Quality and Safety
With hospitals "raising the bar" to meet meaningful use requirements, new positions are being created within IT departments that have a focus on quality and data, says one consultant.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is seeking comments on approaches that will enable providers and other healthcare entities to obtain and manage digital certificates that are cross-certified with the Federal Bridge.
Patients that were treated for Hepatitis C in local communities via telehealth technology did as well as patients treated at a university-based medical center, results of a new study funded by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality show.
Leveraging efficiencies of the electronic health record, four independent physician practices have earned the position of finalist for the 2011 HIMSS Ambulatory Care Davies Award of Excellence.
A new personal health record platform set to launch this summer aims to give parents anytime, anywhere access to a comprehensive view of their children's health records.
Data breaches have become the new healthcare "epidemic," says one expert.
Using social media as a physician isn't about filling your office with new patients, as one expert will tell you, but is more about the "moral obligation" that physicians have to provide their patients with accurate health information.
Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced a $241 million settlement on Friday – the largest recovery in the history of California's False Claims Act – with Quest Diagnostics, the state's biggest provider of medical laboratory testing, to recover illegal overcharges to the state's medical program for the poor.
Keeping its "eye on the prize, but feet on the ground," the advisory panel to the HIT Policy Steering Committee recently took a step closer to pushing back Stage 2 of meaningful use. Such a delay, the committee said, would grant providers more time to incorporate other deadline-driven health IT projects – most notable, the massive ICD-10 conversion – into their agendas.
While it is "critical that doctors, who have the best healthcare information to share, be part of the online healthcare conversation," says one expert, "there are definite precautions that should be taken to lessen the risk of social media missteps."