Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell today announced the appointment of Melissa Stafford Jones as the new Region IX Regional Director. "I am delighted to welcome Melissa Stafford Jones to our team of regional directors at HHS. Melissa is a devoted public servant, and I look forward to working with her to help the people of Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada and the U.S. Pacific territories secure the building blocks of healthy, productive lives,” said Secretary Burwell
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Practice Fusion Signs Care Coordination Deals with 2 Clinically Integrated Networks
Practice Fusion, a cloud-based EHR platform today announced agreements with two provider networks to support their care coordination and accountable care initiatives. Oakland Physician Network Services and Citrus Valley Health Partners will offer Practice Fusion’s EHR to their physicians and healthcare providers, who can use the EHR to access data that can help them better understand the health of their patients. This means that a physician treating a diabetes patient can get information that
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Hospital CFO Faces 5 Years for $800k Meaningful Use Fraud
Joe White, the former CFO of Texas-based Shelby Regional Medical Center has pleaded guilty to meaningful use fraud and aggravated identity. White falsely attested to meaningful use by using another person’s name and information without that individual’s consent or authorization. The false attestation resulted in CMS paying Shelby Regional $785,655 in January 2013. Medicaid and Medicare EHR incentive programs paid hospitals operated Dr. Mahmood, including Shelby Regional $16,794,462.66 for fiscal
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EHR/HIE Interoperability Workgroup Forms Partnership with HIMSS, IHE USA
HIMSS, IHE USA and the EHR/HIE Interoperability Workgroup announce plan to streamline and strengthen how electronic health records and health information exchanges share patient data. Health information technology customers expect products to work efficiently and consistently - whether it’s a Wi-Fi connection for a computer or the ability to securely share health data across computer systems, states or regions. Building on its current effort to connect electronic health records (EHRs)
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HITLAB Announces 5 HITLAB World Cup Finalists for 2014
HITLAB a healthcare innovation and teaching lab, is pleased to invite the following teams to compete at the live HITLAB World Cup finals during its inaugural HITLAB Innovators Summit on December 1st at Columbia University's Low Library. 50 teams from India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uzbekistan submitted truly innovative solutions to address global health issues. Each entry was carefully reviewed for its potential impact on
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Meaningful Use Audits Could Return $33M in Incentive Payments
Meaningful Use audits could recover $33M in EHR incentives, according to data from the HHS published in a recent Health Security Solutions infographic below. Although the precise reason for failure is not included in the dataset, there is reason to believe from strong anecdotal evidence that failure to conduct an adequate risk analysis is the most common reason entities fail their MU audits.
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AMA Policy Calls for Removal of Meaningful Use Penalties
The American Medical Association (AMA) approved a new policy urging the calling for Meaningful Use penalties to be halted. The AMA has joined other healthcare leaders and policymakers in urging CMS to to add more flexibility to the Meaningful Use program and shorten the reporting period to help physicians avoid penalties. According to new attestation numbers, only 2 percent of physicians have successfully demonstrated MU Stage 2 requirements. "The AMA has been calling for policymakers to
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3 Finalists Announced in Chicago Open Innovation Challenge
The American Heart Association today announced the top three finalists for the inaugural Chicago Open Innovation Challenge focused on discussing innovative ways to accelerate science and to better understand how to treat heart disease and stroke. Finalists were chosen after raising more than $33k in crowdfunding on MedStartr from patients, doctors, nurses, hospital leaders, professors, and concerned citizens. The three finalists will present their projects in person and compete for grants
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TigerText Integrates With MobileIron to Enhance Secure Messaging
Secure messaging provider TigerText today announced an integration partnership with mobile device management provider,MobileIron. As part of MobileIron's AppConnect Ecosystem, IT departments can now instantly push the TigerText app to thousands of employees' devices and manage access using MobileIron's console, while end users can start securely texting in just a few easy steps. With hundreds of health systems using MobileIron to manage their employee's mobile apps and services, this
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Health IT in India: Providers Expected to Spend $1.1B in 2014
Healthcare providers are expected to spend $1.1 billion dollars on health IT products and services in India, a five percent increase over 2013, according to Gartner. The report forecast includes health IT products and services spending by healthcare providers (includes hospitals and hospital systems, as well as ambulatory service and physicians' practices) on internal services, software, IT services, data center, devices and telecom services. Key Findings - IT Services, which includes
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