September 9, 2013 Gabriel Perna
blog
Compliance for the HIPAA Omnibus Rule is fast approaching and the provisions surrounding the relationship between covered entities and business associates have been a hot topic and for many health IT leaders, a bit of a mystery. In a recent talk I had with Mac McMillan, I tried to understand why this was the case.
September 6, 2013 Gabriel Perna
news
A new study from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) has looked at the relationship between health information laws and health system improvements for children and adolescents under Medicaid's Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) benefit.
September 5, 2013 John DeGaspari
article
Next month marks one year since the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) health system launched its enterprise analytics initiative, a five-year plan that it says will foster personalized medicine. Part of that plan is to build an enterprise data warehouse for the 20-plus hospital system that will bring together various types of data that so far have been difficult to integrate and analyze. That ambitious plan is in addition to coping with rapid organic growth of electronic of all kinds of data. How is UPMC making sure that it has the IT infrastructure to meet those data storage needs?
September 4, 2013 Gabriel Perna
article
Sept. 23, the compliance deadline for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Omnibus Rule, is getting closer and closer. In this Healthcare Informatics podcast, our health IT privacy guru, Mac McMillan, goes into detail about what providers should know when it comes to complying with the regulatory measure.
September 3, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
news
The Mayo Clinic and Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Phoenix are teaming up to test the feasibility of using a telemedicine robot to assess athletes with suspected concussions during football games as part of a research study.
August 30, 2013 Linda Minghella
article
Having an effective response plan is critical for mitigating the impact of downtime, and your organization has likely put a tremendous amount of thought and care into its contingency plan. But your plan may have an Achilles’ heel that your organization is completely unaware of—a weakness that could leave your organization as poorly prepared as if you had no contingency plan at all. Where are the holes in your plan? Find them by asking a simple question: What is the longest hypothetical outage you have planned for?
August 29, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
blog
When thinking about the word ‘hospital,’ violence inside the building might not be at the forefront of your mind. But ER violence is becoming a significant issue in health systems around the country. Thankfully, with the help of technology, prevention of violence in hospitals is possible.
August 29, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
news
Approximately 600 patients at UT Physicians, the medical group practice of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School, have been notified that some of their health information has been compromised after an unencrypted laptop was discovered missing on Aug. 2 from a locked closet in a UT Physicians orthopedic clinic.
August 27, 2013 John DeGaspari
article
In June of this year, the Government Employee Health Association (GEHA), Independence, Mo., the nation’s second-largest health plan for civilian federal employees and retirees, enrolled 1,500 members in a virtual weight loss management program that it says was successful with nearly 80 percent of participants in 2012. That’s a significant milestone, because it demonstrates that a Web-based technology can be an effective and relatively low-cost way for individuals to lower their health risks.
August 27, 2013 Joseph L. Marion
article
As imaging data throughout the enterprise grows, so does the need for a vendor neutral archive (VNA) for more cost-effective storage. Selecting and implementing a VNA can be daunting. First requirements must be defined, and then vendor claims need to be assessed to achieve a good match. Although this can be challenging, finding ways to simplify and refine the process can be rewarding. A workable framework could help better define requirements and assess alternatives.
August 27, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
news
Health eVillages, a Marlborough, Mass.-based not-for-profit which provides mobile health technology to physicians in underserved areas, announced that it has raised $58,000 in August for its global mHealth program.
August 26, 2013 Gabriel Perna
news
Advocate Medical Group (AMG), part of the not-for-profit Downers Grove, Ill.-based integrated healthcare network, Advocate Health Care, had one of its administrative offices robbed in July, and computers with protected health information (PHI) were taken.
