Randy McCleese, MSIS, MBA, the chief information officer at Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Kentucky, was selected as the 2017 CIO of the Year by College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), with the groups specifically citing his IT advocacy on behalf of smaller, rural providers.

HHS again has a permanent leader as former Eli Lilly executive Alex Azar was sworn in as the department’s secretary on Jan. 29—four months to the day after his predecessor, Tom Price, MD, resigned over his use of publicly-funded charter flights.

While applications of blockchain technology for healthcare have become a hot topic among health IT professionals, especially at conferences, a survey of chief information officers (CIOs) said they believe it’s the most overhyped trend in the field in terms of making an impact within the next two years.

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) have chosen Randy McCleese, MSIS, MBA, former CHIME board chair and chief information officer at Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Ky., as the recipient of the 2017 John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year award.

The Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) will have 561 accountable care organizations (ACOs) participating in 2018, including 124 new entrants into the program, covering a total of 10.5 million assigned beneficiaries, according to CMS.

Major healthcare associations had a decidedly mixed reaction to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) recommending to Congress that the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) be eliminated, with some stakeholders saying such a major change would be premature less than three years after the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) was passed.

Full-year quality reporting will be required in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) for the first time in 2018, but clinicians haven’t received word from CMS on whether they’re eligible to participate, according to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).

Operating revenue fell faster than operating expenses for two years at hospitals which had been merged into or acquired by a new system, with no evidence of improvement on quality measures, according to a report released by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions and Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA).