Mississippi has a sickly reputation. The Magnolia State ranks at or near the bottom in most health rankings: worst infant mortality and most kids born with low birth weight; second-to-highest rate of obesity and cancer deaths; second from the last in diabetes outcomes. But the state is a leader in one aspect of health care: telemedicine. The state's only academic hospital has remote connections with 165 sites, providing specialized services to some of the state's most far-flung, medically deprived cities and towns. Mississippi's telemedicine program, ranked among the seven best in the country, has inspired neighboring Arkansas to take bigger steps in some areas of the field, and the impact of its success is making waves in Washington as well.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is giving physicians an extra 3 weeks to attest they have made "Meaningful Use" of electronic health records, the agency announced Wednesday.
When Stacey Whiteman was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis two years ago, she didn't realize the toughest challenge would be its impact on her brain. The 53-year-old from Massachusetts was forced to quit work as an executive assistant after becoming easily confused and prone to forget, even about priorities like doctor appointments. When her physician suggested OpenNotes, an electronic portal allowing patients full access to their medical records, including doctors' notes, Whiteman was eager to log on. "For somebody like me who has a hard time processing things, I need this convenience," she said. Whiteman now refers to OpenNotes daily, to review what happened during appointments, be reminded of future ones and check lab results.
In today's interconnected world it seems intuitively true that instant access to comprehensive medical patient histories will help physicians to provide better care at a lower cost. This simple argument was persuasive enough for the federal government to spend $26 billion to incent medical providers to adopt electronic health records (EHR) systems so that they can electronically share medical records. The initial investment appeared to be large, but it was an economically sound solution to control the rising healthcare expenditure. The resulting HITECH act is one of the few healthcare laws that maintains bipartisan support.
As they move to exchange patient information with hospitals and other health care partners, doctors are suffering sticker shock: The vendors of the health care software want thousands of dollars to unlock the data so they can be shared. It may take an act of Congress to provide relief. The fees are thwarting the goals of the $30 billion federal push to get doctors and hospitals to digitize health records. The exorbitant prices to transmit and receive data, providers and IT specialists say, can amount to billions a year. And the electronic health record industry is increasingly reliant on this revenue.
Dozens of individuals have filed lawsuits against Anthem Inc., including two Denver residents whose personal information may have been compromised by a massive hack of the health insurer's client database. "There are probably about 40 cases that have been filed, and there probably will be more," said attorney Patrick Peluso, who a filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver on behalf of a Denver woman on Feb. 13. "This is gonna be big. We're talking about 80 million people here." That's the estimated number of customers potentially affected by the data breach disclosed by Anthem on Feb. 4.