More than 19,000 eligible professionals and almost 1,700 hospitals have attested for Meaningful Use under Medicaid, according to Robert Anthony of the Office of E-Health Standards & Services, who presented the latest numbers at the Sept. 4 Health IT Policy Committee.

A Vermont family practice is the recipient of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's 2013 Ambulatory HIMSS Davies Award of Excellence, which recognizes excellence in health IT, particularly for the use of EHRs to successfully improve quality of care and patient safety while achieving a demonstrated return on investment.

During the past month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT presented their strategy to accelerate health information exchange.

The theft of an unencrypted laptop has resulted in UT Physicians, the group practice of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School, notifying 596 patients that some of their protected health information may have been compromised.

HEALTHeNET, the administrative equivalent of HEALTHeLINK, western New York’s clinical information exchange, has received CAQH Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange Certification, Phase I and II, for its clearinghouse product.

Health information exchanges (HIEs) no doubt boast many advantages and benefits, including improved care coordination, elimination of paperwork and duplicative testing, reduction of medical errors and overall time savings. Dampening the optimism, however, is the nagging issue of sustainability. 

Bad news dominated the headlines this week. From both a massive breach and smaller breaches to wild claims about the failure of a $1 billion EHR system, the industry had an off week.

DALLAS, Aug. 28, 2013 -- The Massachusetts eHealth Institute (MeHI) at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative today announced nearly $1.3 million in grants to fund projects that advance the interoperability of electronic health records with the Commonwealth's health information exchange, called the Mass HIway.  Aprima Medical Software is pleased to announce that it was one of the grant recipients for the Massachusetts eHealth Institute (MeHI).