By Irv H. Lichtenwald – Context and perspective matter. And it’s often both context and perspective that are lacking from the daily snapshots we get of health information technology, meaningful use, interoperability and the progress we are either making or not making, depending on your perspective.
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By Gajen Sunthara – For the past year, I have been honored to serve my country as a Presidential Innovation Fellow (PIF) with the ONC. As my PIF journey comes to an end, I wanted to provide a brief recap of my work and its potential for the future.
By Frank Fortner – In October of 2014, I attended the CHIME fall conference and had the privilege of listening to Dr. Peter Diamandis. He brings an optimistic message about the value created through the exponential growth of certain technologies — that starts after they become “digitized,” yielding exponential leaps forward rather than small, linear steps.
The AMA and MedStar Health’s National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare have developed a comparative EHR User-Centered Design Evaluation Framework that shows a lack of focus among regulators and industry on user-centered design and usability testing.
By Nina L. Hunter PhD & Robert M. Califf MD – We recently announced the first FDA Patient Engagement Advisory Committee (PEAC), supported by the Center of Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH). The Committee will provide advice to the FDA Commissioner on complex issues relating to medical devices, the regulation of devices, and their use by patients.
By Bill Hersh – The week of October 1st was a busy week in the health IT/informatics world, as the US government released a flurry of rules and documents around health IT. As I tell my students, it is great to be living in this ever-changing part of the history of our field.
By Jim Tate – The rear view mirror. Now that’s one handy tool. Helps us keep an eye on things that might be gaining on us. Almost as good as having eyes in the back of our heads. Things can creep up on us and before we know it what we have may have forgotten is demanding our attention.
By Nancy Pratt – We are currently at a crossroads in the healthcare industry. Executives are working overtime to try to figure out how to connect and integrate data to best support clinical practice and patient care management. With health systems concerned about balancing both needs, they now need to figure out how to leverage data to get the best value out of their investment.
By Art Gross – The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has issued a report that is critical of the Office for Civil Rights. OIG concluded that OCR is not fulfilling its responsibility to enforce HIPAA regulations that safeguard protected health information (PHI) and to ensure that organizations protect patient’s privacy.