Columbia, SC-based Informatics Corporation of America has announced a strategic alliance with Companion Data Services, LLC in Nashville to develop a system that integrates with and builds upon existing clinical systems to create a unified electronic health record. ICA and CDS will offer healthcare consortiums and state agencies the capability to electronically move clinical information among disparate healthcare information systems and facilitate access to and retrieval of clinical data to provide higher quality, patient-centered care, according to a release.
Companies that make it easier for doctors to write prescriptions electronically would be eligible for a tax break under a bill being considered in Massachusetts. The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Peter Koutoujian, would give companies a tax break on the cost of purchasing and installing electronic medical record technology.
A Durham, NH, nurse has filed a civil suit against three officials of the Obama Administration alleging the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's health information technology provisions unconstitutionally violate the HIPAA privacy rule, Privacy Act and Federal Common Law. In a complaint filed June 25 and seeking class action status, the nurse names as defendants Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; Nancy-Ann DeParle, Director of the White House Office of Health Reform; and Charlene Frizzera, Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
David Blumenthal, MD, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, has announced he intends to "harmonize" certified electronic health records standards within the National Health Information Network. "We are working on continuing the momentum of the NHIN and Connect," the NHIN software, Blumenthal said. NHIN is a patient data exchange system developed under the Bush administration that is currently being used by the Veterans Administration and Social Security Administration, among others.
Numerous healthcare stakeholders submitted comments on the Health IT Policy Committee's proposed definition of "meaningful use" of electronic health records to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. Here, iHealthbeat.org provides summaries of groups' comments.
Only 1.5% of the nation's roughly 6,000 hospitals use a comprehensive electronic record, and even that statistic belies how hard it will be for healthcare to jettison its 19th-century filing system by 2014. It took Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, for example, seven hard years and more than $10 million to evolve a system that lets its doctors check on patients with a few mouse clicks from anywhere and use speedily up-to-date records in directing their care. This article from the Associated Press charts Children's efforts.