A recently released Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) guidance offers advice on how health information exchange organizations and health IT service providers can support providers in meeting EHR Meaningful Use Stage 2 transition of care measures.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.—“Behavior change is happening at many different levels but the lack of continuum of care means we don’t connect these pieces together,” said Rajni Aneja, MD, MBA, strategic executive and clinical transformation leader for Humana, speaking May 7 at the Boston Health IT Summit hosted by the Institute of Health Technology Transformation.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.—Storage is coming down in price but it may be premature to move healthcare data to the cloud. That was the consensus during a May 7 panel discussion on managing patient data during the Boston Health IT Summit hosted by the Institute for Health Technology Transformation.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released data showing significant variation among U.S. hospitals in charges for the same services.

The Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) saw an increasing number of entities sign onto its EHR incentive program, reported Robert Anthony, CMS health insurance specialist, at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s (ONC’s) Health IT Policy Committee meeting on May 7. He added that the program's budget currently stands at $39 billion.

The Iowa senator who blocked the Senate confirmation of acting Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Marilyn Tavenner backed down and lifted the hold he had placed on the nomination last month.

More than any other concept in health care, value has become a guiding principle for health care leaders and stakeholders as they wade into the era of health care reform. To assist health care financial leaders in their drive to value, the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) launched the HFMA Value Project, yielding a collection of case studies, presentations, and assorted educational resources that can be found on its website. HealthCXO spoke with HFMA’s Richard Gundling, VP, Financial Healthcare Practices, to identify the key financial issues facing hospitals and physician practices in 2013.

In 2009, the recession was in full swing, unemployment rates were high, and health care facilities were providing more than $39 billion a year in uncompensated care for the uninsured. Instead of riding out the recession with uncertainty and accruing more debt, Sharp HealthCare (San Diego, California) joined forces with the nonprofit Foundation for Health Coverage Education (FHCE) (San Mateo, California) to meet the problem head on. Sharp leveraged a Web-based eligibility software program and took on a strong patient advocacy role to provide uninsured patients with much-needed eligibility assistance.