In comments submitted to the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology on 4/16, the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) urged lawmakers to view broadband access as a social determinant of health, warranting a more nuanced approach to managing Internet traffic through tiered pricing, known as paid prioritization. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has finalized a rule, effective April 23, 2018, known as the Restoring Internet Freedom Order,
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Health IT | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Why The VA Should Stick with VistA EHR
At the end of last month, President Trump dismissed VA Secretary David Shulkin, MD, following weeks of speculation that he would do just that. In Shulkin’s place, Trump nominated his personal White House physician, Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, a physician who’s never managed a large healthcare organization.Shulkin’s dismissal left unsigned the contract with Cerner to replace the VA’s venerable VistA healthcare IT platform. It’s not that the Cerner deal is really threatened without Shulkin—VA
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GE Healthcare IT Sell-Off: The First Cut Is The Deepest?
As news broke of the first GE Healthcare business unit to be sold, some may have been underwhelmed both by the scale and symbolism of this deal. However, this first announcement does provide some useful indicators for what to expect from the future of GE Healthcare with John Flannery at the helm.“I Think I See the Light”Firstly, and most positively, the fact that GE has made a move to trim its healthcare portfolio should be applauded. We wrote about this in our review of GE and its major peers
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BirdEye Integrates DrChrono EHR to Enable Practices to Auto-Send Reviews
Leading patient experience platform BirdEye today announced its partnership with DrChrono, the company enabling the medical practice of the future. With this new integration, DrChrono’s medical practice customers will be able to automatically send review requests to patients after an appointment.The healthcare industry is becoming increasingly competitive. According to Becker’s Hospital Review, nearly 80 percent of people across demographics now rely on online reviews and physician ratings when
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Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare – Do the Benefits Outweigh the Challenges?
As healthcare professionals, it seems we can't escape the buzz and hype of artificial intelligence (AI) today. However, unlike other industries, healthcare’s adoption of AI is still in its infancy, in part, due to many providers still updating their tools and processes for the digital age. According to an Accenture analysis, growth in the AI health market is expected to reach $6.6 billion by 2021 and key clinical health AI applications can potentially create $150 billion in annual savings for
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Providers Name Optimizing IT/EHR Performance as Top Challenge in 2018
With true implementation beyond a system go live, optimizing IT/EHR performance (32 percent) and overcoming IT staff shortages (31 percent) were cited almost equally as the most significant challenges in 2018, according to the sixth annual Health IT Industry Outlook Survey conducted by Stoltenberg Consulting Inc. The report reveals 40 percent of health IT leaders rated measuring improvement in patient care quality as the top business objective in 2018, followed by identifying areas of cost
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Report: Gender and Racial Disparities Still Prevalent in Physician Compensation
Gender and racial pay gaps are still prevalent for physician compensation even as overall physician compensation overall increased, according to the results of the 2018 Medscape Physician Compensation Report. Ther report reveals physician salaries average $299,999 in this year’s report, up from $294,000 in 2017; specialists earn about $100,000 more than primary care physicians ($329,000 versus $223,000), and plastic surgeons ranked highest in salary at $501,000 -- outpacing orthopedists
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How Phoenix Children’s Hospital Saved $1M Annually Eliminating Transcription in Ambulatory Clinics
Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s outpatient clinics has increased clinician productivity, enhanced the quality of documentation, and facilitated the delivery of better clinical information at the point of care through the implementation of Medicomp Systems' Quippe Clinical Documentation solution. In addition, Phoenix Children’s has virtually eliminated transcription in its ambulatory clinics, saving the organization over $1 million dollars annually on transcription costs.A strong partnership
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DrFirst Launches New York Community-wide Care Collaboration Network
DrFirst, the nation’s leading provider of e-prescribing and medication management solutions, has launched a new service, “Connected Care Communities,” that helps provider organizations establish secure, real-time care collaboration networks that can include any or all healthcare providers in a given community, as well as patients.Under agreement with each lead provider organization, the software is currently available at no cost to community-based healthcare providers surrounding the lead
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Physician Survey Reveals Lack of Patient History Data Impedes Care Coordination
Majority of physicians cannot electronically access information about other care their patients, according to the new Surescripts report Physician Perspectives on Access to Patient Data. The 15-minute web-based survey was administered by ORC International to 300 qualifying primary care physicians between October 5 and October 17, 2017. To qualify for the survey, physicians had to have been in practice for at least five years, spend at least 50 percent of their time providing direct patient care
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