Edition Eighty-Three (01/29/12)

ONC Seeks Easy EHR Accessibility, Discharge Apps
Health Data Management, 1/26/12
ONC is seeking applications which would help individuals with disabilities access their EHR data, help patients schedule follow-up appointments, and improve the health of consumers.

AMA Asks Speaker Boehner to Kill ICD-10
Health Data Management, 1/26/12
The implementation of ICD-10 will create significant burdens on the practice of medicine with no direct benefit to individual patient care, and will compete with other costly transitions associated with quality and health I.T. reporting programs, according to the AMA.

Mostashari: 2012 Will be a Big Year for HIT
Health Data Management, 1/26/12
At least 100,000 providers will receive Meaningful Use incentive payments during 2012, Farzad Mostashari, M.D., National Coordinator for HIT, predicts in a new blog posting.

ONC Reveals Mobile Data Best Practice Initiative
Government Health IT, 1/26/12
ONC's Chief Privacy Officer, working with HHS’ Office for Civil Rights, has launched a Privacy & Security Mobile Device project.

Stage 2 Meaningful Use Rule Close to Release
Health Data Management, 1/25/12
The CMS is on the cusp of issuing the proposed rule establishing Stage 2 of the EHR incentive programs.

CMS Fills Out Details for EHR Incentive Appeals
Government Health IT, 1/24/12
The CMS is filling in more details about how physicians and hospitals may appeal decisions that prevent them from receiving or keeping payment as part of the EHR incentive program.

5 Tactics for Starting a Sustainable HIE
Government Health IT, 1/19/12
Health information exchange is an integral part of many HIT initiatives, including the Meaningful Use of health I.T. and healthcare reform.

EHR Incentive Payments Doubled in Last Three Months of 2011
Modern Healthcare, subscription required, 1/18/12
Total payments to hospitals through the EHR incentive programs more than doubled from October through December to more than $1.9 billion, according to the CMS.

AMA Debuts New Health I.T. Tutorials
Modern Healthcare, subscription required, 1/17/12
The American Medical Association has released online tutorials for physicians on electronic prescribing, pre-visit planning, and point-of-care documentation.

GAO: Health I.T. Contractor Lags
Nextgov, 1/17/12
The National Quality Foundation has fallen behind in its efforts to promote EHRs, the General Accountability Office has concluded.

10,000 New York Doctors to Adopt EHRs
The Sacramento Bee, 1/23/12
By the end of 2011, over 10,000 New York healthcare providers had enrolled into a federally subsidized program which will help them transition from paper to EHRs, continuing the effort to improve the quality and coordination of care for all patients across the state.

Vermont Moving Forward with its Own Flavor of Health Reform
Government Health IT, 1/19/12
Vermont lawmakers are taking steps to move the state toward a publicly-financed insurance program and craft a state health exchange, which is required by the 2010 federal health law and which state officials hope to use as the groundwork for their eventual move to a unique single-payer system.

Report: EHRs Still Need Work
Boston.com, 1/27/12
America may be a technology-driven nation, but the healthcare system’s conversion from paper to computerized records needs lots of work to get the bugs out, according to experts who spent months studying the issue.

Health Information Exchange: Getting Real
Health Data Management, 1/23/12
Consulting firm Beacon Partners has released a study on the state of HIE development, based on responses from 200 C-suite hospital execs.

Providers See Value of HIEs, But Most Lack Resources to Deploy Them
Healthcare IT News, 1/20/12
A new survey finds nearly 70 percent of respondents are currently planning for an HIE, despite their perceptions of high start-up costs and other governance issues.

Physician Owners More Likely to Find EHR Implementation Difficult
CMIO, 1/17/12
Physicians with an ownership stake in their practices were more likely than other physicians to think of EHR implementation as difficult or very difficult, according to the results of pre- and post-implementation surveys of physicians published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

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