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:
Environmental Intelligence, LLC, Recognized As One Of America’s Top Emerging Businesses
Recognizing the economic power of privately held businesses, DiversityBusiness.com, the nation’s leading business-to-business internet site, recently named Environmental Intelligence, LLC (EI), as one of the top 500 emerging U.S. businesses in 2013.
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HIMSS13 Headline – Healthcare Is The Most Widely Breached Industry In the US
Attendees at HIMSS13 — in one way or another entrusted with the protection of their patients’ personal health information — may not be pleased to learn that they work in the most widely breached industry in the United States.
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HIMSS13 Update – OCR Director Discusses HIPAA/HITECH Compliance
It’s about the patients, it’s about safeguarding privacy, and it’s about trying to avoid making the same mistakes twice, said Office for Civil Rights Director Leon Rodriguez to hundreds of HIMSS13 attendees Monday morning at “A Dialogue On HIPAA/HITECH Compliance: Considerations Now That the HITECH Regs are Here.”
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New HIPAA Privacy And Security Rules Goes Into Effect Today
While Tuesday marks the effective date of a host of new federal privacy and security rules, including extending legal liability to business associates of healthcare providers and restoring a measure of patient control over disclosure of their records, compliance won’t be required until six months later.
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US Sequester Will Affect Medicare EHR Incentive Program
The fiscal trap that members of Congress and the president set for themselves will punch a 2% hole in one of the federal electronic health-record incentive payment programs under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a federal official has confirmed.
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The TMA Calling For a Federal HIT Safety Czar
The Texas Medical Association is calling for appointment of a federal health information technology safety czar, while the American Medical Association wants to see more health IT safety research focused on systems in ambulatory care.
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Is Telemedicine The Cost Effective Future Of Healthcare In the US?
An analysis of some recent telemed initiatives and interviews with thought leaders in the field suggest that telemedicine can transform U.S. healthcare into a cost effective system.
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EHR Installation Does Not Equal Effective Implementation
When it comes to your organization successfully adopting electronic health records, it’s not just a matter of “going live” with the technology, says Don Harrison, co-leader of the Sunday workshop titled “Solving the Healthcare IT Adoption Dilemma,” at the 2013 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition.
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Monthly HHS & CMS Update:
EHR Incentive Payments Reach $12 Billion
With some healthcare providers now into their second year of meaningful use reporting, Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record payments were estimated at $12.3 billion paid to a total of 219,000 physicians and hospitals through the end of February 2013 since the program’s inception.
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ONC Chief Reinforces Commitment to Health IT
The day after President Bill Clinton told the HIMSS13 audience that the healthcare system was broken, but could be fixed, ONC chief Farzad Mostashari, MD, offered a personal example of that broken system: his Mom. Mostashari launched his own keynote on Thursday morning by describing what his mother endured when she was admitted to the hospital for routine knee surgery.
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CMS Releases RFI on HIE’s
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) have published a joint request for information asking industry stakeholders for suggestions on what more, or less, the federal government should be doing to advance clinical information exchange.
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CMS Launches New eHealth Website
The CMS launched the eHealth initiative this week as a central repository for information on the federal government’s digital record-keeping and electronic prescribing initiatives.
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The ONC Releases National Health IT Patient Safety Action & Surveillance Plan
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has announced the release of a new rural health information exchange (HIE) toolkit.
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CMS To Explore New Electronic Transaction Standards
Although new HIPAA electronic transaction standards have been put on the backburner, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has begun the process of mapping out how those new standards will function.
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