The health IT dashboard, an interactive online supplement to public data available from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, now includes summary data on the Medicare EHR incentive programs.

EHR adoption rates among office-based providers continued ticking upward in 2012, the second year of the incentive program for demonstrating Meaningful Use. More than 70 percent of National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey respondents reported using EHRs, according to a December data brief from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Almost all healthcare organizations surveyed suffered at least one data breach during the past two years. The Third Annual Benchmark Study on Patient Privacy & Data Security by Ponemon Institute, sponsored by ID Experts, found that 94 percent of those organizations surveyed suffered at least one breach and 45 percent experienced more than five data breaches.

The University of Texas at Austin launched a Health Information Exchange (HIE) laboratory, which is designed to simulate the national, state and local networks that are being developed to electronically exchange medical data. The laboratory is part of the university’s health IT program offering a certificate program designed to “fast track” university graduates into the rapidly evolving field of health IT.

Integrated PHRs and EHRs are helping patients manage their health and providers manage their patient populations at several Virginia primary care practices, according to a case study published Dec. 5 on Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Innovation Exchange website.

A standards partnership offers a new certification program designed to assure the security and interoperability of health IT.

The healthcare industry has made little progress in controlling data breaches, according to the Health Information Trust Alliance's (HITRUST) analysis of U.S. healthcare data breaches since 2009.

The loss of an unencrypted handheld Palm device in the Continuum Home Infusion unit of the University of Virginia Medical Center has resulted in a data breach of protected health information. More than 1,800 patients or potential patients were affected.