The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed new rules to expand the rights of patients to access their health information through the use of health IT. Specifically, the new rule gives patients access to test results directly from labs.

Future policy activities, such as requirement specifications for the latter stages of meaningful use, should be leveraged as an opportunity to encourage standardization of functionality and broad deployment of personal health records (PHRs), according to an article published online Sept. 7 in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has officially drawn back the curtain on its new website, HealthIT.gov.

Coastal Connect Health Information Exchange (CCHIE) has connected 10 unaffiliated physician practices to its health information exchange (HIE).

Health information exchange (HIE), enabling the interoperability of automated health data, can facilitate important improvements in healthcare quality and efficiency, according to a perspective paper published in the September edition of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

The Brooklyn Health Information Exchange (BHIX) is now providing EHR connectivity that is expected to speed up care delivery for clinicians in the network.

Registration is now open for the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise North American (IHE N.A.) Connectathon 2012, sponsored by IHE USA, scheduled for Jan. 9-14, 2012 in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency.

A study in a recent issue of American Health & Drug Benefits shows that health information exchanges (HIEs) likely obviate unnecessary emergency department services through provisioning of historical patient medical information.