By Steve Spearman – Once upon a time, all a healthcare organization needed to do to ensure that its vendors and subcontractors would keep data secure was to require it in their contractual agreement. However OCR’s recent efforts to strengthen what it believes could be the weakest link in HIPAA compliance and PHI security: vendors and subcontractors.
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A letter from organizations to HHS on January 14, 2016. On behalf of the organizations, we are writing to express our concerns with the Meaningful Use (MU) program and the current state of electronic health records (EHRs).
By Robert Rowley, MD – Medicine is often described as both an art and a science. One might think that the “science of medicine” should be fairly straightforward, driven by findings from clinical studies and evidence-based protocols derived from such findings.
Findings from the 2016 HIMSS Health Information Technology (IT) Value survey found that 88 percent of organizations with advanced EHR environments identified at least one positive outcome from their use of an EHR, with 83 percent reporting benefits in Clinical Staff Quality Performance.
By Matt Fisher – Every industry, whether it be healthcare, financial, or anything else, is under constant attack or threat to digital information. This is not news, especially in light of the numerous stories about breaches from Target to Hyatt Hotels to voter databases to health insurers and more.
By Harpreet S. Sood MD, David Bates MD & Aziz Sheikh – The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 invested $30 billion to stimulate the adoption and “meaningful use” of electronic health records and related infrastructure—with the belief that such heath information technology (HIT) can help achieve the “triple aim”: better care experiences, better population health, and reduced per-capita costs.
By Andy Slavitt – From at the J.P. Morgan Annual Health Care Conference, Jan. 11, 2016. Slavitt speaking about the major policy areas that will affect the health care sector in 2016. I am particularly glad to be here with Jim from AMA, because between us we are working on an incredible amount of change across the health care sector.
Like all great rumors it started with a grain of truth. CMS acting administrator Andy Slavitt, made a statement (“… we’re now in the process of ending meaningful use”…) that took on a life of its own and soon the mole hill became a mountain. In the blink of an eye the word spread that the meaningful use program had died.
By William Hersh – As regular readers of this blog know, I traditionally end each year with a posting reflecting back on the past year. While this year has been another great success for myself and our informatics program at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), it has been somewhat of a transitional year for the informatics field. Many of the new and exciting initiatives in the informatics field from recent years are no longer novel, with some now settling into “midlife” and others being called out for retirement.