, MD, chief medical informatics officer for the University of Kansas Hospital.

The Joint Commission’s 2011 National Patient Safety Goals for hospitals should be included in electronic health record certification and criteria for meaningful use, say authors of a commentary that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Healthcare in the United States has its own myriad, manifest and much-discussed problems. But they're nothing compared to those afflicting the primitive and limited systems in many other parts of the world.

The comment period ended on June 6 for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) proposed rule on accountable care organizations (ACOs).

What if CMS threw a meaningful use party and nobody showed up?