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.
Meaningful Use Audit Outcomes: Data Released by CMS
By Steve Spearman, Founder and Chief Security Consultant, Health Security Solutions
For eligible providers (EP) and hospitals (EH), attesting to Meaningful Use can have a huge financial impact on their organization. When an organization attests, they are required to satisfy a certain number of objectives and associated measures demonstrating the meaningful use of certified electronic health record technology (EHR). If the Meaningful Use (MU) standards are met, organizations receive significant incentive payments that help remediate the cost of implementing use of an EHR. Continue reading…
Gearing Up for OCR HIPAA Audits in 2015
By Alisha R. Smith, RHIA, HIM Compliance Educator, HealthPort
OCR is ramping up their HIPAA privacy and security audit program for covered entities (CEs) and business associates (BAs). Delayed until 2015, the second round of HIPAA audits is expected to be more pragmatic and comprehensive. Their focus will be on everyday, real-world application of HIPAA policies and procedures across the entire organization. Staff must know the policies and procedures while also incorporating them into daily activities, workflows and interactions with protected health information (PHI). Everyone can take practical steps to tighten HIPAA compliance. Continue reading…
The October Joint Meeting of the Standards and Policy Committee
By John Halamka, MD
The future of interoperability was discussed and endorsed by a joint meeting of the Standards and Policy Committees. We began with a preamble clearly stating that the roadmap we’re working on is a process not a finished product. Continue reading…
Comprehensive Data Standards and Interoperability
By William Hersh, MD, Professor and Chair, OHSU
Two local informatics-related happenings recently provided teachable moments demonstrating why a comprehensive approach to standards and interoperability is so critical for realizing the value of health IT. Fortunately, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has prioritized interoperability among its activities moving forward, and other emerging work on standards provides hope that the problems I will described that occurred locally (and I know occur many other places) might be avoided in the future. Continue reading…
JASON and the EHRnauts
By Keith Boone, Healthcare Standards
I thought I was done with JASON and the EHRnauts for a little bit, when this query popped into my inbox via Will Ross over at Redwood MedNet. He points to this bit of wisdom: From the report – To the extent that query capabilities are included in MU Stage 3, we are at an awkward moment in standards development: Older standards such as XDS/XCA are mature but inherently limited, whereas newer API-based standards are not yet ready for large-scale adoption. We believe it would be detrimental to lock the industry in to older standards, and thus, we recommend that ONC mobilize an accelerated standards development process to ready an initial specification of FHIR for certification to support MU Stage 3. Continue reading…
7 Steps for Building a Data Analytics Foundation
By Tom Maher, Hayes Management Consulting
For years, we have seen discussions about Business Intelligence (BI), critical indicator dashboards and other data tools for decision making. It all sounds good in theory, but I don’t see a lot of effective BI in the real world. So what is the problem? The largest problem is and always has been a lack of structure in the underlying data. Continue reading…
Is It Possible to be HIPAA Compliant?
By Matt Fisher, Attorney and chair of the Health Law Group at Mirick, O’Connell, DeMallie & Lougee, LLP.
A recent article on Forbes by Dan Munro asked the question whether anyone is really HIPAA compliant in healthcare. As recognized in the article, answering this question is not a simple and direct matter. From one perspective, many entities are compliant with HIPAA requirements, others are clearly not compliant, and then some organizations may not even need to comply. Getting a clearer answer to this question will be necessary sooner rather than later though. Continue reading…
What Ebola Tells Us About Health IT Outbreak Needs
By John W. Loonsk, MD FACMI, CMIO CGI Federal and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center for Population Health IT
The Ebola cases in the United States, despite their limited numbers, have generated considerable discussion and anxiety. The discussion has included health IT because of the initial assertion that the Dallas hospital’s electronic health record led to the first US Ebola case being sent home. That claim was subsequently refuted, but it initiated conversation about whether the EHR was really to blame and, eventually, how EHRs might lean forward and help in such circumstances. Unfortunately, either way, the focus on EHRs in these Ebola discussions does not recognize more prominent outbreak health IT needs nor the ways we have yet to meet most of these needs with incentives and infrastructure. Continue reading…
Six Recommendations to Achieve Interoperability Nirvana
By Tom Bizzaro, RPh, Vice President of health policy at FDB
As most organizations have now adopted electronic records, getting those systems to work together is the next big challenge on the horizon. Earlier this year, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) published a 10-Year Vision to Achieve an Interoperability for Health IT Infrastructure. The ONC publication is meant to move the industry toward the much coveted interoperability that will enable healthcare organizations to seamlessly share patient information. The report rightfully asserts that interoperability will lead to an infrastructure that “will support more efficient and effective systems, enable scientific advancement, and lead to a continuously improving health system that empowers individuals, customizes treatment and accelerates cure of disease.” Continue reading…
Making the Hospital Part of the Community
By Jonathan Catley, Online Sales & Marketing Manager, MD Connect
It is called community building, but why is it an important part of hospital marketing? As advocates for public health, hospitals have a responsibility to the communities they serve. This is the pool of potential patients they draw from, so it makes business sense to create a presence there. Consider some: Continue reading…