Clinical

Telestroke Networks that enable the remote and rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke can improve the bottom line of patients and hospitals, according to a study.

The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) recently announced a partnership with three minority legislative caucuses to educate lawmakers and introduce model legislation for telehealth in statehouses around the country. ATA’s partnership, with the National Organization of Black Elected Legislative Women (NOBEL), the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) and the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (NHCSL), is aiming maximize state-government support of telemedicine.

The Office for the National Coordinator of Health IT (ONC) has updated its Health IT Dashboard to include from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs public use files. The Meaningful Use dashboard is there to act as an interactive supplement to CMS’ public use data and reports using the ONC’s Health IT Dashboard framework as the starting point, the government announced this week.

According to a report from researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which is affiliated with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the number of office-based physicians using electronic health records (EHRs) has risen steadily since the 2009 enactment of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH). The report, “Use and Characteristics of Electronic Health Record Systems Among Office-based Physician Practices: United States, 2001-2012,” says that 72 percent of office-based physicians used any electronic medical record (EMR) or EHR systems, up from 48 percent in 2009.

On Dec. 4, the team of researchers at IDC Health Insights unveiled their predictions about hot trends for 2013, many of which have implications for CIOs and CMIOs at hospitals and health systems.