CMS and the California Department of Health Care Services announced on March 27 that they have entered into a Duals Demonstration Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to integrate care for dual eligible Medicare and Medi-Cal beneficiaries as part of California’s Coordinate Care Initiative. Under the agreement, contractor plans are required to provide for Medicare and Medicaid-covered services under a capitated model of financing.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has completed a prototype of CancerLinQ, its health IT initiative designed to achieve higher quality, higher value cancer care with better outcomes for patients.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) is seeking public input as it sets out to update its Federal Health IT Strategic Plan. ONC announced that from March 25 to May 9, it is open to receiving comments on its new web platform, Planning Room, which it launched in collaboration with Cornell University.  

While governance structures vary in nursing informatics departments across the U.S., these informaticians are tasked with keeping a dual focus on patient safety and quality considerations, as well as IT implementation and optimization. As a result, to whom these individuals report affects the focus of the department.

Patient engagement is the catch-phrase right now, as providers incorporate more and more health IT tools to put patients behind the wheel of their healthcare while the government paves the road to get there.

The 2013 Healthcare Information and Management Information Society (HIMSS) annual convention was a busy, informative and insightful time in New Orleans. During the Physicians’ IT Symposium, co-hosted by AMDIS, I was particularly struck by the realization that we are at the point where the vision of the pioneers in this field has begun to be realized.

To help put a dent in the billions spent annually on 30-day hospital readmissions, researchers at Boston-based Partners HealthCare developed a prediction model that identifies seven factors linked to avoidable hospital readmissions. 

With new Omnibus federal privacy and security rules effective March 26 with an upcoming compliance date of Sept. 23, two privacy experts urged covered entities to build an action plan and design an implementation timeline to ensure they are prepared.