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Washington Debrief: Sebelius Responds to GOP Senators on HITECH Criticism

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Take Our Poll: What Do You Think of the Stage 3 Preliminary Rule Release Delay?

Washington Debrief: Meaningful Use Stage 3 Response, ONC Town Hall Held

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Facebook Initiative Boosts Organ Donor Registration Significantly

June 18, 2013     Gabriel Perna
news
An initiative on Facebook single-handily led to a 21-fold increase of people who registered themselves as an organ donor in a single day, researchers at Johns Hopkins University recently discovered. The results of the study indicate that social media may be the perfect way to battle the static number of donors in the country.

Donald Berwick, M.D., Speaks Passionately About Healthcare Transformation

June 18, 2013     Rajiv Leventhal
article
Donald Berwick, M.D., formerly acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and a new official candidate for Massachusetts governor, spoke passionately to a large audience on June 18 at the Healthcare Financial Management Association's (HFMA) annual conference in Orlando, Fla. about transforming America’s healthcare system.

EMR Integration, Reimbursement Holding Back Telehealth, Report Finds

June 18, 2013     Gabriel Perna
news
According to a new report from the Orem, Utah-based KLAS Research, integration with electronic medical record (EMR) systems is one of the biggest barriers to telehealth adoption in a provider setting. Even as providers increasingly use and invest in telehealth solutions, no single electronic medical record (EMR) vendor has established itself in a leader in the space, the report found.

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Washington Debrief: House Leaders Target August for SGR Fix

June 18, 2013     Jeff Smith, Director of Public Policy at CHIME
article
Two influential committees with jurisdiction over Medicare’s Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula said they are targeting an August date for completing committee work on a replacement bill. The news comes amid some concern that the House Ways & Means and House Energy & Commerce Committees were no longer in sync on a path forward to replace the SGR.

BCBSA CFO Speaks to Conference Attendees About Transforming the Payer-Provider Relationship

June 18, 2013     Rajiv Leventhal
article
Robert Kolodgy, senior vice president, finance, and CFO for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), spoke in front of a large crowd on June 17 at the Healthcare Financial Management Association's (HFMA) annual conference in Orlando, Fla., highlighting promising models of payer-provider collaboration and describing how business models will need to evolve on both the payer and provider sides.

CareMore has Found a Winning Business Model in Population Health Management

June 18, 2013     Rajiv Leventhal
article
At the Healthcare Financial Management Association's (HFMA) annual conference in Orlando, Fla., a case study of CareMore showed that a commitment to patient-centered care and adoption of full risk resulted in dramatically improved health status for chronically ill patients, significantly reduced the cost of patient care, and dramatically improved the financial bottom line.

Advocacy Corner

Washington Debrief: House Leaders Target August for SGR Fix

June 18, 2013     Jeff Smith, Director of Public Policy at CHIME

Washington Debrief: Senate Bill Calls for More Medicare Data Transparency

June 11, 2013     Jeff Smith, Director of Public Policy at CHIME
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On the Leading Edge of Cancer Care and IT Development at Memorial Sloan-Kettering

June 17, 2013     Mark Hagland
article
David Artz, M.D., CMIO at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, has been very busy lately working with his colleagues to enable new waves of clinical—and IT—innovation. Indeed, he is helping to support exciting new realms of cancer research—the data from which is becoming bigger and bulkier by the day. The answer? A set of self-developed solutions that is creating a new bridge between research and patient care.

Donald M. Berwick, M.D. Announces Candidacy for Massachusetts Governor

June 17, 2013     Mark Hagland
news
On June 17, Donald M. Berwick, formerly acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced officially that he was entering the 2014 race for governor of the commonwealth of Massachusetts

New York City RHIOs to Merge

June 17, 2013     David Raths
news
Two regional health information organizations in New York City and Long Island have announced plans to merge, creating one of the largest RHIOs in the country.With the merger, Healthix Inc. and the Brooklyn Health Information Exchange (BHIX) would provide access to the health records of over 8 million people in New York City and Long Island, and be managed by a unified team supporting 50 hospitals, 25 nursing homes and many physician practices and other healthcare organizations.

Streamlined Backup

June 17, 2013     Richard R. Rogoski
article
In a bold move aimed at eliminating multiple backup systems and to simplify the retrieval of data in case of a disaster, Samaritan Medical Center, a 294-bed not-for-profit community medical center in Watertown, N.Y., has implemented a single, enterprise-wide backup platform provided by Woburn, Mass.-based BridgeHead Software.

HFMA Releases Proposed Guidelines for Patient Financial Interactions

June 17, 2013     Rajiv Leventhal
news
The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) has announced the release of a draft of new best practices that will bring more consistency, clarity, and transparency to patient financial interactions.
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Blogs

‘Red Flags’ and Elderly Drivers

June 14, 2013     John DeGaspari
It’s a fact of life that everyone’s reflexes slow down with age, and most of us lucky enough to live to advanced age and still have a driver’s license eventually will need to consider giving up the privilege of driving. After all, driving is intertwined with all kinds of effects of aging—not only slower reflexes but poor eyesight, inability to make quick decisions, or side effects of medications. According to a recent study, clinicians are often the first to bring up the topic with elderly drivers of handing over the car keys, and I think healthcare IT can play a role in helping drivers make the transition.

I’ll Take More Transparency with a Side of Claims Data, Please

June 13, 2013     Gabriel Perna
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With the issue of government transparency becoming the topic du jour on the heels of the recent NSA controversy, it’s fair to ask: have the CMS and HHS released enough claims data on hospital outpatient charges? Some, like athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush and U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., don’t seem to think so.

IDC: Most Healthcare Organizations Will Turn to ‘Analytics as a Service’

June 13, 2013     David Raths
Vendors in the analytics-as-a-service space include Apixio, Explorys and Humedica. “This is going to be the way healthcare will consume big data,” said IDC Health Insights' Cynthia Burghard. “It is just too complicated for the average healthcare organization to invest in.”

Primary Care Innovations Based on Homegrown IT Systems

June 12, 2013     David Raths
What if you could hire a team of software engineers to start from scratch in developing an IT system to fit the needs of your organization? Does that sound too good to be true? That is exactly what JenCare Neighborhood Medical Centers is doing.
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