For the first time in history, clinicians are able to capture patients’ heart and lung sounds and integrate them into the electronic health record (EHR). This milestone represents a groundbreaking advance in longitudinal patient care.
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By Andy Slavitt – Earlier this year, I announced a new effort to connect new, innovative companies and their investors to the state Medicaid program IT space. Since this announcement, I have been encouraged by the initial interest from companies that may not have otherwise ever thought about participating in this important health insurance program that covers more than 72 million Americans.
By Morris Panner – Love it or hate it, Obamacare didn’t address the cost side of healthcare. Expanded coverage won’t accomplish much if we Americans can’t afford it. Today, nothing is more important than figuring out how our healthcare system can provide quality care at a competitive price. But healthcare is a rotary phone in the iPhone age.
By William Hyman – Computer Decision Support usually takes the form of software generated patient specific recommendations based on patient attributes in the EMR. A recent study takes a somewhat different approach by using EMR data to identify hospital patients who are at risk of death, but offers no treatment suggestions, it just says the patient has an elevated risk of dying.
By Karson Mahler & CAPT Alicia Morton – We completed an extensive upgrade to the Certified Health IT Product List to support 2015 Edition certification as well as several other ongoing initiatives. Now surveillance results for health IT products that have not complied.
By Jeff Brady MD, MPH – To make health care safer, we have to know when harm happens. If information about a patient safety event is incomplete or doesn’t exist, providers can’t make the necessary changes to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Clinicians are an important source of reports about harm that occurs in health care—or safety events—when they happen. But that’s just one perspective.
By Bob Grant – A bill to establish an Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was introduced in the House of Representatives. The office would issue guidance to better protect sensitive personal information and data from potential exposure to cyber-attacks.
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. They include the Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT, experts in patient safety, Boston’s 40 Under 40 Healthcare Innovators, and activating patient engagement.
By John Halamka MD – On May 19th, I spent the day in Washington with a group of government, provider, and developer stakeholders convened by the IHI. We operated under Chatham House Rules, so I can summarize the discussion but not identify any of the participants or their specific statements. Here are three questions we discussed and the observations we made.