October 26, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
According to a report produced by a Loma Linda University Medical Center researcher, and posted on the Annals of Emergency Medicine website, a number of intubated emergency patients within a federal database were listed as both dead and alive. The report calls into the data quality of the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), which is produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
September 26, 2012 Mark Hagland
blog
I was fascinated to read the September 17 joint announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that those two federal departments had successfully demonstrated the successful use of metadata tagging in the exchange of patient health data.
July 31, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
blog
Query Health is is in the process of developing standards for distributed population queries. How will project leaders be facing the complexities involved with testing the dual languages, the Health Quality Measure Format (HQMF) standard and i2b2, in the five Query Health pilots this summer?
June 22, 2012
news
The American Medical Association has announced its approval of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) pilot programs aimed at making existing prescription drug use data available to providers and pharmacists when treating patients in ambulatory and emergency departments.
June 21, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
In efforts to "turbocharge" the understanding of population health, performance, and quality, the Office of the National Coordinator founded the Query Health project to develop standards for distributed population queries. In this podcast, Rich Elmore, former coordinator, Query Health, and vice president of strategic initiatives, Allscripts, shares the background of this initiative and how Farzad Mostashari, national coordinator, ONC, started the underpinnings of Query Health when he was the director of the Primary Care Information Project at the New York City Department of Public Health.
June 14, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
Not only must organizations create sophisticated business intelligence tools to help identify high-risk patients, providers will have to engage patients and provide better care coordination to reduce readmissions, said IT industry leaders. “If we’re going to crack this whole issue of readmissions, plus so many other deficiencies, we need better processes, better outcomes, and a sustainable process, which is what cost [reduction] is really all about, then we’re going to have to solve these problems. It’s not just decreasing readmissions,” said James L. “Larry” Holly, M.D., CEO, Southeast Texas Medical Associates.
June 5, 2012
news
The third annual “Datapalooza,” an event co-hosted by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), along with the Institute of Medicine (IoM) and other members of the Health Data Consortium, saw the launch of multiple healthcare data initiatives. This includes an initiative from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which announced it will alter its approach to data and analytics through the creation of a new Office of Information Products and Data Analysis.
May 22, 2012 Mark Hagland
article
Leaders at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement held a media briefing earlier this month to unveil a new book and to present to the healthcare press the work that numerous patient care organizations are involved in, to move healthcare towards a future of improved care, health, and costs.
April 11, 2012 Mark Hagland
blog
Working towards creating the data analytics structures and processes of the future is going to be an ongoing challenge, and not necessarily just for the obvious reasons. Edward Hospital’s Bobbie Byrne, M.D. has one word for you on the subject: “process.”
April 3, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
In upstate New York, where an aging population of primary care providers is leaving the workforce faster than new PCPs can be recruited, community leaders have founded the Adirondack Region Medical Home Pilot Program to increase emphasis on primary, preventive, and chronic care, as well as improving patient communication. Coming together as a patient-centered medical home (PCMH) however has not been without its challenges, which include interfacing clinical information systems and aligning incentives between payers and providers.
March 8, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
Those in the industry say that health information exchange (HIE) has reached a critical nexus in maturation, whereby the basic, or as some say “directed,” exchange is in the process of being commoditized, making way for the next phase of exchange: true innovation.
February 27, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
Much of the industry is still hesitant to dip its toes in the murky waters of accountable care, according to industry observers and recent studies. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) anticipates anywhere from 50 to 270 accountable care organizations (ACOs) to sign up for the Shared Savings Program in the next three years, says Richard Gilfillan, M.D., director, CMS Innovation Center. Undoubtedly, all eyes will be on the Pioneer ACO organizations to see if they can pave the way to develop workable business and IT infrastructure models. Many admit a big part of building ACOs will be extending the patient-physician interaction beyond the office visit using telemedicine tools, as well as using health information exchange (HIE) to aggregate data from multiple sources. Population health analytic solutions will be a key foundational element for these accountable care collaborations, but these care coordination tools can only be implemented after incentives are aligned between payers and providers.
