The world is better off and getting better, compared to popular opinion and what’s broadcast on the news, says Hans Rosling and his co-authors, using simple, comprehensive measures, in Factfulness. Sometimes taking a step back and looking at the big picture (and the data) is important.
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By Catherine Strawley & Chelsea Richwine – Screening for patients’ health-related social needs can help providers more effectively coordinate patient care and connect patients to the resources they need. Social needs are social conditions—such as food insecurity, housing instability, and lack of reliable transportation—
From The Health IT Buzz blog – If left unaddressed, the social needs experienced by an individual may lead to poor health outcomes and more time spent in hospitals and interacting with the health care system. Hospitals, therefore, are uniquely situated to help address social needs and mitigate social risk factors by screening for…
By Chelsea Richwine – In 2020, the HHS released a strategy to reduce regulatory and administrative burden relating to the use of health IT, including EHR systems. Key burden reduction goals addressed in the report include reducing the amount of time and effort required to…
By Chelsea Richwine – Patients have a right of access to their health information under the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Recent policy efforts aim to simplify and increase patient access to electronic health information, as easy access to health information enables patients to monitor…
By Chelsea Richwine & Vaishali Patel – The pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed gaps in the nation’s public health infrastructure that pose challenges to effective communication between health care providers and public health agencies.
By Mera Choi, Stephanie Garcia, & Chelsea Richwine – The Cures Act Final Rule includes regulatory requirements to implement secure, standards-based application programming interfaces. To support the acceleration of API adoption in health care, ONC has published a series of perspective reports that focus on key stakeholders and their views on APIs.
By Chelsea Richwine & Christian Johnson – New ONC data show that, as of 2021, nearly all non-federal acute care hospitals were enabled to electronically prescribe controlled substances. According to the American Hospital Association IT Supplement Survey, the proportion of non-federal acute care hospitals enabled for EPCS increased from 67% in 2018 to 96% in 2021.