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Delivering Quality Health IT Industry & Government News, Insights and Trends that are Physician Focused and Patient Driven®!
In this month’s newsletter, our topics include:
NIST To Review Data Encryption Processes Following NSA Allegations
The National Institute of Standards and Technology—bedeviled by persistent allegations that its internationally recognized data encryption standards have been compromised by the National Security Agency—announced Friday it will undergo internal and independent formal reviews of its standards development processes for data encryption.
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Patient Portal Security Considerations
As healthcare facilities launch their own patient portals, technology is only the first step. Administrators are learning that decisions need to be made on everything from patient login protocols to support for patient record revisions.
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Health IT Alliance Names Top 3 HIE Hurdles
As CommonWell Health Alliance, the new interoperability coalition of health IT companies, approaches the start of its first pilot project, company officials used AHIMA’s annual conference in Atlanta to underscore the biggest health information exchange hurdles currently facing vendors and providers.
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Interoperability Remains Biggest Hurdle For HIE’s
Interoperability among disparate systems continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing health information exchanges today, according to the findings of a new industry survey.
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eHealth Survey Finds Interoperability Is The Largest Challenge For HIE’s
Interoperability is still the largest challenge for most health information exchanges, the eHealth Initiative’s annual HIE survey has found.
“Despite the incorporation of new meaningful use policies, it is clear that interoperability issues are still stifling organizations’ ability to connect,” the Washington-based eHealth Initiative wrote. “The survey results reveal that interoperability remains a great hurdle with little relief in sight.”
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The BYOD Movement In Healthcare
“I recently had a security manager tell me the days he dreads the most are days after major holidays,” said Kenneth Kleinberg, managing director of The Advisory Board Company.
IT managers are very familiar with the sentiment. The days when staff members show up at work with their brand new smartphones and tablets is likely to be a day of high stress. IT professionals are supposed to encourage the adoption of new technology, not suppress it. But supporting personal devices in a carefully controlled environment is not a trivial task.
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Audit Trail Policy – An Effective Tool To Prevent Unauthorized PHI Access
When in the realm of healthcare privacy and security, electronic health records may facilitate easier data exchange and data viewing, but the systems’ audit trails make catching unauthorized viewers all the more simple, too.
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e-Health Tools Likely To Decrease Outpatient Visits To The Doctor
In the not-too-distant future, it is quite likely that most interactions between patients and the health care system will happen online, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who partnered with The Commonwealth Fund to review recent trends in digital health care as well as scientific literature.
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Clinical Buy-In Is Key To Successful Launch Of mHealth Projects
As patient engagement becomes a priority in hospitals, its clear that mobile technologies can help bridge the gap, whether it is reminding patients of medication schedules or monitoring blood levels.
But as technology professionals know, success requires acceptance by medical professionals.
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Monthly HHS & CMS Update:
CMS Reports Record $16B In EHR Incentive Payouts
The federal dollars for providers and hospitals attesting to meaningful use keep on coming.
As of September, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has paid out more than $16.5 billion to eligible providers and hospitals, representing a slight decrease in attestation rates from earlier months, said Rob Anthony, deputy director at the CMS Office of E-Health Standards and Service. But that decline was reportedly expected.
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CMS To Recover $31M In EHR Incentive Payments
One Florida-based hospital management group is now in a rush to revise its financial statements after realizing it owes the government more than $31 million because the group recorded the hospitals’ Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record payments as income.
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ONC Says Stage 2 Meaningful Use Delay Is Unlikely
Wish there could be a delay of Stage 2 meaningful use? Talk to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, not the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. And don’t hold your breath.
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Senate Bill Proposes Expanding CMS EHR Incentive Program
Currently, mental health providers are not eligible to receive federal electronic health record incentive payments under the meaningful use program. One U.S. Senator, however, is working to change that.
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ONC Workgroup Working on Crafting Principals For Alligning CQM & CDS
Health IT stakeholders are digging in for the task of aligning standards clinical quality measurement and clinical decision support, but they’re still laying the groundwork.
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