Healthcare data security has been a growing concern for CIOs for the last year or so, as hackers are increasingly targeting health information. Now, with a global pandemic forcing a shift to telemedicine and remote work, and new rules from the ONC and CMS introducing more regulatory burden, healthcare CIOs have more to manage than ever. Fortunately, it is possible to roll out new capabilities while simultaneously improving cybersecurity by following these three rules:
Rule 1: Think Like an
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ONC
Despite COVID-19: Providers Should Not Lose Sight of MIPS Compliance
When 2020 began, no one anticipated that complying with the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)—the flagship payment model of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Payment Program (QPP)—would look so different halfway through the year. Like many other things, the COVID-19 crisis has delayed, diverted, or derailed many organizations’ reporting efforts and capabilities. Lower procedure volumes, new remote work scenarios, and shifting priorities have taken attention
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5 Steps for Interoperability Excellence for Healthcare Providers
As if 2020 couldn’t be any more challenging for healthcare providers, new federal rules on interoperability and patient access, granting patients direct access to their healthcare data, begin taking effect in 2021 and will continue into 2022. These rules, while ultimately beneficial to patients, bring an additional level of operational complexity to many revenue-stressed healthcare organizations.
If anything, the 2020 pandemic has illustrated the vast potential of interoperability. For
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COTA Lands $34M to Drive Innovation in Oncology Using Real-World Data
What You Should Know:
- COTA, Inc., a healthcare technology company that uses
real-world data to bring clarity to cancer care, has secured $34M in funding.
- Access to over one million patient data records and additional
funding support enhanced real-world data and analytics services in oncology.
COTA, Inc., a Boston, MA-based healthcare technology company that uses real-world data to bring clarity to cancer care, today announced it has raised $34 million in Series D funding led by
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HHS Extends Compliance Dates for Information Blocking Requirements
What You Should Know:
- HHS released an interim final rule to extend compliance dates and timeframes to meet information blocking beyond those identified in April 21, 2020, enforcement discretion announcement and establishes new future applicability dates for information blocking provisions.
- The interim final rule also adopts updated standards
and makes technical corrections and clarifications to the ONC Cures Act Final
Rule.
Today the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services’
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How Low-Code Solutions Reduce Headaches for Healthcare CIOs
Twenty years ago, technology consultants started advising CIOs to build less. That’s when the movement towards Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) began.
Today, there are many shops, especially those in small and medium-sized organizations, with few programmers who build new applications from scratch.
Yes, they have programmers who configure, script, and integrate various applications but very little is built. For the provider community, we have a habit of either sourcing our
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HHS Launches Initiative to Measure Office-Based Physician Use and Burdens of Health IT
What You Should Know:
- HHS launches an initiative to measure how office-based
physicians use health IT, including key measures on interoperability and
burden.
- ONC awards a three-year cooperative agreement to the American Board of Family Medicine to develop key measures related to health IT use and the interoperability of health information, etc.
Today, the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched an initiative to
measure health
information technology (health
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HHS Announces Investments for STAR HIE Program to Support State and Local Public Health Agencies
What You Should Know:
- HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will award up to five 5 cooperative
agreements under the Strengthening
the Technical Advancement and Readiness of Public Health Agencies via Health Information Exchange
(STAR HIE) Program.
The U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) today issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity to expand and
accelerate innovative
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HHS Taps Fenway Health as Pilot Site for Precision Medicine Project
What You Should Know:
- Fenway
Health has been selected as the pilot site to participate in the Advancing
Standards for Precision Medicine (ASPM) project.
- The ASPM project
is focused on how healthcare providers can systematically identify the
socio-economic factors that may impact the health of patients in order to
provide more individualized care that reflects patients’ needs.
Fenway Health, a
Boston, MA-based Federally Qualified Community Health Center (FQCHC)
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ONC, The Sequoia Project Continue RCE Efforts to Support Nationwide HIE
The Sequoia Project, selected by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) as the Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) to support the implementation of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), today celebrated program achievements and ONC’s announcement of the availability of approximately $1.1M of funding to continue the public-private engagement for a second year.Progress to DateIn 2019, ONC chose non-profit The Sequoia Project, to be the RCE following a
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