Health IT can play an important role in ensuring the optimal use of pharmaceuticals and improving patient safety in an accountable care organization (ACO), according to a new study by the Marshfield Clinic and the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) in the April 2015 issue of the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy (JMCP). The study, “Best Practices: An Electronic Drug Alert Program to Improve Patient Safety in an Accountable Care Environment,” describes Marshfield
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Healthentic Earns Intel-GE Validation for Health Analytics
Healthentic, an analytics company that easily identifies health savings for employers has earned validation from Intel-GE Care Innovations and the Validation Institute. The validation makes Healthentic the first and only company to be validated in the health analytics category by the CI Validation Institute.
Healthentic’s database holds de-identified claims information on the lives of almost 40 million individuals, and its unique data analytics provides employers with valuable
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HBMA, AHIMA Establish Partnership To Share Educational Benefits
The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the Healthcare Billing and Management Association (HBMA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will allow the associations to collaborate and share educational benefits with their members.
The agreement increases the amount of resources available to members of each association and provides opportunities for collaboration on best practices and procedures to ensure the quality of health information. “Both AHIMA and
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Apple, IBM Release 4 iOS Enterprise Healthcare Apps
Apple and IBM's MobileFirst for iOS initiative has added four new enterprise healthcare apps through the iOS platform for iPhone and iPad. The IBM MobileFirst for iOS apps is designed to deliver unprecedented support that allows hospitals and home-based healthcare workers to coordinate patient care and reduce costs for everyone. IBM plans to provide more details about these four healthcare enterprise apps at the upcoming HIMSS15 conference later this month, Techcrunch reports.
Designed to
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Medsphere System, Phoenix Health Systems Merge Together
Medsphere Systems Corporation and Phoenix Health Systems today announced the merger of the two companies, effectively adding Phoenix’s comprehensive and diverse information technology (IT) expertise to Medsphere’s existing focus on VA VistA and VistA-derived systems. Moving forward, Phoenix Health Systems will retain its name and operate as a division of Medsphere; the expanded company will now offer a broader menu of IT services, including hosting and cloud-based interoperability,
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Vocera Expands Clinical Integration with Epic’s EHR System
Vocera Communications, Inc., a provider of intelligent, real-time communication and collaboration solutions for mission-critical mobile environments, announced a two-way clinical integration with Epic’s EHR system, furthering the company’s commitment to connectivity across the continuum of care. The enhanced functionality enables interactive communication between EHR systems and the Vocera Communication System.
This will be the first of several two-way clinical integrations with EHRs, and
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Xerox, SyTrue Partner to Transform Clinical Documentation At The Point of Care
To meet the growing demand for greater transparency, simplicity, and value, Xerox has chosen SyTrue’s Clinical Natural Language Processing (NLP) and medical terminology platform in the development of Midas+ Advanced Analytics capabilities at Xerox. The combined solution will leverage NLP and interoperability solutions to transform clinical documentation and other types of data in the electronic medical record (EMR) into standard diagnosis and procedure codes in real-time; which may then be used
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Consumer Partnership for eHealth Praises ONC’s Draft Interoperability Roadmap
In comments filed on Tuesday, the nation’s top consumer advocates praised the Office of the National Coordinator’s (ONC’s) draft Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap for advancing full and equal interoperability, not just among health care providers but also between providers and patients and their family caregivers. The Consumer Partnership for eHealth (CPeH), a group of more than 50 leading consumer, patient and labor organizations, filed the comments in advance of the April 3
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Report: Regulatory Action May Strengthen Telehealth Adoption
On Tuesday, Price Waterhouse Cooper's Health Research Institute (HRI) released an industry brief on how recent regulatory action may be the catalyst to spur the fledgling telehealth market. In October 2014, the federal government expanded Medicare reimbursement for telehealth services, including remote chronic care management and an addition of seven new covered procedure codes for telehealth, including annual wellness visits, psychotherapy and prolonged services in the office.
Providers are
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HHS Awards BioCyst $12M for Experimental Ebola Drug Development
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) has awarded $12 million to Durham, NC-based BioCryst Pharmaceuticals for experimental Ebola drug development. The development also includes preparing for large-scale manufacturing of the drug and conducting related studies.
The initial work will be undertaken over the next 18 months with support from ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority
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