Government Accountability Office (GAO)

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Electronic Health Records - Expensive, Disruptive And Here To Stay

Nicole Fisher | Forbes.com | March 18, 2014

Physicians have more to do these days and it has nothing to do with treating patients. Although staff shortages and increasing need for care are time consuming for providers and add responsibilities, the real culprit of lost work time, especially for Emergency Room physicians, is electronic health records (EHR). 

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Everyone Wants To Stir The Meaningful Use Pot

Marla Durben Hirsch | Fierce EMR | March 13, 2014

When I cook a recipe for the first time, I usually don't modify it. But the next time around, I tend to tinker with it so it's better, more to my liking. Add a little garlic, reduce the salt. It's a learning process.  I must be in good company, since it seems that everyone these days wants to tinker with the Meaningful Use program.

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Fed Agency IT Collaboration Stumbles

Anthony Brino | Government Health IT | November 13, 2013

With the federal government spending some $82 billion on IT in the 2014 fiscal year, the Obama Administration’s Office of Management and Budget has been trying to get more bang for those bucks by promoting smarter, shared IT, but there are some roadblocks to the plan, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Read More »

FedScoop Guide: FITARA

Kathryn Sadasivan | FedScoop | March 19, 2013

With sequestration and looming budget cuts, it’s hard to know what the future of federal government IT will look like. To make it a little easier, FedScoop created a quick guide on a piece of legislation that’s getting a lot of attention right now: the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act. Read More »

FEMA Was Overwhelmed by Hurricanes and Wildfires in 2017, GAO Says

Erin Ailworth | Wall Street Journal | September 4, 2018

The back-to-back devastation of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, followed by catastrophic wildfires in California, overwhelmed federal disaster responders in 2017, according to a government report released Tuesday. The unprecedented sequence of storms and fires forced Federal Emergency Management Agency staff to jump from one disaster to another and in some cases use uncertified workers to fill key roles. “They were 30% understaffed when Harvey hit,” said Chris Currie, director of emergency management issues at the Government Accountability Office, which wrote Tuesday’s report. “By the time Maria hit Puerto Rico, they were down to the bottom of the barrel.”

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From The Start, Signs Of Trouble At Health Portal

Robert Pear, Sharon LaFraniere and Ian Austen | New York Times | October 12, 2013

In March, Henry Chao, the chief digital architect for the Obama administration’s new online insurance marketplace, told industry executives that he was deeply worried about the Web site’s debut. “Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience,” he told them. Read More »

GAO Comes Down On Meaningful Use Program

Bernie Monegain | Government Health IT | March 12, 2014

The Government Accountability Office has recently raised an alarm that the meaningful use incentive program might not be all that it’s cracked up to be.

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GAO Faults Oversight Of IT Investments

Nicole Blake Johnson | Federal Times | January 22, 2013

Many of the government’s information technology investments lack proper oversight and transparency and end up over budget or behind schedule, according to David Powner of the Government Accountability Office. Read More »

GAO Follows The EHR Incentive Money Trail

Diana Manos | Government Health IT | December 20, 2012

A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) shows the median Medicaid EHR incentive payment received by hospitals in 2011 was $613,512. Read More »

GAO Report on Patient Matching: Nothing New Under the Sun

On January 15, 2019 the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report to Congress, Health Information Technology: Approaches and Challenges to Electronically Matching Patients' Records across Providers. This report is in response to the mandate in the 21st Century Cures Act for the GAO to study patient matching. To develop this report, GAO reviewed available literature and interviewed more than thirty-five stakeholders (who are not identified) over the course of a year. I have written several blogs and a feature article on patient matching developments in the US. Similarly, this new GAO report is an excellent retrospective on industry efforts over the past several years.

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GAO Tech Chief Says Washington Should Start Small On Big Projects

Quentin Hardy | The New York Times | June 18, 2014

...At a Senate hearing last week, David A. Powner, information technology director at the Government Accountability Office, said 183 of 759 federal technology contracts, worth about $10 billion, were in danger of failing before completion...

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GAO: DOD, VA Need To Move On Interoperable Health Records

Adam Mazmanian | FCW | March 3, 2014

WHAT: GAO report on progress toward interoperable VA and DoD health records Read More »

GAO: Poor Project Planning, Management Doomed VA-DoD iEHR

Kyle Murphy | EHR Intelligence | February 28, 2013

Historically, efforts to make the EHR systems used by the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense (VA, DoD) have failed as a result of inadequate project planning and poor management... Read More »

Government Has Dropped The Ball On IT Reform, Lawmaker Says

Joseph Marks | Nextgov | July 10, 2013

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., lashed out at government technology leaders on Wednesday for being slow to adopt cost-saving reforms laid out early in the Obama administration and for failing to adequately report their progress. Read More »

Health IT Inefficiencies Hinder Coordination For DOD, VA, Audit Finds

Staff Writer | iHealthBeat | October 2, 2012

The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are facing several barriers -- such as inefficiencies in health IT projects -- that are hindering their efforts to effectively coordinate care, according to a recent audit by the Government Accountability Office, Government Health IT reports (Brino, Government Health IT, 10/1). Read More »