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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.
SRS and Ingenix have formed a partnership to expand clinical, financial and administrative operations options for SRS’ customers.
athenahealth, a developer of web-based practice management, EHR and patient communication services to medical groups, has posted financial and operational gains for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010, which ended June 30.
Allscripts-Misys has announced robust financial results for the fiscal 2010 fourth quarter and fiscal year, which ended May 31.
EHR implementations are the top priority among healthcare IT professionals, with 85 percent indicating that they are either in the midst of an EHR project or plan to start one within the next 18 months, based on a survey from Embarcadero Technologies.
Mirth powered the first U.S. publicly staged multiple-organization demonstration of National Health Information Network (NHIN) direct standards and technologies at the recent Redwood MedNet HIE Conference in Santa Rosa, Calif.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has submitted the first of two reports on the National Quality Foundation's (NQF) progress in meeting the five Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 mandated duties related to quality measures, the costs and fixed fees NQF has reported, and what NQF and the Department of Health and Human Services do to help ensure NQF's reported costs are proper.
Saint Luke’s Health System, a 1,200-bed organization representing 11 hospitals across Missouri and Kansas, has signed on with CapSite Consulting's online subscription-based healthcare technology pricing and packaging service.
Written by Mary Stevens
OJAI, Calif.–The goal was to make meaningful use ambitious, but achievable, said Farzad Mostashari, senior advisor for policy and programming at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), who clarified several points and answered many questions about meaningful use at the AMDIS Physician-Computer Connection Symposium Thursday.
PACSGear, a distributor of imaging connectivity for EHRs, has signed the Fundação Instituto de Pesquisa e Estudo de Diagnóstico por Imagem in São Paulo, Brazil, as its first site in Latin America.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) issued the final rules on Meaningful Use and Standards and Certification, which providers must follow in order to benefit from the approximate $27.3 billion in financial incentives over 10 years, authorized under the HITECH Act’s EHR incentive program.
Central Penn Management Group (CPMG), a management services organization in Central Pennsylvania, has selected the Allscripts EHR for Physicians Alliance Limited, a 120-provider, independent multispecialty group that CPMG manages.
athenahealth has named Dev Ittycheria to its board of directors, increasing the number of directors to eight, according to the Watertown, Mass.-based developer of web-based practice management, EHR and patient communication services to medical groups.
A survey of members of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) shows that practice managers are concerned with three main challenges: dealing with rising operating costs; managing finances with the uncertainty of Medicare reimbursement rates; and selecting and implementing a new EHR system.
The National Quality Forum (NQF) will be holding a public comment period on the Quality Data Set, an information model that defines concepts used in quality measures and clinical care to automate EHR use, through July 1.
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.
Five Michigan hospital systems—Lakeland Health System, Metro Health, Northern Michigan Regional Health System, Spectrum Health and Trinity Health—have established Michigan Health Connect, a statewide health information exchange (HIE).
Written by Gina Narcisi
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.
Medical costs are expected to increase by 9 percent in 2011, a decrease of 0.5 percent from the 2010 growth rate, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Health Research Institute.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced $83.9 million in grants to help Health Center Controlled Networks adopt EHRs and other health IT systems.
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“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.