Meaningful Use
New Mexico will be awarded $7 million in federal funds for its statewide health information exchange (HIE), having met all the requirements for strategic and operational planning.
Interoperability is a major part of the HITECH Act, the healthcare IT portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February of 2009. And according to Dale Wiggins, chief technology officer of Philips Healthcare Patient Care and Clinical Informatics, it all starts with modalities.
A number of hospitals in Northwestern Indiana are deploying EHRs or integrating disparate EHR systems across their facilities to qualify for the federal stimulus funds. They're not implementing purely for the money. Do the math.
CMS announced it will spend $34 million to have Northrop Grumman track health IT incentive payments. It seems as if the last several months millions of dollars have been pouring out of HHS. For those who are opposed to all this spending, this announcement may seem like the federal government is pouring more money into a bottomless pit.
As healthcare organizations work to achieve meaningful use, demand for skilled consultants is high, but the jobs are more targeted and with smaller budgets than in the past, according to a new report from research firm KLAS.
Jersey Health Connect, one of four regional health information exchanges (HIEs) in the state chosen to share $11.4 million in federal money awarded to create a statewide HIE, is already exchanging patient data and laying out plans for how to spend its allotment of $3.4 million.
The Dept. of Health and Human Services is going to be conducting two surveys on patient perceptions of EHRs. Getting patient buy-in is just as critical as having physicians adopt health IT. It's one thing to get physicians to use the system. It's another thing if patients don't want their physicians to have electronic records on them.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has tapped Northrop Grumman to develop a national repository for tracking incentive payments to healthcare providers that CMS will pay for meaningful use of electronic health records starting in 2011.
Recently, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology issued its interim final rule for meaningful use, health information technology standards, and certification criteria and implementation specifications for electronic health record incentive payments.
A new bill signed into law is expected to boost the creation of a statewide health information exchange in Wisconsin.