One of the ways that HITECH Answers is different from other media sites is the sense of community. The thought leaders in our community are good about sharing their thought on the issues of today. We publish at least seven guest posts a week now, Monday through Thursday. In case you missed some, here are the top ten read and shared guest posts of the month. You can also read previous month’s Top Ten Lists. Thank you for contributing and reading.
New Master’s Degree Blends Tech and Health Care
By Anne Ju
The creation of a degree program designed to connect health care professionals and technologists was announced Dec. 4 at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech. An M.S. in information systems with a concentration in “Healthier Life,” the program will confer dual degrees from Cornell and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Continue reading…
Mounting Efforts to Delay ICD-10 Go Down Swinging
By Chuck Buck, Publisher of ICD10monitor
Despite a significant lobbying effort mounted by a small but very vocal minority within the healthcare industry, the implementation of ICD-10 is expected to proceed without further delay. The failed push marked a third attempt to delay the Oct. 1, 2015 ICD-10 implementation deadline well into 2017. Continue reading…
Major Health IT Events that Shaped 2014
By John Halamka, MD
2014 was quite a year. Thinking back to December 2013, I cannot believe that so much has happened. Let’s take a look at the major HIT events that shaped 2014 and what they portend for 2015. Affordable Care Act – despite challenges with healthcare.gov and state health insurance exchanges, the notion of moving forward with an open insurance marketplace and accountable care got traction. Continue reading…
Interoperability and the Future of Care Delivery
By Tee Green, CEO, Greenway Health
The healthcare industry has done a remarkable job of replacing traditional paper charts with electronic health records (EHRs). Information that used to be sharable only by the most rudimentary means — it’s been said that fax machines lasted so long only because of healthcare — is now captured and stored electronically in a readily transmittable form. Continue reading…
Scope of HIPAA Compliance Remains Uneven
By Matt Fisher, Attorney and chair of the Health Law Group at Mirick, O’Connell, DeMallie & Lougee, LLP.
A recent survey of HIPAA compliance conducted by NueMD revealed a startling range of knowledge and compliance with HIPAA. Even though HIPAA has been around since 1996 and was updated to include the HITECH Act modifications in 2009, many medical practices revealed they were unaware of the full scope of HIPAA requirements, did not necessarily understand what they did know, or have not implemented full compliance programs. Continue reading…
Reigniting ICD-10 Momentum in Your Organization
By Summer Humphreys, Executive Consultant, Advisory Services, Beacon Partners
Now that Congress has rejected requests to delay ICD-10, it’s time to get on the bandwagon or risk significant financial implications. ICD-10 touches virtually every aspect of your organization’s processes and systems, and failure to prepare and comply with the mandate will have a significant impact on your reimbursements. Continue reading…
What Gets Measured Gets Managed
By Joy Rios, Health IT Consultant at Ask Joy Health IT Consulting
Say what you will about the pains of implementing an EHR or meeting the requirements for Meaningful Use. I’ll grant you that there are hiccups, roadblocks, stumbling points on the path to going digital. No doubt. But, you can’t deny that data doesn’t lie and when we measure data, we can manage it. Continue reading…
Why Should Your Practice Have a Cloud-Based EHR?
By Kathy McCoy, Director, Content Marketing at HealthFusion
If you’re still debating whether to go with a web-based EHR or a server-based EHR, you should know why a growing number of practices are choosing to go with a cloud EMR. How does a web-based EMR differ from the older technology of a client server-based EHR system? Continue reading…
Tumbling Dice and Meaningful Use in 2015
By Jim Tate, EMR Advocate, Meaningful Use Audit Expert
Now I’m not a betting man. I’ve been to Las Vegas only once and was fortunate enough to escape with both my dignity and bank account intact. The old timers say, “better to be lucky than good” and they just may be right. The Meaningful Use (MU) dice are rolling and tumbling right now and they just might come up “box cars” (double sixes). The odds are starting to look good for a reprieve for those eligible providers who are hoping to get a roll back on the full year requirements for MU in 2015. I put the odds at greater than 50%. Continue reading…
Many Say Meaningful Use Stage 2 Is Disastrous, but the Data Say Otherwise
By Anantachai (Tony) Panjamapirom, PhD, Senior Consultant at The Advisory Board Company
The industry news is full of disparaging talk about the health of the EHR Incentive Programs (i.e., meaningful use), particularly the low number of Stage 2 attestations. While some statistics show that only 35% of the nation’s hospitals have met Stage 2 meaningful use requirements, further analysis reveals a different story. Continue reading…