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The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) annual release of state-by-state health quality data has been expanded to include new data on health insurance. The additional data are intended to provide information on healthcare quality categorized by source of payment, including private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid and those without insurance.
The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is requesting input on approaches to developing a comparative effectiveness research (CER) inventory that captures ongoing CER efforts in the U.S.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has published two new guides to help hospital administrators make decisions concerning staff and patient safety when a natural or manmade disaster or other catastrophic event occurs.
Written by Kaitlyn Dmyterko
IT-enabled medication management strategies tap computerized provider order entry (CPOE), bar-coded electronic medication administration records and clinical decision support modules in electronic health records to reduce medication errors. They have their work cut out for them: The Institute of Medicine estimates that 1.5 million preventable medication errors occur in the U.S. every year, costing some $8 billion.
The Department of Health & Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is distributing demonstration and planning grants totaling $25 million to support efforts by states and health systems to implement and evaluate patient safety approaches and medical liability reforms.
EMR vendors may say they're committed to developing and providing usable EMR products, but best practices and standards of design, testing and usability monitoring of EMRs are not readily available, according to a report funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
The National Quality Forum (NQF) has formed a new Health IT Advisory Committee (HITAC). Members of the new advisory committee represent a wide range of healthcare stakeholders, including consumers, providers, clinicians, purchasers, suppliers, and public and community healthcare organizations.
Using bar-code technology with an electronic medication administration record (eMAR) substantially reduces transcription and medication administration errors and potential drug-related adverse events, according to a study published in the May 6 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
More research is needed but the EHR will likely be a foundational element of the medical home, according to an article in the April edition of HealthAffairs.
"Collaboration between academic institutions and the technology industry could lead to significant advances in consumer health IT, but too many factors prevent the two types of entities from working together.” according to a March report on managing personal health information by the Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality (AHRQ),
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Clinical decision support (CDS) systems can be successfully developed and implemented, and the knowledge base can be shared across clinical sites and EMR systems, according to a recent Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) report.
A web site launched by the Illinois Department of Public Health in November 2009 aims to provide better transparency to state residence by making public healthcare data including infectious disease rates, mortality and patient safety, as well as quality and process of care measures.
According to the 2009 National Healthcare Quality Report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Department of Health and Human Services, the quality of healthcare is improving, but slowly, especially in the areas of preventive care and chronic disease management.
Written by Gina Narcisi
Referring to the leveraging of health IT as “information therapy,” Christine Sinsky, MD, from Medical Associates Clinic and Health Plans in Dubuque, Iowa, said that by providing a way for patients to have access to their personal health information, shared medical decision-making between the physician and the patient is facilitated.
The percentage of nonelderly Americans with high financial burden from healthcare spending increased from 16.4 percent in 2004 to 19.1 percent in 2006 while almost 30 percent of the U.S. population either had a high financial burden of health costs or were uninsured from 2001 to 2006, according to an article published online March 26 in Health Affairs.
President Barack Obama will reportedly nominate Donald M. Berwick, MD, as the next administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), according to a variety of media sources.
The Office of the Federal Register made available for public inspection an Interim Final Rule with Request for Comments from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Justice on e-prescribing of controlled substances.
Patients admitted to the hospital during the weekend hours are more likely to experience delays in major procedures, be emergency and critical cases and have a higher mortality rate compared to patients admitted during weekday hours, according to a statistical brief conducted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
The use of health IT to reduce rehospitalizations will be welcome but also disruptive, said Stephen Jencks, an independent consultant in healthcare safety during a Feb. 24 webinar on the potential use of health IT to mitigate rehospitalizations, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
The push is on for healthcare providers to make the switch to EHRs but it is hard to tell how well these complex health IT systems are being implemented and used, according to a Feb. 3 commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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“We’re beginning a revolution the way information is collected, managed, used and purposed for patients in the U.S. healthcare system,” said David Blumenthal, MD, chair of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, in opening remarks at an audioconference training session on meaningful use and EHR certification last week.
In Part 1 of our closer look at the final rules for meaningful use and EHR certification standards, CMIO’s Jeff Byers spoke with David Blumenthal, MD, chair of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. In Part 2, CMIOs weigh in with mixed reviews.
The framework for meaningful use is “something that had to be done and has been started intelligently,” John P. Glaser, PhD, vice president and CIO of Partners HealthCare System told CMIO. However, the challenges of becoming meaningful users and optimizing health information exchange will require unprecedented levels of communication within organizations and among healthcare systems, he said.
The contractual obligations in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on modifications to the HIPAA privacy, security and enforcement rules under the HITECH Act for business associates and downstream entities are game changers, according to Amy S. Leopard, JD, from Walter and Haverfield, during a webinar sponsored by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Standardizing performance measures, with the help of health IT, will make it possible to collect the right data at the right time to support performance measurement, clinical decision support, clinical research and quality improvement, said Janet M. Corrigan, PhD, president and CEO of the National Quality Forum (NQF) during a webinar hosted by the forum on June 17.