May 10, 2012
news
According to a research report from Cambridge, Mass.-based Chilmark Research rapid growth and evolution will continue to define the nascent health information exchange (HIE) market, even though federal funds earmarked for them have begun to run dry this year. The report, 2012 HIE Market Report: Analysis and Trends, says the market is making a significant shift to serving healthcare organizations (HCOs) of all sizes – an enterprise market.
May 4, 2012 David Raths
article
On May 17, a group of 80 stakeholder organizations will come together in Washington, D.C., for a two-day meeting to discuss plans for a nationwide learning health system. “This meeting could be for healthcare what the Dumbarton Oaks meeting was for the United Nations,” said Charles Friedman, Ph.D., director of the Health Informatics Program in the University of Michigan Schools of Information and Public Health & former chief scientific officer for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
April 3, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
On Monday, April 2, the National eHealth Collaborative released its “Health Information Exchange Roadmap: The Landscape and a Path Forward,” a four-phase blueprint toward sustainability to help accelerate health information exchange (HIE) initiatives. On the report’s release, NeHC sponsored a webinar briefing featuring NeHC CEO Kate Berry, representatives from Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and HIE pioneers.
March 26, 2012
news
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has recently released formal protocol procedures for evaluating the usability of EHR systems. The goal, the agency says, is to encourage a user-centered approach to the development of EHR systems. NIST says the usability protocol will attempt to provide methods to measure and address critical errors in user performance before those systems are deployed in a medical setting.
March 23, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
During an eHealth Initiative webinar, “The Use of Telemedicine within an HIE for Chronic Disease Management,” on Feb. 29, much was said about what was holding telemedicine back and what could push it forward. One sign of encouragement that was voiced was that grant-funded telehealth networks could help build the backbone of health information exchange throughout the country.
March 20, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
blog
After attending a presentation at the HIMSS12 eCollaboration Forum, “Platform Innovation in an ‘Open’ Environment,” I got really excited for the upcoming SMART Challenge. For those who are unfamiliar with the SMART Health App Challenge, it was started by a research team at Children’s Hospital of Boston and Harvard Medical School that launched a prize to encourage innovative app developers to build new products and services that benefit patients and providers. The $5,000 prize was funded from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
March 5, 2012 David Raths
news
A recent survey of 100 executives charged with protecting health information reveals that many respondents see a lack of senior executive support and low funding as key barriers to a stronger privacy and security framework. On March 5, the American National Standards Institute released a study called ‘the Financial Impact of Breached Protected Health Information.” (http://webstore.ansi.org/phi/)
February 8, 2012
news
HealthLevel Seven International, the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based organization responsible for the standards for interoperability of health information technology and America’s Blood Centers, the Washington D.C.-based association of independent community blood centers, announced that HL7 has published an implementation guide to extend the HL7 standard used by many hospitals into the blood center environment.
January 18, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
Last week, the National Quality Forum’s National Priorities Partnership came together to talk about creating and sustaining successful multidisciplinary teams within healthcare organizations to further patient safety. One organization, The Children’s Hospital at Providence (Anchorage, Alaska), shared its story about how it strove toward eliminating central line infections in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit).
January 12, 2012
news
The Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST), a Frisco, Texas-based collection of health information technology stakeholders aimed at establishing standards for security, has released version 4.0 of the HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF) and it updated to the CSF Assurance Program.
January 10, 2012 David Raths
article
The Jan. 10 meeting of the federal Health IT Policy Committee presented a preliminary framework for the 2012 activities of the federal advisory committees to the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT.
November 7, 2011 David Raths
article
A consortium of leading health IT providers and research organizations is making impressive strides at creating and sharing clinical decision support (CDS) tools and services across organizational boundaries. Yet the success of the effort is dependent on overcoming several legal hurdles, including concerns about intellectual property, liability and data security.
