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Across the Political Spectrum a Consensus on the Need for Progress

Gabriel Perna
I find it fascinating how typically members of the two parties in congress find themselves poles apart on most policy issues – especially in a politically charged election year – and yet they’ve found they common ground on health IT. Recently, the Washington D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) released a report stating there are numerous obstacles in the way of an effective deployment of health IT. The report came with multiple recommendations on how the government can do better.

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Across the Political Spectrum a Consensus on the Need for Progress

February 3, 2012     Gabriel Perna
blog
I find it fascinating how typically members of the two parties in congress find themselves poles apart on most policy issues – especially in a politically charged election year – and yet they’ve found they common ground on health IT. Recently, the Washington D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) released a report stating there are numerous obstacles in the way of an effective deployment of health IT. The report came with multiple recommendations on how the government can do better.

MGMA to Sebelius: Extend HIPAA 5010 Enforcement

February 2, 2012    
news
The Englewood, Colo.-based Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) has sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius regarding their concerns about the disruptions to payments as part of the federally mandated transition to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Version 5010 electronic transaction standard.

HIMSS Report Offers ICD-10 Conversation Risks

February 2, 2012    
news
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has released a new report to help providers address areas of risk involved in planning and implementing ICD-10. The new HIMSS G7 report, ICD-10 Transformation: Five Critical Risk Mitigation Strategies, is the second G7 advisory report focused on ICD-10, and comes as providers must deal with the approaching Oct. 1, 2013 conversion deadline.

In Plain English, Please? Health Literacy’s Rising Prominence

February 1, 2012     Gabriel Perna
article
More often than not, if you aren’t in the medical field, going to the doctor can be like seeing a foreign language film without the English subtitles. Plain and simple, not everyone knows medical speak. For this reason, health literacy has become an emerging issue in the healthcare industry.

ICD-10 Assessments: Are They Worth It?

February 1, 2012     Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
All CIOs and health information management (HIM) directors are hearing the clarion call for the ICD-10 transition that must occur on Oct. 1, 2013 and are starting to lay the groundwork now. Because the transfer to ICD-10 codes touches almost all departments of a healthcare organization, many are finding it difficult to assign ownership of this tremendous task. One such organization, the 450-bed East Jefferson General Hospital in New Orleans, sought to fix this problem with outside help from a consulting firm, Aspen Advisors (Pittsburgh, Pa.). With help, the organization was able to assess the impact of this transition and to work out an implementation strategy, roadmap for compliance, and funding requirements.

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NQF Promotes Healthcare Use Measures

January 31, 2012    
news
The Washington D.C-based National Quality Forum (NQF) is endorsing four use measures on healthcare resource use and costs. The measures, which focus on diabetes and cardiovascular care costs as well as total primary-care costs, can provide vital data on how resources are used in these areas of care says NQF. The data, the organization claims, will help create a more efficient, less wasteful healthcare system.

AHIMA Indirectly Responds to AMA’s Letter

January 31, 2012    
news
Not long after a letter from the American Medical Association to the Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner (R-OH) came public, the Chicago-based American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) sent out a release urging the healthcare community to continue preparing for the transition to the ICD-10 classification system, warning that the U.S. Congress may not act on requests to stop ICD-10 implementation and let stakeholders design and adopt a new classification system to replace ICD-9-CM.

PODCAST: Jumpstart your ICD-10 Transition

January 31, 2012     Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
CIOs and HIM directors are laying the groundwork for the ICD-10 transition that will occur on Oct. 1, 2013. These two departments will be joining other organizational leadership to perform critical risk assessments of what systems will be affected and extensive ICD-10 training programs for clinicians and coders, all the while overcoming common challenges including budget, bandwidth, and human resources. As many have asserted, the technical issues of the ICD-10 transition are not that great; it's the training of clinicians and coders that will be the significant obstacle.

A Crucial QUEST

January 31, 2012     Mark Hagland
blog
The results coming out of three years of hospitals' participation in the Premier Health Alliance's QUEST program are in, and they are stunning. When it comes to performance improvement, both on the patient safety/care quality side, and on the cost-reduction side, the QUEST results show that there is no excuse for lack of performance improvement.

D.C. Report: Healthcare Leaders Meet at Care Innovations Summit, AMA Wants to Stop ICD-10

January 31, 2012     Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
article
Healthcare Stakeholders Met at Care Innovations Summit At a gathering of healthcare stakeholders in Washington this week, over a dozen healthcare "challenges" were announced by payers, vendors, non-profits and the public sector.

AMA to Boehner: Kill ICD-10

January 30, 2012    
news
The Chicago-based American Medical Association (AMA) recently sent a letter to Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner (R-Ohio) asking him to put a stop to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA) required implementation of ICD-10. In the letter to Boehner, the AMA says the ICD-10 “create significant burdens on the practice of medicine with no direct benefit to individual patient care” and will be costly.

U.S. CTO, Health IT Proponent, Aneesh Chopra Resigns

January 30, 2012    
news
Aneesh Chopra, the first ever U.S. chief technology officer (CTO), has stepped down from his post, amidst speculation he will run for lieutenant governor in Virginia. Chopra was a strong advocate for use of technology in healthcare and helped the government install a $19 billion federal stimulus package that incentivized the use of electronic health records (EHRs).
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