ONC National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo is stepping down to become the acting assistant secretary of health to focus on the Ebola response. The position oversees the surgeon's general office playing a heavy role in tackling public health issues.
“As the acting assistant secretary for health, Karen's experience as a practicing physician, a senior member of the HHS team, and as a nationally recognized leader in public health, will be invaluable to the department and me. She will
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Health IT | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
HHS Launches $840M Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative
The Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced that it will invest $840 million over the next four years in a new initiative to help 150,000 clinicians access information and improve health outcomes. Through the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, the HHS will fund successful applicants who work directly with medical providers to rethink and redesign their practices, moving from systems driven by quantity of care to ones focused on patients’ health outcomes, and coordinated health
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NCCN Chemotherapy Orders to Integrate with Epic’s EHR
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has announced it is working with Epic to integrate the NCCN Chemotherapy Order Templates (NCCN Templates) into Epic's Beacon Oncology Information System as electronic chemotherapy protocols for use by health care providers. The Epic integration provides physicians with access to evidence-based treatment protocols based on the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines). NCCN Templates include:
- chemotherapy and
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AirStrip and IBM Partner to Develop Predictive Analytics Solution
AirStrip and IBM today announced that AirStrip will work to develop a mobile monitoring solution to help clinicians predict declining health in acute and critically ill patients. IBM will provide the streaming analytics technology which allows AirStrip’s solution to use data from numerous data sources in real time.
The new solution, being co-developed by AirStrip with the University of Michigan (U-M) Center for Integrative Research in Critical Care, will bring together data from electronic
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Over 11k Expected to Attend Cerner Health Conference 2014
More than 11,000 health care industry leaders, practitioners and Cerner associates are planning to attend the 29th annual Cerner Health Conference (CHC) in Kansas City, MO. Clients, partners and associates from more than 25 countries are expected to collaborate with peers, share best practices and gain hands-on experience with innovative health care solutions and services. The conference begins on Sunday, Nov. 2 and runs through Wednesday, Nov. 5 at the Kansas City Convention Center.
This
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Nuance Embeds Speech Solution into eClinicalWorks Mobile EHR
Nuance today announced it has partnered with eClinicalWorks to embed Nuance cloud-based medical speech recognition technology into eClinicalTouch for the iPad and eClinicalMobile for iOS and Android, enabling clinicians working in outpatient settings to enter patient notes into the Electronic Health Record (EHR) using tablets and smartphones through a fully connected and consistent experience.
“This is a major win for clinicians practicing in the ambulatory setting using our Dragon Medical
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Ebola Pushing EHRs in New Direction
Dr. Donald Voltz discusses how infectious diseases such as Ebola, enterovirus D68, and flu is pushing EHRs into the job of a central communications hub.
The recent spate of infectious diseases identified in the US-whether Ebola, enterovirus D68 or just the beginning of the plain old flu season, healthcare has become increasing complex. It involves more players in terms of patients, providers, administration, insurance , governmental bodies and now CDC screeners at airports. This leaves
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5 Must-Track Metrics for Physician Practice Profitability
The late, legendary management expert Peter Drucker once famously said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
In today’s challenging and rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, measurement is more important than ever. However, it can be easy to fall prey to “data for the sake of data” and lose the most meaningful metrics in a sea of statistics. When it comes to revenue cycle management— all of the activities that happen before, during and after a patient’s visit that affect a
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ONC Unveils Early Strategic Elements of Interoperability Roadmap
On Wednesday, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) held the first joint meeting of the Health Information Technology Policy and Standards Committees to discuss future of interoperability in healthcare. During the meeting, the ONC presented some of the early strategic elements of the draft interoperability roadmap proposing key near-term actions and milestones for many of the 3, 6, and 10 year goals. The elements are structured around five critical
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The Critical Role of Health IT in the Ebola Outbreak
A recent article by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker describes the level of preparedness at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, as it encountered the first case of Ebola to be diagnosed in the U.S. The emergency department was as prepared as anyplace, and had rehearsed the scenarios, and reviewed the CDC checklist for Ebola preparedness. They had asked about fever in people who had traveled from the region of West Africa beset by Ebola, per the protocol. In fact, the triage nurse in the
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