On March 24, 2010 the Office of the Federal Register made an Interim Final Rule (IFR) on Electronic Prescribing of Controlled Substances from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) available. This IFR contains rules that health care providers will need to follow to prescribe controlled substances electronically in accordance with the law. The Interim Final Rule [...]

The ultimate objective of every HITECH initiative is to create a National Health Information Network. With close to 1,000 EHR vendors, and no standards, how will we accomplish this mission? The State Health Information Exchange project is an initiative managed by the ONC (Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology). The main objective is [...]

OHIP is a nonprofit that was established last year by the state. It has about $43 million in federal and state funding to help accomplish two key health information technology goals. First, the organization will help set up a health information exchange (HIE), which is essentially a state-wide computer network that will allow hospitals and doctors’ offices to easily share patients’ health information. Second, OHIP will help doctors acquire, implement and learn how to use the electronic health records (EHR) systems that will be the backbone of the exchange.

Leading the effort–for now–is Amy Andres, OHIP’s chairman and the Ohio Department of Insurance’s chief of staff. Andres was likely chosen for the role because of her background in government, health and information technology. She led the pharmacy benefits management business for Chicago-based electronic prescribing company AllScripts, and held positions with CVS ProCare and IT consulting firm Sarcom. She also worked as the CIO for the Ohio Department of Education.

New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) will receive more than $23 million of the $2 billion allocated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to achieve widespread meaningful use of health IT and facilitate use of an electronic health record (EHR) by every person by the year 2014. The newborn New Jersey Health Information Technology Extension Center (NJ-HITEC) initiative proposed by NJIT Senior Vice President for Research and Development Donald H. Sebastian, PhD, principal investigator, will assist New Jersey’s health care providers in their significant use of health information technology through outreach, consultation and user support for the state’s primary care providers serving at-risk population centers.

The Apple iPhone rocked the world. It created a niche market for medical software development and more importantly it was cool to have it. Every doctor wanted one and right now it is estimated that 1 out of 20 physicians carries an iPhone.

Having helped over a hundred physician practice to implement EHR I have seen the benefits of tablet computing for documenting patient encounters in the EMR. I believe that iPad computing will become a big part of the EMR/EHR toolkit in the years to come.

So, Brian Ahler at healthsystemcio.com reports having a brief chat with Dr. David Blumenthal last week that covered:

* Transparency at the ONC
* HITREC and communities of shared learning
* Personal Health Records and possible certification
* Rural practices and Critical Access Hospitals

Over the next four years, the amount of personal medical information online will increase exponentially, opening up new avenues for hackers to expose personal data that, unlike financial information, can result in a permanent violation of privacy.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has set a deadline of 2015 for healthcare facilities to being using electronic health records (EHRs), thereby ushering in the digitalization of all patient information. As patient data is aggregated on health networks, it becomes a bigger target for those who want to steal it and exploit it on the Internet, experts say.