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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:
What To Expect With HIPAA Omnibus Rule Enforcement
Although the long anticipated Sept. 23 enforcement date for the HIPAA Omnibus Rule has arrived, many healthcare information security experts don’t anticipate an immediate surge in crackdowns on those who are not in compliance.
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Tips For Medical Organizations To Prevent Or Survive A PHI Data Breach
Security breaches are no fun. Your organization’s name is splashed all over the news. Your reputation takes a hit. Your patients’ trust is eroded. And the prospect of a hefty monetary settlement is something few want to think about. But it’s not the end of the world.
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Tips On What Not To Do In A Meaningful Use Audit
We’ve all seen articles, interviews, and blog posts telling hospitals how to be prepared for potential audits of their meaningful use incentives. “Lessons learned” and “best practices” abound in an attempt to give advice about protecting those EHR incentives from recoupment. There is a lot of money on the table, not to mention careers, and the audit process should not be taken lightly. There is simply too much at stake and a wrong move during the audit or appeal process would take a hospital’s staff to a place where it should never have to go.
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EHR “Note Bloat” Putting Patients At Risk
Healthcare organizations with long-established electronic health records run the risk of “note bloat” and compromised patient safety unless they standardize physician documentation procedures and limit the amount of cutting-and-pasting doctors have to do, attendees of CHIME’s Fall CIO Forum heard here at a session on Oct. 9.
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Data Integration – Important First Step For Coordinating Patient Care
Recently, “big data” has become an intimidating buzz phrase in healthcare. Health systems and provider groups are trying to collect large amounts of clinical data and make it meaningful — and they’re finding that the integration and analysis of that data across multiple platforms is anything but simple.
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HIMSS Report Finds HIE Organizations Utilizing Too Much Paper for Health Data Exchange
Health information exchange organizations continue to rely on paper and fax to provide data among hospitals, according to a new HIMSS Analytics reportreleased on Tuesday, September 24th.
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Six Ways For Boosting EHR Usability
EHR usability is among the greatest barriers to digitizing America’s healthcare system. Electronic health records present a push toward modernization – transformation even – but to fulfill the promise, industry insiders say, the clunky technology has to be made easier for doctors to use. EHRs must be more elegant and more interoperabile.
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A Look At Health IT Adoption Around The World
Every country, every government, every population is a participant in a global trial and error. Each one faces different circumstances and, therefore, approaches healthcare differently. But, as world health leaders see it, everyone can learn from others’ struggles and successes to improve and simplify their respective strategies. Health information technology is at the core.
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Monthly HHS & CMS Update:
Highlights Of Dr. Mostashari First Speech Since Stepping Down As ONC Chief
Dr. Farzad Mostashari didn’t quite bare his soul to a bunch of hospital CIOs, but the man who was indefatigably buoyant as the nation’s federal health information technology czar did pull back the curtain a bit and offered an assessment of his own concerns as well as some “insider clues” in his first speech since leaving federal service.
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Former ONC Chief Says Meaningful Use Stage 2 Delay Unlikely
Though he no longer has authority over meaningful use regulations, former ONC chief Farzad Mostashari, MD, warned the audience at the CHIME Fall CIO Forum not to expect a delay in Stage 2 of the government’s EHR Incentive Program. He also took issue with the pace of EHR usability, interoperability and health data exchange.
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ONC Exceeds Meaningful Use Goal For Rural Providers
Is the EHR digital divide between robust tech-savvy large health networks and the smaller rural and critical access hospitals as deep and craggy as we keep hearing it is? Perhaps, but there has been substantive progress to date.
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State of Texas To Implement Patient Privacy Compliance Certification Program
Texas is moving ahead with a robust patient privacy agenda, as the first state to offer a certification for compliance with both federal and state laws.
The Health Information Trust Alliance, or HITRUST, is crafting certification recommendations to the Texas Health Services Authority, a public-private health IT coordinating body created in 2007 by the Texas legislature, to help providers and other health businesses comply with a raft of recent regulations, including the HIPAA business associates rule and several Texas laws that exceed the scope of federal protections.
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OCR Director Says Patients’ Interests Define HIPAA Enforcement Priorities
The timing was perfect. On September 23, the same day that the HIPAA Final Rule on Privacy & Security kicked in, Office of Civil Rights director Leon Rodriguez spoke at the HIMSS Media and Healthcare IT News Privacy and Security Forum.
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Work Group Recommends Limited FDA Regulation Of Health IT
Health information technology should not, as a general rule, be subject to pre-market regulation by the Food and Drug Administration as many medical devices are today, according to a work group giving advice to three federal regulatory agencies.
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