November 30, 2012 Gabriel Perna
article
Like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) both agreed and disagreed with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in its sharp critiques of the Medicare EHR incentive program in a recent report.
November 29, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
A new report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has determined that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) faces obstacles in the Medicare EHR incentive program because it does not verify whether the self-reported information from providers is accurate and thus the integrity of the program is in question. The OIG charges CMS with not implementing “strong prepayment safeguards,” in the 38-page report, released this week.
November 27, 2012 Tonya Sickles, R.N., B.A.
article
Medical imaging procedures unravel healthcare mysteries and provide valuable information to patients and providers alike. However, spending on these tests has been increasing rapidly and steadily, attributed largely to their increasing volume and complexity. For Medicaid agencies dealing with particularly tight state budgets, careful scrutiny of medical necessity is becoming increasingly important. Overuse of these procedures can also pose serious health risks, from excessive exposure to radiation to actual injury in the case of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
November 20, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
article
A House subcommittee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing this week on Meaningful Use. The focus on Meaningful Use was to ask the question, "has the program truly been meaningful?" The response from all witness, which included ONC National Coordinator Dr. Farzad Mostashari and Intermountain VP & CIO Marc Probst, was a resounding "Yes."
November 20, 2012 David Raths
news
Despite the budgetary and work force challenges rural hospitals face, they are making steady progress on health information technology adoption. Between 2009 and 2011 the rural provider EHR adoption rate more than doubled, and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has set an ambitious goal of 1,000 rural hospitals becoming meaningful users of health IT by the end of 2014.
November 19, 2012 John DeGaspari
article
In a hospital system’s ongoing efforts to improve patient safety, a collaborative approach with other health systems sharing the same goal offers significant advantages compared to trying to go it alone. After all, sharing the experiences with other hospitals provides a benchmark that a hospital can use to measure its progress, and can lead to best practices that can be shared among other hospitals.
November 19, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
McKesson, an Atlanta-based provider of various health IT products, has announced that it is giving away $1 million worth of EHR software to physicians who provide charity care to underserved and needy patients. The initiative will have McKesson give its web-based EHR to 100 physicians for a free 26-month license, which the company says typically costs $399 per month.
November 19, 2012 David Raths
article
Fresh off his organization’s annual meeting in Chicago, Kevin Fickenscher, MD, president and CEO of the American Medical Informatics Association, stopped off last week at the Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMi) at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to talk about the industry’s response to disruptive technological change.
November 12, 2012 Michael Kamer
article
Saint Luke’s Health System, a 10-hospital network providing primary, acute, tertiary and chronic care throughout the Kansas City, Mo. area, implemented a single sign-on solution paired with thin clients that it says gives its physicians more face time with their patients.
November 12, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
article
While the power dynamics will appear similar in the 113th Congress as it did in the 112th Congress, the environment in which the new Congress operates looks entirely different. Sequestration and other fragments of the "fiscal cliff" must be dealt with over the next several weeks and it would seem probable that Republicans look to use parts of the ACA as bargaining chips to get the bigger deal done.
November 9, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
Stage 2 Final Rule is barely in the books, and already there is one committee from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) that is looking ahead to Stage 3. The Health Information Technology Policy Committee (HITPC), a federal advisory committee that aims to advise the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on federal HIT policy issues, recently released its recommendations for Stage 3 of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR meaningful use (MU) incentive program.
November 7, 2012 Joe Bormel
blog
Should physicians stay in clinical practice full-time, part-time, or not at all? The non-clinical hassles around caring for patients—administrative, technological and workload combined with compensation issues—are causing many physicians to re-examine their career paths.
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