Editor's Note: D'Arcy Gue is one of the co-founders of Phoenix Health Systems, a healthcare IT consulting and outsourcing firm. In April 2015, Phoenix welcomed a merger with Medsphere Systems Corporation and now serves as the vice president of industry relations for Phoenix Health Systems, the health IT services division of Medsphere.
Acute care hospitals have demonstrated what happens when you pay people—when you incentivize them—to do something.
Just 9.4 percent of
Read More
Rebooting Meaningful Use: Is It Accomplishing Its Mission?
Editor's Note: Dr. Reid Coleman is the Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) for evidence-based medicine at Nuance.
Meaningful Use is an important set of criteria designed to improve quality and safety, but is it accomplishing its mission?
The proposed rules for Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 3 were just released by both CMS and the ONC. Many writers have commented on these rules, and this blog post is not a commentary about the rules. As always, I recommend readers go to John
Read More
Meaningful Use Stage 3: 8 Key Questions for Physicians
This post is sponsored by Revenue XL
By now, most physicians know about Meaningful Use (MU)—the government program that provides incentive payments to eligible providers that meet specific criteria when implementing certified electronic health records (EHR). Providers currently meet either Stage 1 or Stage 2 criteria, depending on their implementation timeline.
However, on March 20, 2015, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a notice of proposed rulemaking for Stage
Read More
Want a Connected Healthcare System? You Are the Missing Key
Editor's Note: John H. Hammergren is chairman, president and chief executive officer of McKesson Corporation.
How often do we visit the doctor’s office and think, “This again?” when handed a long medical form to fill out? Don’t we all wonder why our medical information can’t be automatically transferred from our primary care physician to the specialist? Or to the hospital or outpatient surgery center?
The answer is this: we don’t currently have a national network of connectivity that
Read More
Women’s Health Leader Dismayed by Proposed Changes to Meaningful Use Criteria
Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families issues statement in response to the recently proposed modification to meaningful use for 2015 to 2017, released by CMS on Friday.
“The proposed modification to meaningful use for 2015 to 2017, released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Friday, is a startling and unwelcome departure from the administration’s commitment to health care transformation that produces higher value, more patient-
Read More
The Kabuki Dance Of “Blocking Data” In Healthcare
The lack of data interoperability in healthcare continues to plague and haunt the entire industry. Much of the challenge falls squarely in the realm of Electronic Health Record (EHR) software, but EHR software is by no means the only category where this challenge is directly affecting patient lives. I ‒ along with countless others ‒ have written extensively about this topic. Last year I did a 5‒part series on just "interoperability" which I published on Forbes. One piece highlighted the
Read More
Interoperability is the Core of Successful Mobile Healthcare
Editor's Note: Alan Portela is the CEO of AirStrip and has more than 25 years of experience in bringing groundbreaking medical technology solutions to market.
With the ONC’s recent release of their 10-year interoperability vision, it might seem like the industry is starting to make things easier for clinicians. In reality, 2015 is starting off to be one of the worst times ever to be a physician. Interoperability is a critical issue to support a transition from fee-for-service to value-based
Read More
Mobile Health Apps: If You Build Them, Will They Come?
Editor's Note: Deborah Hernandez is the Director of Client Services at Communispace Health
It’s hard to find a pharma or medical device company these days that doesn’t have at least one mobile app in development. And now that, as of February 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued guidance on which apps need to be regulated and which ones don’t, it will be interesting to see if this almost exponential development trend continues.
In its guidelines, FDA outlined which
Read More
10 Ways Remote Patient Monitoring Saves Money
Founder and CEO, Robert Herzog of eCaring describes how patients and home aides using remote patient monitoring can save up to $4000 per year in reduced ER visits and readmissions.
While much has been made of the myriad devices and wearables, including the much anticipated Apple iWatch in April, coming to market in 2015, to have a real impact on the cost of health care in the US will require getting access to the Internet, and practical tools to utilize it, for many of the 9 million
Read More
Do All Physicians Oppose the Transition to ICD-10?
Editor's Note: The Coalition for ICD-10 is a broad-based healthcare industry advocacy group — hospitals, health plans, hospital and physician office coding experts, vendors, and the health information technology (HIT) community— united in support of the U.S. adoption of the ICD-10 coding standard.
According to French abstract artist Robert Delaunay, “Our understanding is correlative to our perception.” Many in the healthcare community may have the perception that all physicians oppose the
Read More
