As the U.S. rolls out its largest ever investment in health IT, meaningful use promises to dramatically transform the delivery of care. However, until patient feedback takes the meaningful use stage, progress will remain slow, according to a February report issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Health Research Institute

ORLANDO, Fla. Healthcare quality depends on accurate records, asserted Richard Taylor, MD, CMIO of Providence Health and Services in Portland, Ore., during the Feb. 23 educational session Health Information Exchange at the Bedside: Promise meets Reality at HIMSS11.

Health imaging exchange (HIE) has passed the buzzword mantle to a new contender, accountable care organizations (ACOs). This is more than a move in the health IT lexicon and evidence of its passage was everywhere at HIMSS11 in Orlando, Fla. HIEs haven't vanished and their endemic challenges remain as well. There were 24 educational sessions and a dedicated HIE Symposium on the HIMSS syllabus, and a variety of vendors on the show floor; while HIE flavored the interoperability showcase as well.

Privacy and security, adoption and use, and sustainability were named as the top challenges to health information exchange (HIE) in a recent National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) stakeholder survey.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights has issued a notice of determination finding that Cignet Health of Prince Georges County, Md., violated the Privacy Rule of HIPAA. HHS has imposed a civil money penalty of $4.3 million for the violations, representing the first financial penalty issued by HHS for a covered entitys violations of HIPAA.

ORLANDO, Fla.--Take it from a Davies Award winner: EMR adoption is just the beginning. The next step is to leverage the incoming flood of data in as many ways as possible to derive maximum value from it, said Bert Reese, senior vice president and CIO of Sentara Healthcare in Norfolk, Va., and David Levin, MD, Sentaras CMIO and vice president of medical informatics.

ORLANDO, Fla.--Attendees were treated to a sneak peek at the meaningful use attestation process Feb. 22 during a session the 2011 HIMSS annual conference. Elizabeth S. Holland, director, HIT Initiatives Group, provided an overview of the process, beginning with a refresher of the eligible provider online registration process and a reminder to use www.cms.gov as a meaningful use resource.  

ORLANDO, Fla.-- EHRs can make it possible to impact population health for diabetic patients and provide patient specific counseling for this condition, according to K.C. Arnold, ANP, an adult and acute care nurse practitioner at The Diabetes Center, who made the Feb. 22 presentation on the topic at the 2011 annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference.