Meaningful Use
With the continuing weak economy and the advent of health reform, bundled reimbursement and accountable care organizations expected to ratchet up the financial pressure on their businesses, physicians are increasingly looking to health systems as employers.
Meaningful use incentives, HIPAA and ICD-10 conversion are combining to create a high demand for healthcare IT professionals in the marketplace. Eric Marx, vice president of healthcare IT services for IT staffing and recruiting firm Modis, discusses what hospitals and other healthcare organizations are doing to find the right people for the right jobs.
Many vendors give short shrift to the usability of their electronic medical records, says Jiajie Zhang, who is devoting the next three-plus years to addressing this usability factor - something he believes has been a barrier to physician adoption.
The Health IT Standards Committee has begun exploring some of the functions that electronic health records should be capable of performing in Stage 2 of meaningful use, with providers using health information exchange to send patients their information to a personal health record (PHR) a prominent example.
The Montana Senate voted to restore the $35 million in federal incentives for electronic medical records for hospitals and community health centers across the state this week.
The ONC announced earlier this week that more than 60 healthcare and health IT organizations - from EHR vendors to integrated delivery systems to state-based and private-sector HIEs - have expressed their support for the Direct Project's simple and secure messaging protocols.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) formally launched its innovations website, where it plans to gather and test new ideas to improve the healthcare system for its Medicare, Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Military healthcare provider will help fortify Fusionfx HIE platform
Dozens of would-be competitors collaborate under ONC auspices on pivotal data exchange project
HP Enterprise Services and the Oklahoma Health Care Authority have signed a seven-year, $281 million IT and information services contract aimed at preparing SoonerCare, the state’s Medicaid program, for federal health reform mandates.