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The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is questioning whether the current proposed regulations in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) EHR Incentive Program allot enough time for providers to achieve meaningful use before they are penallized.
Health IT is taking a central role in the current healthcare debate, according to a report published by the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital, George Washington University Medical Center and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Healthcare consumers believe they should have a say about the development of health IT systems in order to protect the security and privacy of their own medical information, according to a report prepared for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The American Hospital Association (AHA), through its subsidiary AHA Solutions, has endorsed Extension’s HealthID, a secure smart card that holds individual patient data for use by hospitals.
After playing a major role in elevating health IT into a leadership issue in the United States, the National Alliance for Health Information Technology (NAHIT) will cease operation on Sept. 30.
A new policy statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) advocates that healthcare facilities use high-quality video conferencing systems to connect expert neurologists for rapid, remote examination and treatment of patients undergoing suspected strokes. Commentary, published in the July 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, notes that reimbursement obstacles and the necessity of establishing "stroke systems of care" for effective assessment and treatment remain.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) has released a statement supporting healthcare reform, but noted that it was "deeply disappointed and concerned to see the Obama Administration propose cuts of more than $220 billion to hospitals, especially during these tough economic times."
Physicians who treat patients with multiple, co-existing, chronic health problems will fare well under pay-for-performance (P4P) initiatives, according to a report in the June 2 issue of Circulation.
Comparative effectiveness research should inform clinical decision making and enhance value for patients and the healthcare delivery system, according to an American Heart Association (AHA) policy statement published online May 11 in Circulation.
Telemedicine is as effective as a bedside evaluation for acute stroke, according to a guideline released last week by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. Additionally, imaging data, preferably from MRI, should be the determining factor in defining transient ischemic attack, which should be treated as urgently as a full-blown stroke.
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Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., has introduced the Quality FIRST Act (H.R. 1776), a bill to provide for a program of quality measurement and reporting and for the use of performance-based payment within Medicare for inpatient services.
The economy is taking its toll on the patients and communities that hospitals serve, resulting in nine in 10 hospitals having to make cutbacks to address these concerns, according to a survey from the American Hospital Association (AHA).
Although the consensus is that EHRs have the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of U.S. healthcare providers, less than 2 percent of acute-care hospitals have implemented a comprehensive EHR; further, less than 8 percent have a basic EHR in place, according to a study published online March 25 in the New England Journal of Medicine that is scheduled for publication in the April 16 print edition.
One of the answers to contain skyrocketing healthcare costs is to set up an IT infrastructure that allows consumers to proactively monitor their health. The key for such a system to take hold, however, is for the government to reimburse physicians for “remote house calls,” according to Craig Barrett, PhD, chairman of the board of Intel, who gave the keynote address Sunday night at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions in New Orleans.
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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).
During the Health IT Standards Committee meeting on Feb. 24 in Washington, D.C., the Clinical Operations Workgroup sought to gather comments on proposed recommendations on implementation specifications for content exchange, vocabulary and code set standards for the Interim Final Rule of meaningful use.
The state of Maine currently has the largest operating statewide exchange in the country in relation to population. Although Devore Culver, Executive Director of Maine’s HealthInfoNet, expects that distinction to change in the months ahead, the state’s HIE is entering the final months of its demonstration phase, and is slated to move in to its full statewide implementation in the second half of 2010. Culver, who is former CIO of Eastern Maine Health Care, recently spoke with CMIO about the progress HealthInfoNet has made.
In 2006, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), a branch of the FDA, began examining the number of medical device reports they received. Over the past two years, the number of submitted reports has increased, sparking a demand for the CDRH to make a move to electronic reporting.
A new hospital breaking ground usually isn’t breaking news. But the vision of patient care at one new facility, tentatively named Palomar Medical Center West (PMC West), is currently illegal under California state law.
