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Halamka on MU3 Regs: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
On Friday March 20, CMS released the Electronic Health Record Incentive Program-Stage 3 and ONC released the 2015 Edition Health Information Technology (Health IT) Certification Criteria, 2015 Edition Base Electronic Health Record (EHR) Definition, and ONC Health IT Certification Program Modifications. Perhaps the most important statement in the entire 700+ pages is the following from the CMS rule: "Stage 3 of meaningful use is expected to be the final stage and would incorporate portions of the prior stages into its requirements."
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The Open Government Paradox
In the quarter century since its creation, the Web has been a printing press and broadcast studio for millions of people whose voices would otherwise have been heard by only a few close friends. It opened a whole new world of sharing, and today nearly three-quarters of all Americans say digital technologies have improved their ability to share their ideas and creations with others, according to a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center. That means most of us are opening to the public minute details of our lives—where we eat, who we love, and how we spend money—all out in the open for others to see...
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On the Need for Human-Centered Design in EHRs
Health information technology (HIT) has become the hottest political issue in Washington. The healthcare industry in the United States is facing a crisis as medical facilities have spent hundreds of billions of dollars implementing electronic health record (EHR) systems, yet patients and the physicians and nurses that care for them are seeing few benefits. Congress has been holding hearings focused on detailing the problems and trying to write legislation that will provide a solution to the crisis. The HIT interoperability bill drafted by Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-TX) is one example. These are welcome first steps. However, none of the bills currently before Congress, and none of the hearings, are addressing the two most important issues facing medical providers today. These are lack of EHR usability, and the inability to have a patients’ entire medical record at the point of care.
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Stage 3 Meaningful Use – Objectives and Measures Summary
Last Friday (3/20/15) the ONC released the proposed rule for Stage 3 Meaningful Use (MU3). Whenever this type of document is released, I find it useful to summarize the objectives and measures from the background and details into a more concise format. It was tedious work, but in the end it saves me paging through a 301 page document. I figured that if I found it useful, others might as well, so I posted the summary on the Clinical Architecture blog. Our mission is to help evolve the clinical architecture of the healthcare industry. A big part of that has to do with terminology, since terminologies are the language of healthcare solutions. These Meaningful Use initiatives are fundamentally about how we share and use terminology. Understanding the planned objectives and proposed measures allows us to provide feedback to the ONC and help our partners prepare for what is coming.
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Congressman Roe Reintroduces Bill To Create Joint Military EHR System
On Tuesday, Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) reintroduced legislation that calls for the development of an integrated electronic health record system for members of the military and veterans, Politico's "Morning eHealth" reports (Allen et al., "Morning eHealth," Politico, 3/25)...According to WBIR, the bill would establish a temporary panel to create criteria for the EHR system, which would then be created by a U.S.-based vendor. The vendor would receive a lump sum of $50 million to develop the system, as well as $25 million annually over five years to operate the system. Roe said a joint military and veterans EHR system would help to streamline the transfer of medical records between DOD and VA. In addition, Roe said the system could help ease coordination of benefits claims and care.
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Are Smartwatches Being Over-Hyped as Health Trackers?
I don't get smartwatches. Yes, I know; they're all the rage. Apple unveiled its Apple Watch earlier this month, to generally good if not entirely ecstatic reviews. Not to be outdone, Google announced a collaboration with TAG Heuer and Intel for a "Swiss Smartwatch."...I have to wonder why the focus on the wrist. It isn't the ideal place to track, say, your heartbeat, your sleep, or your steps, and as a result fitness trackers have been faulted about their accuracy. Cramming features into a smartphone makes some sense, because they have become so ubiquitous, but I'm not sure who is clamoring to add more features to a watch...
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How the American Health Care Business Turned Patients into Consumers
A clash of cultures is rapidly developing among those of us who see the mission of the health care system to be primarily the diagnosis and healing of illness and those who see it primarily as an opportunity to create personal wealth. The concept of health care primarily as a business is uniquely American, and it has gained ascendancy during the last few decades. While there have always been a few greedy doctors, businessmen-wealth-seekers — not doctors — now dominate the medical-industrial complex.
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Why I Hope to Help End EHR’s Lack of Interoperability
I am tired of waiting. Millions of medical professionals and patients are tired of waiting. We have been waiting for EHR interoperability since the dawn of EHRs in the 1960s. Enough is enough! Our goal is to achieve EHR interoperability through a grass roots coalition of medical professionals and patients who are tired of waiting. The simple life-saving ability of hospital EHRs to connect to one another so healthcare providers can easily and readily access patient data is not being addressed. This type of issue is traditionally solved by industry or government initiatives. But so far they have not, and apparently will not solve it so I have decided to raise this issue through an outpouring of angry citizens, hospital patients, physicians and others being impacted. Read More »
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Halamka Reports on the Progress on Interoperability Made by the HIT Standards Committee
The March 2015 HIT Standards Committee was one of the most impactful meetings we have ever had. No, it was not the release of Meaningful Use Stage 3 or the certification rule. It was the creation of a framework that will guide all of our work for the next several years - everything we need for a re-charted standards harmonization convening body as well as a detailed interoperability roadmap, complementing the 10 year general plan developed by ONC. Thanks to Arien Malec for yeoman’s work in both areas...
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Humetrix Calls for Burgess Interoperability Bill to Add Provider/Patient EHR Exchange
As a developer of several mobile personal health record applications, Humetrix supports Congressman Michael C. Burgess, MD, aim to accelerate electronic health record interoperability as expressed in his draft Health IT bill. We emphasize the need to facilitate health information exchange between providers and their patients, so that patients or their caregivers connect and exchange their personal health information with different providers as a key complement to efforts to improve health information exchange between provider systems.
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