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.
The nation's hospitals have agreed to contribute $155 billion over 10 years toward the cost of insuring the 47 million Americans without health coverage, according to two industry sources. About $100 billion of the savings would come through lower-than-expected Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals, the sources told the Washington Post. About $40 billion would be saved by slowly reducing what hospitals get to care for the uninsured, they added. The reductions would probably not begin for several years, after a significant number of people have enrolled in the new insurance programs. The agreement is the latest in a series of side deals that aim to reduce the cost of revamping the nation's healthcare system and to neutralize industries that have historically opposed such reforms.