Health insurance giant Aetna announced during their investor's conference this past Thursday that it has acquired mhealth startup Healthagen, the developer of mobile app iTriage for an undisclosed price. Aetna’s Chairmen, CEO, and President Mark Bertolini told investors “About a month and a half ago we bought at little company called iTriage…the fastest growing consumer application in healthcare today.” iTriage lets users check symptoms, find doctors, make appointments, and do medical shopping.
Read More
2011 Annual Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Professional Services
KLAS has released their annual 2011 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Professional Services report. The report provides a summary of the KLAS performance ratings gathered over the past 12 months (18 months for select services) for healthcare IT software and services vendors in 111 market segments based on the ratings from over 18,000 interviews with healthcare providers.
Epic continues to dominate the marketplace as the top ranked overall software vendor scoring 87.1 out of 100. For
Read More
Healthcare Reform’s Impact: Staff and Service Cuts Expected
The newest HealthLeaders Media Intelligence Report, Reform’s Impact: Staff and Service Cuts Expected, reveals that only 40% of healthcare senior executives who completed the survey believe the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will result in better access to healthcare services, despite the fact that many pundits insists that access will be the only element of healthcare that PPACA will improve. Fully 72% believe the law will lead to increased utilization of health services.
The 2011
Read More
Interactive: A Status Report on Health Information Technology in the States
This map above provides a status report on where states stand in distributing Medicaid incentive payments for adoption of health information technology based on the latest data that was provided by CMS October 2011.
The 2009 economic stimulus law signed by President Barack Obama contained $27 billion in federal funds for eligible health providers who install electronic health records and follow government “meaningful use” guidelines to improve patient care. This portion of the law — known as
Read More
5 Ways Healthcare Organizations Can Reduce Security Breaches
5 ways healthcare organizations can reduce occurrences of security breaches to combat the growing epidemic of security breaches in healthcare.
Read More
Video: 2011 mHealth Summit Day One Highlights
The 2011 mHealth Summit in Washington D.C. kicked off with an opening keynote from Eric J. Topol, MD, WWHI and Kathleen Sebelius, US Dept of Health & Human Services. In her key note, Sebellius stated, "in the iTunes store alone, there are nearly 12,000 apps related to health." The video below provides some key highlights of Kathleen Sebelius discussing mHealth and its role in the larger landscape of national healthcare.
300 exhibitors including tech giants and startups lined the
Read More
Video: How to Navigate Medicare Reimbursement
The U.S. population is aging, which means more physicians will be treating Medicare and Medicaid patients in the years to come. The Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services is mandating that physicians implement Electronic Medical Records to serve these patients more effectively and efficiently, and is offering reimbursements in the thousands for investment in technology. But the money is only available if doctors meet certain meaningful use requirements.
Intel Health recently spoke with Dr.
Read More
Stage 2 of Meaningful Use Delayed to 2014
Today, the Department of Health and Human Services has moved the start date for Stage 2 of the electronic health records meaningful use program from 2013 to 2014. The department released the following statement regarding their decision:
"Input from the vendor community and the provider community makes clear that the current schedule for compliance with stage 2 meaningful use objectives in 2013 poses a nearly insurmountable timing challenge for those who attest to meaningful use in 2011. With
Read More
Guest Post: 5010 Discretionary Period
This guest post was provided by Brien Keller, Senior Manager of Santa Rosa Consulting, Inc.:
The recently announced 90-Day Period of Enforcement Discretion for the HIPAA transaction standards (ASC X12 Version 5010, NCPDP Telecom D.0, and NCPDP Medicaid Subrogation 3.0) is precisely as it is described…a Period of Enforcement Discretion. It is not a delay in the compliance deadline, nor is it an extension on the continued use of today’s HIPAA transactions standards.
There are three key
Read More
Xerox’s ACS Buys The Breakaway Group
ACS, a Xerox company has announced that it has acquired the software training company The Breakaway Group, adding a new cloud based service that will accelerate their adoption of Electronic Medical Records to help healthcare providers prepare for ICD-10 compliance and maximize their meaningful use funding.
Denver-based firm's technology, PromisePoint, allows caregivers to practice using an EMR just as they would in the hospital or doctor's office. By simulating their environment, they get
Read More
