Health IT Issues that Deserve a Second Read – May 2015

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 eleven guest posts a week now, on our three sites. 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.

The New World of Healthcare Cybercrime
By Lee Kim, Director of Privacy and Security, HIMSS

In healthcare, the number and volume of the breaches are ever increasing. For many of these breaches, phishing is the initial point of compromise. The human tends to be the weakest link and so hackers tend to exploit the low hanging fruit. Much of the information which is exfiltrated ends up on the black market (e.g., medical identity information, intellectual property, financial information, etc.). Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…

Rare Practical HIPAA and HIT Guidance
By Matt Fisher, Attorney and chair of the Health Law Group at Mirick, O’Connell, DeMallie & Lougee, LLP.

Potentially lost in all of the privacy, security, and health IT news coming out of the Health Information and Management Systems Society (or HIMSS as everyone calls it) Annual Meeting the week of April 11th, the ONC updated its Guide to Privacy and Security of Electronic Health Information (the “Guide”). The updated Guide was released on April 13, 2015. The Guide offers practical insights into meeting privacy and security obligations under HIPAA as well as providing insights into Meaningful Use and other health IT related issues. ONC designed the Guide to help small and medium sized providers to meet the many difficult obligations that everyone in the healthcare industry must comply with. Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…

Patient Engagement, Usability, and Meaningful Use Stage 3
By Bennett Lauber, Chief Experience Officer, The Usability People

Patient engagement was a very hot topic at the recent HIMSS conference in Chicago. There was no shortage of exhibitors promoting their patient engagement tools and there were also several presentations that contained suggestions for better engaging patients. Some exhibitors that we spoke to were not aware of the proposed patient engagement rules (described below) and were very excited at the prospect of greater use of their tools. Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…

Patient Data, Population Health, a Predictive Model and Reducing Readmissions
By Sarianne Gruber

Worthy of recognition is the paper “Predicting Readmission Risk with Institution Specific Prediction Models” authored by Shipeng Yu, Alexander van Esbroeck, Faisal Farooq, Glenn Fung, Vikram Anand and Balaji Krishnapuram, a collaborative team from Siemens Healthcare and University of Michigan. This readmission model study is illustrative as to why healthcare analytics has a vital role in meeting challenges of new policies, managing population health, pinpointing gaps in existing modeling methods and in predicting a patient’s risk to readmit. This review provides a historical, analytical perspective on a new institution-specific prediction model. Continue reading on RCMAnswers.net…

Does Small Data Hold the Keys to the Health Care Kingdom?
By John Smithwick, CEO of RoundingWell

Lately, there’s been a lot of noise around the use of big data in health care. As the name implies, big data looks for patterns and trends in extremely large sets of information. And it’s big business: Frost & Sullivan projects that half of hospitals will be using advanced analytics software to power big data projects by 2016. Continue reading on HIEAnswers.net…

Health IT Holds the Promise to Help Improve Health
By Thomas A. Mason, M.D & Janet Wright, MD, FACC

About 1 of 3 U.S. adults—67 million people—have high blood pressure, also called hypertension. High blood pressure increases the risk for a variety of diseases, including stroke, coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, heart and kidney failure, and atrial fibrillation. High blood pressure is also called the “silent killer” because it often has no warning signs or symptoms, and many people do not know they have it. Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…

The Upside to ICD-10: Defense Against Audits
By Coalition for ICD-10

US Congressional offices informed the ICD-10 Coalition that physicians have been calling in concerned that the increased specificity in the ICD-10-CM codes will lead to an increase in recovery audit contractor (RAC) audits. Physicians have been concerned about increasing audits unrelated to ICD-10 for some time. The recovery audit looks back 3 years from when a claim is paid to verify proper payment. In the event of negative findings with recoupment demands, additional worry over costly and lengthy legal processes, appeals, and repayment are major concerns faced by physicians. Continue reading on RCMAnswers.net…

3 Ways to Bridge the Gap Between EHRs and Workflows
By Hayes Management Consulting Blog

The challenges healthcare organizations face during EHR implementations vary, but many of the issues related to the technology itself can be wrapped into one package and labeled “processes related to technology.” Integrating workflow analysis and system configuration can be overwhelming for various reasons. Some include specific needs of end users, physician time management, and workflow diagrams lacking sufficient details. When these situations occur, other processes are affected and require decision making and change control. Does this sound familiar? Fortunately, there are some very simple steps to avoid the chaos associated with disconnected processes. Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…

Health IT: Where We Stand And Where We Need To Go
By Karen B. DeSalvo, M.D., M.P.H., M.Sc.

I am optimistic about the bright future we have to leverage health information technology to enable better health for everyone in this country. One year ago, we called upon the health IT community to move beyond adoption and focus on interoperability, on unlocking the data, so it can be put to the many important uses demanded by consumers, doctors, hospitals, payers, and others who are part of the learning health system. Continue reading on HIEAnswers.net…

Making the Case for Physicians as Part of the EHR Project Team
By Lisa Laravie, Hayes Management Consulting

Electronic health record (EHR) implementation is undoubtedly complex. With so many factors,departments, and workflows to consider, it’s no wonder so many organizations are reaching out for help. With more providers adopting EHR’s, the process of implementation has been evolving as we figure out best practices and lessons learned. How are you going to ensure the success of your EHR implementation? One suggestion is to optimize your resources by leveraging your physicians and integrating them into the project team as much as possible. Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…

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