By Jeffrey Shuren – We know that patients with life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating conditions lack treatment and diagnostic options. For these patients, earlier access to promising new devices is critically important. At the same time, delayed access may mean the difference between life and death, or may result in irreversible disability.
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By Lucia Savage – In the draft Interoperability Roadmap, ONC committed to helping individuals, providers, and the health and health IT community better understand how existing federal law, HIPAA, supports interoperable exchange of information for health.
By Ashish Jha – Now we’re giving star ratings to hospitals? Does anyone think this is a good idea? Actually, I do. Hospital ratings schemes have cropped up all over the place, and sorting out what’s important and what isn’t is difficult and time consuming.
By Matt Fisher – Potentially lost in all of the privacy, security, and health IT news coming out of the HIMSS Annual Meeting the week of April 11th, the ONC updated its Guide to Privacy and Security of Electronic Health Information (the “Guide”).
By Bonnie Cassidy – The health IT industry has faced its fair share of ups and downs, starts and stops — particularly when it comes to the ICD-10 implementation. We are now moving ahead with the October 1 transition date and must stay focused on rolling out ICD-10 education to plans key stakeholders.
By Matthew Swain & Erica Galvez – Advancing secure and interoperable exchange is a core component of the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020 and the focus of the Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap.
By John Halamka – The April 2015 HITSC meeting focused on the Certification Rule NPRM and a comprehensive review of the Federal Interoperability Roadmap. I suggested that a guiding principle for the committee’s work is to emphasize the enablers in the proposals while reducing those aspects that create substantial burden/slow innovation. As a federal advisory committee our job is to temper regulatory ambition with operational reality.
By Angela Hunsberger – To meet Meaningful Use, you’ve either implemented a patient portal or plan to do so in the near future. Perhaps you’ve rolled out your portal with limited functionality but now plan to optimize the technology to increase both patient and staff engagement. Regardless of which stage of Meaningful Use you are in, you need to weigh the challenges of portal engagement and patient privacy.
By Matt Fisher – Health information technology or HealthIT is in the healthcare spotlight, but remains a constantly changing field. One of the primary initiatives shining the brightest spotlight on HealthIt is the Meaningful Use program.