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Written by Gina Narcisi
Organizations should act prior to the implementation of the new (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) HIPAA compliance guideline changes for 2010 and consistently monitor their facilities in order to make an easier transition and avoid the extended penalties that are now being proposed, said HIPAA privacy and security consult Grant Peterson during a Jan. 13 Webinar on the guidelines.
PricewaterhouseCoopers' (PwC) Health Research Institute's Top 10 health industry issues in 2010 puts healthcare cost control at the head of the list as the overarching theme for the year ahead.
Vangent is releasing an open-source software tool, known as Health Information Exchange Open Source, for the secure exchange of health information from multiple and disparate system and data sources.
A defined framework for secondary data will need to be developed in order for more organizations to deploy health IT systems, according to a survey conducted between May and June and published by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System is subsidizing up to 85 percent of implementation and operation costs for an EHR system in the offices of its more than 7,000 affiliated physicians in New York City and Long Island—part of a $400 million investment to automate inpatient and outpatient records in all medical settings, including 13 hospitals.
A recently-published report on EHR and health information exchange initiatives suggests that the United States should look at similar efforts in Europe as a guide for its development of large-scale e-health systems.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed a 21.5 percent rate reduction for the 2010 calendar year to more than one million physicians and non-physician practitioners who are paid under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled their healthcare reform legislation Friday, calling for a 75 percent increase in the equipment utilization rate and an increase of 25 to 50 percent in the reduction of the technical component of imaging for multiple procedures.
With the creation of an internal task force at the FDA , the agency is seeking recommendations on how it can improve the transparency of its operations and decision-making process.
With the federal government putting $1.1 billion into comparative-effectiveness research, two Baylor College of Medicine scientists advocate investing in research that puts science into practice in doctors' offices and clinics across the U.S., according to a perspective in the May 7 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Medical records provider MediConnect Global acquired health IT company PassportMD. The transaction cost for the personal health record (PHR) provider was undisclosed.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have significantly revised their calculations of Medicare fee-for-service error rates in 2009.
The market for telemedicine devices and services will generate nearly $3.6 billion in annual revenue within the next five years, with mobile services companies taking a sizeable chunk of that business, according to a report from market research firm Pike & Fischer.
The medical devices industry is lobbying heavily to reduce a projected $4 billion annual tax on medical device makers included in the Senate Finance Committee healthcare reform bill, according to media reports.
Daniel G. Schultz, MD, announced his resignation Tuesday as director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, a position that he has held since 2004.
The healthcare reform bill approved last week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee contained an amendment prohibiting the federal government from using comparative-effectiveness research to “deny or ration care.”
Members of the American College of Radiology (ACR) urged the U.S. House of Representatives Rural Caucus against using radiology benefits managers (RBMs) in the Medicare system and against a proposed imaging equipment utilization rate change from 50 to 95 percent at a Capitol Hill briefing held June 24.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) has released a statement supporting healthcare reform, but noted that it was "deeply disappointed and concerned to see the Obama Administration propose cuts of more than $220 billion to hospitals, especially during these tough economic times."
A report from UnitedHealth Group's Center for Health Reform and Modernization found that the U.S. government could save $540 billion in healthcare costs over the next decade if existing programs that have improved healthcare quality and slowed medical spending are applied more broadly.
Congressmen Mike Thompson, D-Calif., Bart Stupak, D-Mich., Lee Terry, R-Neb., and Sam Johnson, R-Texas, have introduced bipartisan legislation that would expand Medicare reimbursement to more facilities in urban and suburban areas for the use of telehealth equipment and services.
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The use of health IT to reduce rehospitalizations will be welcome but also disruptive, said Stephen Jencks, an independent consultant in healthcare safety during a Feb. 24 webinar on the potential use of health IT to mitigate rehospitalizations, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
During the Health IT Standards Committee meeting on Feb. 24 in Washington, D.C., the Clinical Operations Workgroup sought to gather comments on proposed recommendations on implementation specifications for content exchange, vocabulary and code set standards for the Interim Final Rule of meaningful use.