Health care has a problem. Well, of course, it has many problems, but one of them is that the various parties involved in the health care system can't agree on who we are. Twenty years ago HIPAA called for creation of unique patient identifiers to accomplish this task, but within two years Congress put this on hold until further notice, and we're still waiting. Everyone used to use social security numbers for this purpose, until we finally figured out the folly of that (especially since that number was never intended to be used as a national identification number). The private sector continues to clamor for federal action, while CHIME launched a National Patient ID Challenge in order to come up with solutions. News flash; we already have a unique, non-government-issued identifier: it's called a cell phone number...
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
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Medical Data Security Increasing Concern For ACOs
As more providers adopt accountable care models--and take on the responsibility of facilitating medical data exchange--healthcare leaders are under increasing pressure to protect personal health information (PHI)...
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MICHR Introduces “Mi-OC” Do-It-Yourself Version Of OpenClinica Clinical Trial Management Software
The Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR) has introduced a new version of OpenClinica clinical trial management software. Mi-OC (University of Michigan OpenClinica) has the same features and functionality as the previously released edition, but allows researchers a "do-it-yourself" option. Read More »
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Military Health System Study Analyzes Privacy Challenges
Considering the privacy issues with the Veterans Affairs (VA) recently, military health data privacy has been a hot-button issue in the healthcare sector lately. It seems as though the Military Health System concurs with the notion that a more formalized privacy procedures need to be put in place. Read More »
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Mining Data For State CDC, Maine HIE Pilot Project Aims For Population Analysis
The Maine HealthInfoNet is aggregating and analyzing health information exchange data at the population level, with the aim of finding trends and specific figures that currently evade most tools of epidemiology. Read More »
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Mobile Devices, Cloud Computing: What Healthcare CIOs Fear Most
Although mobile apps that share files through the cloud are gaining in popularity in the consumer market, these apps can be unsafe in a clinical setting according to a recent study by the Ponemon Institute. Read More »
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New Blue Button Directory Unveiled at HIMSS17
The National Association for Trusted Exchange (NATE) today unveiled NATE's Blue Button Directory (NBBD) at the HIMSS17 annual conference in Orlando, FL. This FHIR-based solution is the newest prototype being developed by NATE to make it easier for consumers and providers to share data to improve outcomes. Consumers are actively requesting their medical records and providers want to share them but there is often a workflow disconnect between the two. As part of the Federal Health Architecture's vignette in the HIMSS17 Interoperability Showcase (Level 2 | Lobby F | Tangerine Ballroom | Booth 9000), NATE and its partners are demonstrating how a simple enabling infrastructure can alleviate this problem...
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New Patient-Focused Commitments to Advance the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative
Today, marking six months of progress to advance [Precision Medicine Initiative] PMI, the White House is hosting a Champions of Change event honoring extraordinary individuals from across the country who are making a difference in the lives of patients and driving precision medicine forward. In addition to celebrating these Champions, Federal agencies and private-sector groups are stepping up to the President’s call to action to advance the PMI by making important commitments to... Read More »
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NIH Big Data Effort Focuses On Better Knowledge From Existing Data
Big data is transforming biomedical research, National Institutes of Health director Francis S. Collins writes in a blog post announcing an initiative called Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K). To illustrate his point, Collins points to the work of Atul Butte of Stanford University, a NIH-funded researcher looking among mountains of existing data to find new links among genes, diseases and traits.
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No Thanks, I Already Have a Number
Obama Administration Announces Key Actions to Accelerate Precision Medicine Initiative
A year ago the President announced the launch of the Precision Medicine Initiative to accelerate a new era of medicine that delivers the right treatment at the right time to the right person, taking into account individuals’ health history, genes, environments, and lifestyles. Precision medicine is already transforming the way diseases like cancer and mental health conditions are treated. Molecular testing for cancer patients lets physicians and patients select treatments that improve chances of survival and reduce adverse effects...
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Obamacare Enrollment Company Fumbles Client Data
In a slipup to stoke Republicans' Obamacare security concerns, Enroll Alaska accidentally released email addresses of about 300 clients Monday afternoon. Read More »
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On the Need for a Universal Health Record
The current path of progress of the EHR, with its concentration on “meaningful use,” and an intellectual property regime that does not fully exploit the capacity for innovation by end-users is approaching an evolutionary dead-end. It is time to treat the EHR as what it should be: an integral part of medical care that has limitless potential for maximizing the use of information acquired in the provision of health care, and not an impediment to optimal care and a bugaboo for the physician. Read More »
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ONC Delays Launch Of Blue Button Connector Until Late February
The US Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT is slowing its rollout launch of a website meant to encourage patients to take a more active role in their own care. Read More »
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ONC’s John Fleming Wants Patients to Have a Single Unified Health record
A senior administrator with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT said he wants patients to have a unified health record that could pull data from various medical providers into a single record. John Fleming, the ONC’s deputy assistant secretary for health technology reform, outlined his vision that would give patients more control of their medical information during the International Summit on the Future of Health Privacy hosted by Georgetown University Law...
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Open Health Data In Practice: Increase Your Access To Lab Results
I’m convinced that there’s a wave of innovation coming in healthcare, driven by new kinds of data, new ways of extracting meaning from that data, and new business models that data can enable. That’s one of the reasons why we launched our StrataRx Conference, which focuses on the importance of data science to the future of health care. Read More »
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