The U.S. health system ranks last of 11 countries ranked in the Commonwealth Report, marking the fifth time the U.S. made the bottom of the list.

Jerome Meites, a chief regional civil rights counsel at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told attendees at last week’s annual American Bar Association conference in Chicago that he expects that over the next 12 months, the administration will collect even more in fines for violations of the privacy protections in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act than the roughly $10 million it collected in the past 12 months.

“How much should we spend on IT?” I have been asked this seemingly simple question for more than 30 years. The answer has always been the same. It depends on what you want to get back.

Outside a select number of health IT physician experts who have advised government bodies and companies developing telemedicine and electronic health record (EHR) products, most physicians have been in a reactionary mode as health IT has advanced. At the 2014 American Medical Association (AMA) Annual Meeting, the members approved two sets of recommendations that seek to take back some of the health IT leadership role they ceded in the years watching from the sidelines.

Telehealth has just gotten a boost from the American Medical Association.

This week the Health IT Policy Committee held its monthly meeting and two big issues were efforts to streamline the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s operations and advancing the exchange of behavioral health information.

The JASON report on creating a robust health data infrastructure released in April offered expert analysis but also raised numerous questions, according to a discussion during the June 10 Health IT Policy Committee meeting.

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