Combining health systems and hospitals means combining their health information, making the health information management (HIM) strategy a critical facet of any merger, which can be tripped up by poor planning or having an unhelpful electronic health record (EHR) vendor.

Implementation of information governance practices—or at least a need to implement them in the future—is growing, according to a survey released at the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) conference in Los Angeles.

Less than 5 percent of consumers had accessed their electronic health record through a patient portal in 2013. By 2016, that number had skyrocketed to 82 percent, according to a survey released at the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) conference in Los Angeles.

The acquisition of McKesson’s Enterprise Information Solutions (EIS) business focused on hospital and health system IT by Allscripts has been completed as of Oct. 2, a move which appears to have tremendous support among providers using McKesson’s Paragon electronic health record (EHR) system.

A new administration in Washington, D.C., means changes for the regulatory landscape and enforcement for health information management, which will be the focus of David Holtzman, vice president of compliance strategies at CynergisTek, during his presentation at this week’s American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) conference.

The federal Healthcare.gov site that most states rely on for their Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges will be shut down for 12 hours for five of the six Sundays during the upcoming open enrollment period, as well as overnight on Nov. 1, the first day of open enrollment.

Blockchain technology is just beginning to creep into healthcare, with recent examples like Change Healthcare’s new solution and a state-level partnership between Illinois and Hashed Health. What’s going to hold up its adoption is if hospitals and health systems aren’t willing to help create the intensive infrastructure required to make the system work.

Fond du Lac, Wisconsin-based Agnesian Healthcare has filed a lawsuit against Cerner, claiming its revenue cycle management system had “pervasive errors” which has damaged the health system’s reputation and led to losses of at least $16 million and continuing costs of $200,000 per month.