A new report finds that the number of large-scale health data breaches increased last year, while the number of patients affected by them decreased. The report from California-based IT security audit provider Redspin Inc., titled “Breach Report 2012, Protected Health Information,” looked at 538 breach incidents since August 2009, when the interim breach notification rule under the HITECH Act went into effect;
By Lawrence G | February 18, 2013 | Healthcare IT, Healthcare Laws and Regulations |
A February 7th letter signed by the chairwoman and the president/CEO of HIMSS expresses “strong support” for adopting ICD-10 by October 1, 2014. The letter from Willa Fields (Chair, HIMSS Board of Directors) and H. Stephen Lieber (President/CEO, HIMSS), submitted to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebellius and CMS Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner,
By Lawrence G | February 12, 2013 | Healthcare IT, Healthcare Laws and Regulations |
While hospitals and health systems project a decline in capital expenditure budgets, healthcare IT spending seems to be growing, according to a new survey. Premier’s latest Economic Outlook, which is based on a survey of 617 healthcare executives, shows that 41% of the respondents project their capital spending to increase compared with last year.
By Lawrence G | December 31, 2012 | Electronic Medical Records News, Healthcare IT |
The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services has awarded a $15 billion contract for the creation of a virtual data center and consolidation of its huge datasets. CMS’ decentralized status makes interoperability difficult at best within the current network of over eighty data centers and data stores, comprising 400 terabytes of Medicare and Medicaid data.
By Lawrence G | November 26, 2012 | Healthcare IT |
The Department of Health and Human Services has extended the deadline for states to submit detailed applications for their own Health Information Exchanges. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent letters to all state governors last week advising them of the new December 14, 2012 deadline.
The Affordable Care Act mandates that the states must have HIEs (essentially online marketplaces for health insurance shopping) in place by January 2014.
By Lawrence G | November 13, 2012 | Healthcare IT, Healthcare Laws and Regulations |
A study by Weil Cornell Medical College researchers found that using Electronic Health Records systems results in significantly higher care quality scores than using paper records for certain health conditions. The study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, analyzed care quality data regarding over 74,000 patients from 262 physicians using paper records and 204 physicians using EHRs in 2008.
By Lawrence G | October 16, 2012 | Electronic Medical Records News, Healthcare IT |
San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. has announced plans to acquire MED3000, a developer of physician group management, billing, and revenue cycle tools based in Pittsburgh. This comes a week after McKesson announced that it had entered into an agreement to purchase MedVentive, a data analytics firm and provider of population and risk management tools for the healthcare industry.
By Lawrence G | October 2, 2012 | Electronic Medical Records News, Healthcare IT, Medical Billing Software |
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced it will collect $1.5 million from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary to settle HIPAA violation allegations. The HHS’ Office of Civil Rights started an investigation into the MEEI and its affiliated physician group Massachusetts Eye and Ear Associates in February 2010, after an unencrypted laptop computer was reported stolen.
By Lawrence G | September 20, 2012 | Healthcare IT, Healthcare Laws and Regulations |
A new Twitter app called MappyHealth has been developed to track diseases and can be used to identify health issues and possible outbreaks in a community. Developed in response to the NowTrending2012 application challenge sponsored by the HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), MappyHealth is intended to help make social media data more accessible to local health departments.
By Lawrence G | September 17, 2012 | Electronic Medical Records News, Healthcare IT |
In August, hackers corrupted the Web portal for Utah’s health insurance exchange and rendered the site inoperable for about ten days. The attack resulted in garbled words, blurry headlines, and some inaccessible Web pages on the site.
The online marketplace, where employers and employees can shop for health insurance policies, does have a database where personal and medical information is entered when requesting price quotes;
By Lawrence G | September 14, 2012 | Healthcare IT |
