Policy and Legislation

See the following -

EHRs For Behavioral Health Tough Task

Tom Sullivan | Healthcare IT News | March 11, 2014

Behavioral health and long-term post-acute care are perhaps the two most significant areas left out of the meaningful use program. “When we look at the big circle of care, there’s a huge hole — behavioral health,” said Mark Caron, CIO of Capital Blue. “Behavioral health is a mess.”

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Employers Can Dump Workers To HIX For A Price

Jay Hancock | Government HealthIT | May 28, 2014

Nothing stops employers from canceling company plans and leaving workers to buy individual policies sold through the exchanges — as long as they pay the relevant taxes and penalties, said Christopher Condeluci, a Venable lawyer specializing in benefits and taxes. 

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EMR Market Surpasses $23 Billion

Bernie Monegain | Healthcare IT News | April 29, 2014

The global market for electronic medical records has shot up to $23.2 billion in 2013, according to a new report from research firm Kalorama: EMR 2014: The Market for Electronic Medical Records.  Governement incentives and the increasing use of electronic medical records for quality of care and cost-saving reasons continue to drive the market, researchers found.

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Ending Campus Sexual Assault—For Good

Sarah Berlin | In These Times | May 20, 2014

Five years ago, the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) published a series of groundbreaking reports on how U.S. colleges handle sexual violence. The investigation found that survivors faced a “depressing litany of barriers” to reporting assaults and that assailants rarely receive serious punishments...

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Fear And Loathing In Meaningful Use

Diana Manos | Healthcare IT News | May 14, 2014

'I cannot stress this enough: It is fear that drives this process – fear of audit, fear of penalty.'...

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Federal ‘Biosurveillance’ Plan Seeking Direct Access To Americans’ Private Medical Records

Barbara Hollingsworth | CNSNews.com | May 20, 2014

The federal government is piecing together a sweeping national “biosurveillance” system that will give bureaucrats near real-time access to Americans’ private medical information in the name of national security, according to Twila Brase, a public health nurse and co-founder of the Citizens Council for Health Freedom.  

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Generation Open: Sneak Peek Into Science’s Future At OpenCon 2014

Hilda Bastian | Scientific American | November 16, 2014

...Michael Carroll is a Professor of Law and one of the founders of the Creative Commons. He was welcoming over a hundred enthusiastic students, student organizers, and early career researchers yesterday to their first international gathering on open access, OpenCon 2014...

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House Approves $16.3-Billion Veterans Affairs Overhaul Bill

Rebecca Bratek | Los Angeles Times | July 30, 2014

By a 420-5 vote, the House on Wednesday approved a $16.3-billion compromise bill to overhaul the Veterans Affairs Department and speed up veterans’ access to healthcare.  The reform measure still needs to be approved by the Senate before it can be sent to the president’s desk...

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How The Koch Network Exploited The Veterans Affairs Crisis

George Zornick | The Nation | September 23, 2014

As the scandal over waiting lists at Veterans Affairs hospitals exploded earlier this year, there was widespread outrage—and justifiably so, as the country learned that more than 100,000 veterans waited over ninety days for care or never received it...

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Innovating Government At Making All Voices Count

Jessica Day | Innovation Excellence | June 7, 2014

...In 2013, Making All Voices Count launched the “Global Innovation Competition” which challenged a global audience to design a solution that would improve governments’ responsiveness and accountability to citizens...

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Meaningful Use Problems Go Beyond Just Software, Say “Stage 2 Flexibility” Critics

Gabriel Perna | Healthcare Informatics | September 2, 2014

The final rule for meaningful use Stage 2 flexibility, released late on Friday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), is not as popular as the government probably would have liked...

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Most RECs Plan To Stay Open For Business

Mike Miliard | Healthcare IT News | May 2, 2014

Federal funding for most regional extension centers is set to dry up by late this year or early next, but most of them still plan to keep their doors open, according to the 2014 HIMSS Regional Extension Center Survey...

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New Tool Takes Measure Of Public Health

Staff Writer | Healthcare IT News | August 26, 2014

It has historically been difficult for public health officials — especially at cash-strapped state and local departments — to  gauge whether their outreach and initiatives really work. A new tool from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Health Partners aims to change that...

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Paper Highlights Legal, Ethical Issues With Open Health Data, Makes Policy Recommendations

Molly Bernhart Walker | Fierce Government IT | September 24, 2014

Government open data initiatives have made patient health information more readily available online through healthdata.gov and third-party sites that pull from public sources. But coherent legal and ethics policies are lagging data innovation, says a paper recently published in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal...

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Providers Welcome Meaningful Use Relief

Bernie Monegain | Healthcare It News | February 28, 2014

There will be no delay for ICD-10 conversion. But when CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner announced Thursday at HIMSS14 that CMS would be flexible on hardship exemptions for meaningful use requirements, it provided some of the relief healthcare providers – and the professional organizations that represent them – have been seeking...

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