A laptop and hard drive containing sensitive medical and personal data for hundreds of mental health patients of Arizona Counseling and Treatment Services were stolen from an employee's home in March.

The HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association does not support the user fee for EHR systems included in the proposed 2014 budget for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).

Six Republican senators have published a report critical of progress in the Meaningful Use program and called for a halt to the program and re-examination of its strategies.

TAMPA, Fla., April 17, 2013 -- HealthPlan Services (HPS), the nation's leading technology, sales, retention and administrative services provider for the insurance and managed care markets, announced today the launch of MyConsumerLink(SM), a comprehensive, turn-key private exchange marketplace designed to help agents and affinity groups retain and grow business. As consumers begin to take ownership of health plan purchases, industry estimates suggest that as many as 45 million people will use public and private exchanges by 2020.

SAN ANTONIO, April 17, 2013 -- Sevocity, a division of Conceptual MindWorks, Inc. (CMI), has analyzed the December 2012 CMS report EP Recipients of Medicare EHR Incentive Program Payments to determine which Menu Objectives were most often selected by providers attesting to Meaningful Use under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program.  To qualify for an EHR incentive payment under the program, eligible providers must attest to 15 Core Objectives and select 5 of 10 possible Menu Objectives.  Sevocity analyzed the results of the 117,285 eligible providers on the December 2012 report to determine which Menu objectives were most often selected by attesting providers.

Children’s hospitals have achieved substantial gains in health IT implementation, according to findings published online April 15 in Pediatrics.

Audits of the Meaningful Use/EHR incentive program have caused “a lot of panic,” says Elizabeth Holland, director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ HIT Initiatives Group. Holland spoke with Clinical Innovation + Technology about upcoming plans for the program.

Oceanside, NY April 14, 2013 -- ICS Software of New York now offers the ability to automatically check PECOS eligibility of referring doctors through their EHR program, SammyEHR.