AHRQ to look at meaningful use barriers
Date: Jan 26, 2011 The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is proposing spear-heading a two-year project to help Medicaid providers achieve meaningful use.
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What does 'era of meaningful use' really mean?
Date: Jan 24, 2011 David Blumenthal, MD, head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, told an eHealth Initiative audience in Washington, DC, last week that the nation is now in the era of meaningful use.
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ONC to roll out five initiatives
Date: Dec 21, 2010 The 62 regional extension centers (RECs) provided feedback that enabled the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to announce the rollout of five new initiatives aimed at driving greater EHR adoption. They're great ideas, but shouldn't they have been in place when the RECs were first announced? In other words, shouldn't ONC have anticipated these needs?
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The Mad dash to health IT adoption
Date: Aug 25, 2010 Despite the relaxation of the proposed meaningful use criteria for the adoption of EHRs and EMRs, critics claim that the final rule is still too stringent and the rushed timeline will doom the whole transformation to a fully electronic healthcare delivery system. Politics aside, the critiques are actually a good thing.
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Better late than never: CMS launches EHR web site
Date: Jun 29, 2010 The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently launched an official web site for its EHR incentive programs. It's a great idea, but it should have been launched soon after the programs were announced.
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How can we make EHRs secure?
Date: May 27, 2010 The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT awarded four Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) grants funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. One of the projects is being led by Professor Carl Gunter of the Department of Computer Science and the Information Trust Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His mission is to develop technology that would make EHRs and health information exchange safe and secure, and therefore help patients and providers become more comfortable with these systems.
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Addressing the digital divide
Date: Apr 27, 2010 For those concerned about the digital divide growing wider and deeper with the push for EHR adoption among providers, have no fear.
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Building up the supply of health IT workers to meet the upcoming demand
Date: Dec 07, 2009 Back in July, I wrote an article about developing a health IT workforce within the community college system that will be needed to help physician groups and healthcare systems implement EMRs and EHRs with the passage of the ARRA legislation.
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Kaiser Permanente’s meaningful use of its EHR
Date: Nov 11, 2009 As the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT continues to hone its definition of meaningful use for health IT, it should take note of the results of Kaiser Permanente’s osteoporosis prevention program.
