|
Written by Mary Stevens
The final rule for Stage 1 meaningful use has been published in the Federal Register, marking “the end of just one part of the first cycle that is the first stage of meaningful use,” said Karen Trudel, deputy director of the Office of E-Health Standards & Services at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, speaking at the July 27 meeting of the Health IT Standards Committee. “We’re moving away from a totally completely a policy development process to one that is a mixture of policy and operations,” she said.
Physician practice adoption of e-prescribing has not guaranteed that individual physicians will routinely use the technology, according to a study from the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC).
ClearPractice has been authorized by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, allowing eligible customers to qualify for a 2 percent reimbursement when they use the company’s e-prescribing tool and a 2 percent reimbursement for Physician Quality Reporting Initiative reporting through the patient registry within ClearPractice’s EMR.
The Ohio Pharmacy Board has approved GE Healthcare’s ePrescribing technology for use by the state's physicians.
Recognizing contributions to advance health IT in the U.S., the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has honored six individuals at the state and federal levels for fostering the use of health IT in government and private industry.
Written by Mary Stevens
Our 2010 CMIO Top Trends Survey says: Federal initiatives are driving health IT spending and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. HITECH might succeed—or not. Economic uncertainty has many facilities struggling—but a majority of organizations are increasing their budgets, adopting new technologies, and hiring and training staff.
Written by Kaitlyn Dmyterko
IT-enabled medication management strategies tap computerized provider order entry (CPOE), bar-coded electronic medication administration records and clinical decision support modules in electronic health records to reduce medication errors. They have their work cut out for them: The Institute of Medicine estimates that 1.5 million preventable medication errors occur in the U.S. every year, costing some $8 billion.
Written by Jeff Byers
By assigning one password for all applications, single sign on (SSO) technology gives clinicians speedy access to the apps they need. Armed with SSO, users needn’t write down (then lose) passwords. So what’s the catch? These techniques won’t streamline access if all necessary apps aren’t included under the SSO umbrella, and health IT leaders must make sure their organizations’ password protection and security policies can accommodate an SSO framework.
At the Opensource.com Open Your World Forum on May 27, John D. Halamka, MD, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and CIO of Harvard Medical School, described where open source and open standards fit into the ARRA expectations for healthcare IT. The short answer is, everywhere.
CSC has unveiled a European-wide e-prescription tool to provide services to replace the manual prescription processes with a computerized system.
|
A consortium of pharmacy groups sent letters to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) on June 1 requesting clarification on the interim final rule (IFR) on electronic prescriptions for controlled substances.
Written by Kaitlyn Dmyterko
DENVER—To meet looming meaningful use deadlines, practices must shop for the right EMR and not let the outlying fears of technology and possible challenges outweigh the benefits, said David L. Scher, MD, from PinnacleHealth System and Associated Cardiologists in Harrisburg, Pa., during a presentation at the 31st annual Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) scientific session May 14.
Healthcare reform legislation includes promoting EHRs to improve the efficiency and quality of medical care. But little attention has been paid to understanding whether patients and parents have an interest in, or have access to, electronic methods for interacting with their children’s physicians, the University of Michigan Health System reported.
Health Access Solutions and AxSys Technology have formed a strategic alliance to develop a health IT platform that supports clinical care collaboration.
BOSTON--The news media are not paying enough attention to the vital health IT components of healthcare reform, said Paul Tang, MD, vice president and CMIO of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Calif.
Leadership and vision are crucial for an e-prescribing initiative because effective leadership is necessary to build commitment across a team, according to Diane R. Jones, JD, vice president of policy and programs at e-Health Initiative during an informational webinar on the current and future states of e-prescribing.
Providers and policy makers should consider alternative software and informatics models before investing in currently available EMR systems, according to Rushika Fernandopulle, principal with Renaissance Health in Cambridge, Mass., and Neil Patel, associate medical director of the AtlantiCare Special Care Center in Atlantic City, N.J., in an opinion article in the April edition of Health Affairs.
|
RSS 
“We’re beginning a revolution the way information is collected, managed, used and purposed for patients in the U.S. healthcare system,” said David Blumenthal, MD, chair of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, in opening remarks at an audioconference training session on meaningful use and EHR certification last week.
In Part 1 of our closer look at the final rules for meaningful use and EHR certification standards, CMIO’s Jeff Byers spoke with David Blumenthal, MD, chair of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. In Part 2, CMIOs weigh in with mixed reviews.
The framework for meaningful use is “something that had to be done and has been started intelligently,” John P. Glaser, PhD, vice president and CIO of Partners HealthCare System told CMIO. However, the challenges of becoming meaningful users and optimizing health information exchange will require unprecedented levels of communication within organizations and among healthcare systems, he said.
The contractual obligations in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on modifications to the HIPAA privacy, security and enforcement rules under the HITECH Act for business associates and downstream entities are game changers, according to Amy S. Leopard, JD, from Walter and Haverfield, during a webinar sponsored by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Standardizing performance measures, with the help of health IT, will make it possible to collect the right data at the right time to support performance measurement, clinical decision support, clinical research and quality improvement, said Janet M. Corrigan, PhD, president and CEO of the National Quality Forum (NQF) during a webinar hosted by the forum on June 17.