A study published in the February edition of Health Affairs paints a picture of the electronic personal health record (PHR) environment where many physicians, including those who have already embraced these tools, view them with a mixture of optimism and wariness.

Judge Roger Vinson has placed a stay on his Jan. 31 decision deeming the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (PPACA) unconstitutional, conditioned on the defendants, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), filing a notice of appeal to the Jan. 31 decision within seven calendar days of March 3.

Stage 2 and Stage 3 criteria for meaningful use are missing the ability to control who can see and use personal health information and the ability to segment information so it can be selectively shared, according to the Patient Privacy Rights (PPR).

John Brown, MD, recently was named CMIO for Baptist Memorial Health Care, a newly created position. He will be responsible for overseeing physician input and participation in the hospitals implementation of the EMR.

VitalHealth EHR for Practices version 1.8, VitalHealth Software's latest version of its EHR for small practices, is now available for beta testing, according to the Web-based software developer. VitalHealth is inviting small practices to use the product and provide feedback for ongoing enhancements, the Milwaukee, Wis.-based company stated.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), in conjunction with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, must address the issue of inconsistent timelines for the meaningful use Stage 2 regulatory process, wrote healthcare nonprofit eHealth Initiative in its comments to the ONCs Health IT Policy Committee regarding Stage 2 meaningful use objectives.

Communications and IT company Harris has been awarded a contract by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to continue providing software engineering and enterprise support to the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) Imaging System.

Oracle Health Information Exchange has expanded support for federal and global standards, such as the Connect architecture and Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) specifications, the company announced last week at HIMSS11 in Orlando, Fla.