Health Innovation

Web Tool Reduced Medical Missteps During Hospital-Shift Changes: Study Says

By Shefali Luthra – It’s 4 p.m., and if you’re a hospital patient, that could be one of the most critical times of the day. Your doctor’s shift just ended, and someone new will take over your care. How these professionals communicate could have major repercussions for your recovery. Those shift changes, also known as handoffs, are prime opportunities for key information about a patient’s condition to get lost in the shuffle.

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New HHS Cybersecurity Initiative: Too Little Too Late?

By D’Arcy Gue – After years of increasingly dangerous data security and privacy breaches across the American healthcare environment, HHS has decided to take preventative action. On July 25, HHS announced it will fund a new resource that will share “the most up-to-date cyber threat information across the health and public health sectors.


The 7 HIPAA Audit Items the Feds Selected

By Mike Semel – The Office for Civil Rights announced that the new permanent audit program has started. On July 11 letters were sent BY E-MAIL (check your junk mail folders!) to 167 health plans, health care providers, and health care clearing houses (all HIPAA Covered Entities) notifying them that they have to send in documentation for a ‘desk audit.’ They will have 10 days to send in the required materials for review.


Nominate a Health IT Influential Women

The HIMSS Most Influential Women in Health IT Awards, recognizes influential women at all stages of their career progressions. The Awards celebrate those female visionaries harnessing the power of IT to transform health and healthcare, is unique among power lists and award programs; it’s inclusive of all women of influence, no matter where they may be in the health IT field.


Helping Consumers Make Care Choices through Hospital Compare

By Kate Goodrich MD – When individuals and their families need to make important decisions about health care, they seek a reliable way to understand the best choice for themselves or their loved ones. That’s why over the past decade, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has published information about the quality of care across the five different health care settings that most families encounter.


Best and Top Lists in our List this Week

Who doesn’t like a good list? Whether you are on it, know someone on it, or aspire to be on it, you always want to read the list. Here are some interesting lists I think deserve sharing, top #HIT100, best hospitals, Most Wired Hospitals, best value Dual MBA & Health Management Degrees, best places to work, best work perks.


New HIPAA Guidance on Ransomware Attacks and ePHI Security

By Bob Grant – HHS Office for Civil Rights has released new guidance about how HIPAA-beholden entities can better equip themselves to deal with ransomware attacks. Ransomware is a targeted kind of malware attack that takes data ‘hostage.’ The attackers responsible then give the organization a countdown to a time at which they expect to receive a ‘ransom’ in exchange for restored access to the withheld data.