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The Georgia Health IT Regional Extension Center has selected the Coalition of Athens Area Physicians to become a local extension center to assist physicians and nurse practitioners in the adoption of EHRs in northeastern Georgia.
Much of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 implementation activity will occur at the state level, as will provisions in healthcare reform that build on health IT and health information exchange, according to a report from eHealth Initiative.
Iowa’s Health IT Regional Extension Center (REC) has selected eClinicalWorks unified EMR and practice management system as a preferred ambulatory vendor for its primary care providers state-wide.
Virginia HIT, the federally designated Health IT regional extension center (REC) for Virginia, in partnership with the Center for Innovative Technology, has selected athenahealth as an EHR program partner to reach nearly 2,300 primary care physicians across the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Written by Justine Cadet
The Privacy and Security Tiger Team has a finite amount of time to determine how to protect personal health information, particularly in the growing trend of message handling in directed exchanges where intermediaries may be required, and therefore, an increased exposure to risk, explained Deven McGraw, Chair of Privacy & Security Tiger Team, during the HIT Standards Committee meeting on June 30.
HealthBridge, a nonprofit health information organization, has launched the Tri-State Regional Extension Center (REC) to help physicians and other medical professionals switch from paper records to EHRs.
The question healthcare providers are facing today is "whether we are pushing too hard, too fast to make this important change," stated David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health IT, on his blog this week. “I respectfully submit, no,” stated Blumenthal. “In turn, I ask, ‘Can we make these changes expeditiously enough?’”
Written by Jeff Byers
The success of health information exchange (HIE) implementation will depend on local markets and HIE's perceived value to that locality, according to a webinar hosted by Open Health IT Exchange.
Written by Jeff Byers
The Health IT Resource Center (HITRC) structure to convene and connect regional extension centers (RECs) and the health IT industry also could set the stage for the REC itself to provide a common forum for providers in the service area, according to Melissa Rutala, MPH, director of the Arizona Health-e Connection Regional Extension Center, during a webinar hosted by healthcare nonprofit eHealth Initiative on RECs.
U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have selected 15 pilot communities for wide-scale use of health IT through the Beacon Community program, with awards totaling $220 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
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Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients, the state-designated entity for Maryland’s health information exchange (HIE), has selected Axolotl's technology as the infrastructure for the state's HIE.
Written by Jeff Byers
BOSTON–Only through its proper use can technology boost healthcare improvement, said David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health IT, during his keynote address Thursday at the Health IT: Creating Jobs, Reducing Costs and Improving Quality national conference, hosted by Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick.
BOSTON–There are mountains of problems to overcome when it comes to automating systems and getting patient health records off of paper. And the HITECH Act has added urgency to the tasks at hand, said John Delaney, RN, BSN, director of IT outreach at University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas. “It’s a huge job and we’ve got big problems,” said Delaney during a session at the ANIA/CARING conference last week.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded $267 million in funding for 28 regional HIT assistance centers that will complete a nationwide network of 60 centers.
These are exciting times for the Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI), a public-private partnership spurring health IT innovation in the state. The institute received a $6M grant under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 to establish a statewide Regional Extension Center.
Written by Editorial Staff
Now that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has designated approximately $500 million for development and further integration of health information exchanges (HIE), the field—which previously struggled for funding and support—is energized and expanding rapidly.
Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., will receive $12 million to help healthcare providers in Indiana adopt and use health IT with the establishment of the Indiana Healthcare IT Extension Center (I-HITEC).
Acumen Solutions has been selected to provide a cloud computing customer relationship management and project management application to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).
The nonprofit organization Ohio Health Information Partnership (OHIP) has been awarded $43.3 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 to help make EHRs more widely available in Ohio.
The Rhode Island Quality Institute will receive $11.28 million from two American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grants for health IT.
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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.