Healthcare IT News - March 2009 - (Page 4) 4 Healthcare IT News ■ March 2009 industry news www.HealthcareITNews.com National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to use for grants to help providers purchase healthcare IT. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, “Government support for rapid adoption of information technology is essential and measurable outcomes Jerry Osheroff, are needed to help MD the Administration and Congress achieve the goals of increased access, lower healthcare costs and improved quality of care.” According to the Congressional Budget Office, policy changes in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 1) are expected to result in $30 billion additional net bonuses for providers who adopt and use certified healthcare IT products over the next 10 years. The stimulus package includes measures to make the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) permanent. It also calls for ONC to develop standards by 2010 that allow for secure nationwide electronic exchange of health information. And, it improves the existing federal privacy and security protections for health information. Medicare and Medicaid provisions in the bill include funding for the adoption and use of health IT. It provides temporary bonus payments ranging from $44,000 to $64,000 for physicians and up to $11 million for hospitals that meaningfully use electronic health records. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: StIMULUS 0309 Privacy measures receive mixed reviews sTIMulus Continued from page 1 By DIaNa MaNos, Senior Editor – The economic stimulus bill passed Feb. 13 included some advances in healthcare HEALTHCARE IT NEWS IT patient privacy that got mixed JUNIOR PAGEprivacy activists. AD reviews from The new law includes a ban on Trim: 8.125” medical records, prothe sale of x 10.625” Bleed: 8.375” x 10.875” to an vides patients with the right Non-bleed of where7” x 10” goes, audit trail (live): their data and notification of record breaches. WasHinGton Ashley Katz, executive director of Patient Privacy Rights, called the measures an historic win for patients, but warned laws are imperfect. “More must be done to restore and strengthen our right to informed consent. A number of the vital protections we won will be fleshed out through the regulatory process,” she said. Twila Brase, president the Citizens’ Council on Health Care, is concerned about measures in the new law that allow the federal government to collect patient data for research and public health. “The doctor’s office could soon be viewed as a national data collection center, not a clinic of confidential care,” Brase said. More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: PrIVaCY 0309 ● EMRs, it’s using them – and related HIT – to drive performance improvement in priority areas of importance to key stakeholders,” said Jerry Osheroff, MD, chief clinical informatics officer, healthcare, at Thomson Reuters. Of the total $19 billion for healthcare IT, $17 billion is allotted to incentives for adoption and $2 billion for the Office of the SS HIM09 20il 5-8 Apr s at See u ● HAS YOUR CLINICAL DATA STORAGE SOLUTION SEEN BETTER DAYS? RaC Continued from page 3 THE EXPLOSION OF DIGITAL HEALTHCARE DATA CREATES MANY CHALLENGES – MANAGING IT SHOULDN’T BE ONE OF THEM. CARESTREAM Information Management Solutions can help you get a handle on this ever-growing demand. Critical to controlling costs, improving productivity and optimizing patient outcomes is knowing that your data is stored correctly. Now you can automatically manage all your fixed-content clinical data – ensuring it’s in the right place and available when you need it. Swim by and see us at HIMSS, April 5-8. We’ll show you storage solutions that don’t involve band-aids. ONE ONE chair. ONE workstation. ONE solution. Set up a demo at HIMSS and New Mexico. ■ Region D, awarded to HealthData Insights, Inc. of Las Vegas, Nev., covers Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Arizona. Additional states will be added to each region in 2009. PRGSchultz, Inc. and Viant Payment Systems, Inc. will be added as subcontractors, CMS officials said. The federal government reports it recovered nearly $700 million in improper Medicare payments through its RAC pilot program, conducted from 2005 to 2008. The RAC program was made permanent under the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, which requires the Department of Health and Human Services to expand the program to all 50 states by no later than 2010. CMS officials said the RAC pilot program had “a limited financial impact on most providers,” with the vast majority of hospitals in the pilot states impacted by less than 2.5 percent to their bottom line. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: raC 0309 ©Carestream Health, Inc. 2009. Carestream is a trademark of Carestream Health. www.carestreamhealth.com/HIMSS or 1-877-865-6325, ext. 201 ● http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/privacy-measures-receive-mixed-reviews http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/19b-fuel-healthcare-it http://www.carestreamhealth.com/HIMSS http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/government-resume-medicare-audits http://www.carestreamhealth.com/HIMSS
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.