Thursday, February 02
The mandated Jan. 1 conversion to a new set of electronic claims transaction standards is not going smoothly for office-based physicians, disrupting medical groups' cash flow and creating hassles, according to the head of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA)-American College of Medical Practice Executives (ACMPE).
Wednesday, February 01
The Utah State Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Jan. 31 approved legislation encouraging facilities to notify women of their breast density status. The legislation will be sent to the state Senate for consideration.
Monday, January 30
While IT has been leveraged by other industries to lower costs and increase efficiency, the promise of health IT to transform the healthcare industry has yet to be realized even though millions of dollars in funding has been directed toward promoting health IT adoption, according to a Bipartisan Policy Center report. Based on the findings of a task force headed by former senators Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), the report makes six recommendations for accelerating the use of health IT.
Friday, January 27
American Medical Association CEO James L. Madara, MD, wrote to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to urge him to take action against the implementation of ICD-10, informing him that the transition to ICD-10 as mandated by HIPAA would place a heavy burden on physicians without offering a direct benefit to individual patient care.
Friday, January 27
The White House announced the departure of Aneesh Chopra, assistant to the President and the federal government’s first chief technology officer (CTO).
Friday, January 20
The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation has announced that the government's cabinet views the realization of a new PALLAS nuclear reactor "postively," which is an "important condition for further progress on the PALLAS project," according to a statement from the Nuclear Research & Consultancy Group.
Thursday, January 19
The Government Accountability Office suggested that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should address the performance of the National Quality Forum, a Washington, D.C-based nonprofit organization contracted by the HHS to retool existing and develop new quality measures for use in the EHR incentive programs.
Monday, January 16
The Living Lab Structural Biology Center was formed through a cooperative research and development agreement between the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in Bethesda, Md., and FEI, in Hillsboro, Ore., a scientific instruments company, to help accelerate medical discoveries relating to global health challenges, such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. The lab will utilize near-atomic resolution microscopy and other structural biology technologies.
Friday, January 13
The Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) has released version 4.0 of the HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF) and an updated version of the CSF Assurance Program, which includes changes pertaining to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 800-53 revision 3.
Friday, January 13
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as allowed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, has deemed health insurance premium increases in five states “unreasonable.”
Wednesday, January 11
The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) Biomarkers Consortium has released biomarker data from studies intended to improve the ability to diagnose and measure the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
Tuesday, January 03
To comply with the Privacy Act of 1974, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) is developing a new record keeping system, the ONC Health IT Dashboard, to assess, improve and publicize the effectiveness of federal grants administered for health IT implementation, according to a notice published by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the
Federal Register on Dec. 22, 2011.
Monday, December 19
In a Dec. 15 letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., formally requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM), to reduce alarm fatigue and create best practice guidelines for vendors developing computerized decision support (CDS) systems.
Friday, December 16
The FDA has released draft guidance aimed at increasing the number of women participating in clinical trials for medical devices.
Tuesday, December 13
Reps. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., and Anna G. Eshoo, D-Calif., introduced legislation to the U.S. House of Representatives to amend the Social Security Act to assist Medicaid providers in being paid in an appropriate timeframe.
Monday, December 12
The smallest state in the U.S. is making big health IT moves. At its Dec. 8 Health IT Expo, the Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI) demonstrated a new data locator feature available on the statewide health information exchange (HIE), which RIQI operates.
Monday, December 12
Sens. Dan Coats and Kelly Ayotte, Republicans of Indiana and New Hampshire, respectively, have introduced a Senate version of the FDA Mission Reform Act, which was submitted to the House in October by Michigan Republican Mike Rogers.
Monday, December 12
Writing on the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s (ONC) blog,
Health IT Buzz, ONC Office of Standards and Interoperability Director Doug Fridsma, MD, stated that vendors should have little choice in deciding whether their products will adhere to national standards.
Friday, December 09
The Supreme Court has promised to review not only the issue of the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) on the individual mandate, but also of whether the PPACA’s Medicaid expansion violates the U.S. Constitution, wrote I. Glenn Cohen, JD, and James F. Blumstein, LLB, in a Dec. 7 perspective in the
New England Journal of Medicine.
Tuesday, December 06
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a final rule revising the regulations implementing medical loss ratio requirements for health insurance issuers under the Public Health Service Act.
