Mike Miliard

Family Medical Specialists in Florida is using care management technology to get paid under CPT code 99490, and the practice has already gotten buy-in from almost every eligible patient.

Defense Department is on track to rollout new electronic health records software in the Pacific Northwest later in 2016, and officials are calling the project a new beginning toward interoperable, safe and secure patient records.

The office is seeking feedback on what elements of information flow to measure, what data sources to include in interoperability work, and which metrics to best address MACRA requirements.

The U.S. Department of Defense says it will implement secure messaging tools as part of the deal to help doctors better coordinate care.

The popularity of health and wellness apps and devices is being fueled more by fitness or activity trackers than clinically-focused tools to help manage chronic conditions.

The cross-vendor data exchange using IHE and FHIR specifications showed off promising strides, while the industry is still working toward more widespread, real-world use cases.

The steady drumbeat of ransomware attacks continued this past week with new reports of two hospitals forced to fight off malware that froze IT systems. San Diego-based Alvarado Hospital Medical Center was hit by a "malware disruption" on March 31, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. A spokesperson for the 306-bed hospital confirmed the cyber attack, but would not say which systems had been affected. Alvarado was the third hospital owned by Prime Healthcare Services to be hit with malware in March; Chino Valley Medical Center and Desert Valley Hospital had also been affected by viruses but were able to recover systems with minimal disruption and without having to pay ransom. [Also: Looking to improve cybersecurity? Fire some CEOs] For its part, Alvarado said it had taken "extraordinary steps to protect and expeditiously find a resolution to this disruption," according to a statement provided to the Union-Tribune, but offered little other detail except to say patient and employee records had not been compromised. "The hospital remains fully operational, and no patients have been turned away. All significant clinical systems needed for operations are fully functional," said hospital spokesperson Laura Gilbert. "Our IT team took great efforts to protect and restore our systems and a ransom was never paid." Meanwhile, another hospital, this one in southeast Indiana, said it proactively powered down all its computer systems on Wednesday, after discovering that a single employee's file had been infected with Locky ransomware virus. King's Daughters' Health officials told Indiana's WSCH radio that patient data was secure and had not been compromised, and that it would restart its computer systems once it is safe to do so. In the meantime, KDH is using manual processes to continue operations. Linda Darnell, the hospital's senior director of IT, told the station that ongoing staff education about these evolving cyber threats had helped employees act quickly to contain the Locky virus once it was found. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

Clinical decision support misfires are commonplace but often hard to detect, according to a close examination of CDS systems at Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston published in the most recent Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

A Navy Seal-like analytics team at the University of Michigan Health System eliminated 10,000 hours of work and recovered $3 million in RAC money. Here’s how an experimental, try-and-fail approach helped them do it.

(SPONSORED) Connected health is beginning to take hold. More than 50 percent of hospitals now use three or more connected health technologies such as patient portals, patient education/engagement apps, remote patient monitoring and others, according to the 2016 HIMSS Connected Health Survey.