Sara Heath
See the following -
New VA Partnership for Electronic Health Information Exchange
The Department of Veterans Affairs, Social Security Administration (SSA), and The Sequoia Project’s eHealth Exchange have partnered to exchange electronic health information for veterans looking to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, according to a press release. The health data exchange, which will be hosted on VA’s Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER), will help process VA patient requests for social security disability benefits...
- Login to post comments
AHRQ Announces Health IT Research Funding Opportunities
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will be sponsoring research projects geared toward bettering health information technology, according to a public statement. Specifically, the agency seeks to support research for improving the safety of health IT to better inform policymakers at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Food and Drug Administration, and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)...
- Login to post comments
Are Industry Rankings Really Indicative of EHR Usability?
A high ranking for an EHR might not be indicative of its actual usability. This becomes clear when one compares recent industry rankings with polls and testimony coming straight from users. Just last week, KLAS released its Best in KLAS rankings, with Epic Systems clearly coming out on top. Taking home two overall rankings and seven other Best in KLAS rankings, the EHR vendor giant continued to assert its dominance in the health IT industry...
- Login to post comments
Benefits of Patient-Generated Health Data to EHR Use
Patient-generated health data has the power to improve patient care, not just by completing EHR data, but by empowering the patient to engage in their own health. Between completing EHR information and empowering the patient as a part of the care team, patient-generated health data has the potential to be an integral part of enhancing the overall care for an individual...
- Login to post comments
Benefits of Patient-Generated Health Data, Patient Engagement
Between improving chronic disease management, boosting the Precision Medicine Initiative, and driving patient satisfaction, patient-generated health data has many healthcare benefits. Through the current health technology boom amongst patients and the near-ubiquitous adoption of EHRs amongst providers, patient-generated health data has become an important aspect of patient engagement...
- Login to post comments
Breaking Down the Role of Patient Engagement in Meaningful Use
Patient engagement plays a great role in meaningful use, despite much industry debate and conflicting interests. Patient engagement is not just a new patient-centered care philosophy. For providers and hospitals participating in the EHR Incentive Programs, patient engagement is a critical part of receiving incentive payments. Between the different stages of meaningful use and new rule proposals amending the program, the requirements for patient engagement are not always clear.
- Login to post comments
Do Gaps in Health IT Security Laws Stunt Technology Innovation?
A new ONC report details the implications of health IT security laws on health IT innovation and development. Gaps in privacy and security law may be hindering the development and expansion of health IT and EHR use across the industry, a recent report from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology suggests...
- Login to post comments
Epic EHR Implementation Causes Financial Issues at MASS Hospital
A Massachusetts hospital will be laying off 95 employees as a result of financial losses following an Epic Systems EHR implementation. According to Jessica Bartlett of Boston Business Journal, Southcoast Hospital will be cutting one percent of its workforce across all three of its locations in Fall River, Wareham, and New Bedford, Massachusetts...
- Login to post comments
Health Data Exchange Falling Short of Patient Expectations
Patients think health data access between multiple disparate providers is critical to quality healthcare, according to a recent survey, but that reality is not yet realized. The survey, conducted by Humana subsidiary Transcend Insights, found that 97 percent of patients want for healthcare organizations of any location or specialty to have access to their full patient records. According to 87 percent of the survey’s nearly 2,600 respondents, this access is especially important for primary care providers...
- Login to post comments
HELP Committee Passes Patient Centered Care EHR Bill
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee legislation on improved EHR use has passed, according to a public statement from the committee. The bill’s passage was unanimous. Earlier this year, the HELP Committee drafted legislation to improve EHR use. This legislation centered primarily on improving physician EHR use, decreasing data blocking, and making health IT patient-centered...
- Login to post comments
How Community Health Centers Support Patient-Centered Care
Each year, HHS celebrates Community Health Centers week. It is a time where the agency recognizes the impact community health centers have on patient-centered care and how they promote access to care in vulnerable or medically underserved populations...
- Login to post comments
How Does FHIR Fit into Recent Interoperability Initiatives?
Over the past few months, APIs have been the talk of the healthcare industry, pushing HL7's FHIR into the spotlight for interoperability. Plenty of talk supports the position that application programming interfaces (APIs) will enhance health data interoperability, particularly a leading API standard known as FHIR. Health Level 7’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) is a data standard that helps different health applications work on the different interfaces that exist in the industry (such as an Epic Systems or a Cerner interface)...
- Login to post comments
How SMART on FHIR Grew Vendor Support for Interoperable HIT Apps
Kenneth Mandl, MD, and Isaac Kohane, MD, PhD, both big players in creating SMART on FHIR, a major interoperability project, have recently recounted key details to the project and its successes in a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. This paper first explained the project, stating that the Substitutable Medical Applications and Reusable Technologies (SMART) project aimed to create a platform on which developers could make healthcare applications that could run interoperably across different health IT systems...
- Login to post comments
How to Develop Community Health, Patient Outreach Efforts
The AHA has published a toolkit to help drive community health and improve patient outreach efforts in rural regions and vulnerable urban communities. As healthcare becomes increasingly value-based, hospitals are working to use their resources in the most efficient way possible to meet the needs of their individual communities. This means putting a larger focus on community health, which can help serve patients outside the four walls of the hospital. This will improve the health of the population at a lower healthcare cost...
- Login to post comments
Increasing Health IT, EHR Investment Runs Up Practice Costs
New data from MGMA shows that increasing health IT and EHR investments are running up major practice costs. Health IT and EHR investments are costing physician-owned multispecialty practices thousands of dollars per physician, according to a new report from the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA). The 2016 MGMA Cost and Revenue Report shows that health technologies such as EHRs ran physician practices up to $32,500 per physician in 2015...
- Login to post comments