Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

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A Consulting Firm Transition to Open Source Health Software (Part 2 of 2)

Andy Oram | EMR and HIPPA | September 7, 2016

The best hope for sustaining HLN as an open source vendor is the customization model: when an agency needs a new feature or a customized clinical decision support rule, it contracts with HLN to develop it. Naturally, the agency could contract with anyone it wants to upgrade open source software, but HLN would be the first place to look because they are familiar with software they built originally. Other popular models include offering support as a paid service, and building proprietary tools on top of the basic open source version (“open core”). The temptation to skim off the cream of the product and profit by it is so compelling that one of the most vocal stalwarts of the open source process, MariaDB (based on the popular MySQL database) recently broke radically from its tradition and announced a proprietary license for its primary distinguishing extension.

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A Holistic View Of Evidence-Based Medicine: Of Horse, Cart And Whip

David Katz | The Huffington Post | May 2, 2014

...The Cleveland Clinic has recently introduced the use of herbal medicines as an option for its patients, generating considerable media attention...One might argue, from the perspective of evidence based medicine, that harsh treatment is warranted for everything operating under the banner of "alternative" medicine, or any of the nomenclature alternative to "alternative" -- such as complementary, holistic, traditional, or integrative...

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A Public Health Perspective on the CMS Quality Payment Program

I have seen several pretty good summaries of the recently 0release Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 2019 Inpatient Prospective Payment System Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to Quality Payment Program (one from AMIA, one from CDC). Here are just a few additional tidbits I picked out of the NPRM. Of course, this document is written like stereo instructions so I welcome any corrections or comments to my interpretation of what’s in the rule. I put page numbers (from final FBO version referenced above which has just been released) where relevant in parenthesis. And I apologize in advance as much of what’s here is cryptic to anyone who has not been exposed to this before and I don’t make much of an attempt to explain the context (or even the acronyms)...

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AIRA 2018: Is Open Source the Key to Immunization Software Sustainability?

On August 14-16, 2018 the American Immunization Registry Association (AIRA) held its 2018 National Meeting. This meeting brought together more than 350 informatics professionals, public health officials, EHR vendors, and other stakeholders who all care passionately about Immunization Information Systems (IIS) and their role in the healthcare community. IIS projects leverage interoperability with EHRs, PHRs, and other systems to promote clinical practice at the point of care; enable public health surveillance, and reduce cost by assisting in preventing both under and over immunization.

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Big Pharma Won’t Let Your Doctor Forget Your Next Shot

Rachel Feltman | Quartz | May 3, 2014

The pharmaceutical company Merck wants to make sure you get your recommended vaccinations on time, and not just for your own good. The company’s partnership with Practice Fusion, the largest online platform for electronic medical record management in the US, will provide physicians with reminders when their patients are due for a vaccination by the Centers for Disease Control’s standards...

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CDC on EHR Errors: Enough's Enough

Evan Schuman | Healthcare IT News | July 6, 2014

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not routinely get involved in telling hospitals how to run operations, but with increasing reports of EHR deployment problems, the Atlanta-based operation now sees the need to act.

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Coronavirus Adds New Stress To Antiquated Health Record-Keeping

Darius Tahir | Politico | March 11, 2020

The U.S. health care system is on the leading edge of many technologies - except when it comes to passing information between doctors, laboratories, and public health officials. And that could add another snarl to the already troubled effort to test for coronavirus. Overreliance on faxing, phones and paper records is problem enough in ordinary times. Adding thousands of coronavirus tests a day will test the ability of providers, labs, and public health officials to keep track of all the results. Because not all results are automatically downloaded into physicians' records, the doctors may need to log into laboratory web portals or, if all else fails, turn to faxes and phones to learn test results.

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Coronavirus and the Recurring Mistake of Fighting the Wrong Wars

What do the coronavirus and Navy ships have in common? For that matter, what do our military spending and our healthcare spending have in common? More than you might think, and it boils down to this: we spend too much for too little, in large part because we tend to always be fighting the wrong wars.I started thinking about this a couple weeks ago due to a WSJ article about the U.S. Navy's "aging and fragmented technology." An internal Navy strategy memo warned that the Navy is "under cyber siege" by foreign adversaries, leaking information "like a sieve." It grimly pointed out...

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Geospatial Intelligence: A Diagnostic Dashboard For A Healthier Nation

Chris Powell | Government Health IT | July 17, 2015

When it comes to public health, and identifying the events and behaviors that affect it, agencies charged with protecting the health and welfare of citizens need to leverage every available tool at their disposal to quickly and effectively respond to growing threats. Data mapping is a tool to answer the call...In the case of emergencies, planning and crisis response, open-source information is readily available via the CDC...

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Health Datapalooza 2017 – The Data Revolution Rolls On

The 8th annual Health Datapalooza returns on April 26 – 28 and offers a re-imagined vision of health and health care through the lens of data. In years past, Health Datapalooza has set its sights on health-care startups, apps, big data, electronic health records – you name it – but the main thrust was always more about the business of health care and how tech and data are used to innovate. The annual conference for data geeks, developers, health tech venture capitalists, and start-up wannabes, among others, will this year triangulate around the idea that the patient should be at the center of health care.

Health Games Platforms Mature In Preparation For Mainstream Adoption

For the past several years, researchers have strived to create compelling games that improve behavior, reduce stress, or teach healthy responses to difficult life situations...These efforts have born fruit, and clinical trials have shown the value of many such games. Ben Sawyer, who founded the Games for Health conference more than 10 years ago, is watching all the pieces fall into place for the widespread adoption of games. Business plans, platforms, and the general environment for the acceptance of games (and other health-related apps) are coming together. Read More »

HHS Ventures Team Helps Detect Disease Outbreaks

It was a no brainer for the HHS Ventures Fund to include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) GHOST project in its latest round of funding. There are about 3.5 million Americans infected with Hepatitis C (HCV), which attacks the liver and can lead to cirrhosis and other serious health problems, according to the latest data collected by the CDC. This CDC Ventures team is developing a cloud-based, public health research tool to help state and local health departments more quickly detect and fight the spread of disease. The team calls their system GHOST – Global Hepatitis Outbreak Surveillance Technology...

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HLN Releases Update to Open Source Immunization Forecaster in Preparation for COVID-19 Vaccine

Press Release | HLN Consulting | November 9, 2020

On November 6, 2020, HLN released a new version (v1.24.2) of the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE). ICE is a state-of-the-art open source software system that provides clinical decision support for immunizations for use in Immunization Information Systems (IIS), Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Personal Health Record (PHR) Systems.

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HLN Submits Comments to the CMS Quality Payment Program

On June 14, 2018 HLN submitted the following comments on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 2019 Inpatient Prospective Payment System Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to Quality Payment Program based on our earlier comments...We are quite concerned by both the overall direction and the specific recommendations regarding public health objectives and measures in the NRPM. Regarding the changes to the proposed measures, CMS has not provided any explanation for why Syndromic Surveillance reporting was selected as the required measure. Other public health measures (e.g., Immunization reporting, Electronic Laboratory Reporting, Electronic Case Reporting) continue to require incentives for implementation.

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ONC Must End Opposition to Behavioral Health EHRs

Because our policy makers in Washington, DC, wield words as weapons, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT has categorized behavioral health providers as “post-acute care,” thus excluding them from MU funding that has driven EHR adoption elsewhere. While the ONC has created one reality by lobbing definitions, behavioral health advocates are promoting THE reality of mental illness as acute and costly; as debilitating as any disease or condition, if not more so; and as a major co-morbidity factor exacerbating acute illnesses and driving up health care costs. Read More »