During the current congressional recess, President Barack Obama appointed Donald Berwick, MD, current president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, to fill the role of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator.
The implementation of EHR systems may not be enough to significantly improve health quality and reduce costs, according to a study in the April issue of Health Affairs. Researchers from the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston reported finding that currently implemented systems have little effect on measures such as patient mortality, surgical complications, length of stay and costs.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has appointed five new regional directors of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
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.
Current efforts to collect and publicly report data on discharge planning are unlikely to yield large reductions in unnecessary readmissions, according to study authors in the Dec. 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Finding ways to help regional health information organizations (RHIOs) become operational and self-sustaining will bolster the current approach to nationwide health IT, according to an article in the December edition of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
The very low levels of adoption of EHRs in U.S. hospitals suggest that policymakers face substantial obstacles to the achievement of healthcare performance goals that depend on health IT, according to a survey in the April 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
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.
Against the backdrop of a severe global economic downturn, President Obama issued a clarion call on Tuesday for healthcare IT to take center stage in addressing the ever-growing costs of healthcare delivery.
Relatively few U.S. hospitals—between 2 and 12 percent—use EHRs, according to a hospital IT adoption survey, conducted in conjunction with the American Hospital Association (AHA).
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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.