"ONC" entries

Where are the chances for change in health care – top-down or bottom-up?

Impressions from Strata Rx bolster different philosophies

Everyone seems to agree that health care is the next big industry waiting to be disrupted. But who will force that change on a massive system full of conservative players? Three possibilities present themselves:

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Patients matter most, but technology matters a lot

Report from the Health Data Forum

Computing practices that used to be religated to experimental outposts are now taking up residence at the center of the health care field. From natural language processing to machine learning to predictive modeling, you see people promising at the health data forum (Health Datapalooza IV) to do it in production environments.

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Challenge to Meaningful Use by House leaders highlights difficulty of asking incumbents to be innovators

Working too closely with an industry can undercut innovation

Four leading members of the House Ways and Means Committee tore away last Thursday at the polite, cautious, incremental approach that the Department of Health and Human Service has been taking toward key goals of HITECH act that was meant to drag health care into the 21st century.

Specifically, the House leaders signaled their disappointment at the Stage 2 Meaningful Use rules, promulgated last August by the Office of the National Coordinator and the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The Congressmen isolate certain rules that appear to be less stringent than Stage 1, point out that the key goals of interoperability and data exchange are weak, and most notably ask for a total stop to payments made to health care providers under Meaningful Use.

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Five elements of reform that health providers would rather not hear about

Data as a platform, patient control, and partnerships are key

The quantum leap we need in patient care requires a complete overhaul of record-keeping and health IT. Leaders of the health care field know this and have been urging the changes on health care providers for years, but the providers are having trouble accepting the changes for several reasons.

What’s holding them back? Change certainly costs money, but the industry is already groaning its way through enormous paradigm shifts to meet current financial and regulatory climate, so the money might as well be directed to things that work. Training staff to handle patients differently is also difficult, but the staff on the floor of these institutions are experiencing burn-out and can be inspired by a new direction. The fundamental resistance seems to be expectations by health providers and their vendors about the control they need to conduct their business profitably.

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How the federal government helps health care standards evolve

Dr. Lauren Thompson discusses the Federal Health Architecture.

In this interview, Federal Health Architecture director Dr. Lauren Thompson discusses the state of health information exchange.

Data in use from public health to personal fitness

HHS leadership should cause other organizations to open data.

Releasing public data can't fix the health care system by itself, but it provides tools as well as a model for data sharing.

Health reform leaders focus on patient access to records as key barrier

A convocation of trend-setters and organizational leaders in U.S. health care advised two government organizations driving health reform–the Office of the National Coordinator at the Dept. of Health and Human Services, and the Dept. of Veteran Affairs–how to push forward one of their top goals, patient engagement.

Report from HIMSS 12: wrap-up of the largest health IT conference

Recalcitrant instincts that depressed me and progressive suggestions that restored me. Details DICOM, Watson, and other interesting projects.

Report from HIMSS 2012: toward interoperability and openness

Two key pillars of the Stage 2 announcement are requirements to use the Direct for data exchange and HL7's consolidated CDA for the format.

Why geeks should care about meaningful use and ACOs

How healthcare data reforms and incentive reforms are connected.

Clinical people tend to focus on meaningful use incentives as "how do I get paid to install an EHR." But geeks can see the bottom line: healthcare reform is pointless unless we get the measurement issue right.