#HITsm

Six GOP Senators called for review of the Meaningful Use EHR incentive program claiming not enough emphasis on interoperability. Keith Boone calls B.S.

The Walking Gallery has been such a success that there are now over 230 jackets in the gallery. On June 2, 2013, members of the gallery will meet for The Walking Gallery 3. This is the third gathering of gallery members since the project began. The event will be held from 7-9 p.m.  at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Washington DC. Those attending the event will walk from the church to Regina’s “73 Cents” mural for a re-dedication ceremony.

"We believe that there is a massive opportunity in the intersection of software and biology, which we broadly define as “Health Informatics.” This term has a formal definition but we tweaked it to make our own. It is a software-first approach to solving problems in human biology, medical research and ultimately, patient care. We think the timing is right for software developers to make an impact in these areas."

Mark your calendars! On Friday, May 17 at noon EST, HITLAB will guest host the weekly #HITsm TweetChat!

Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush thinks current levels of VC funding for healthcare IT are "tragic."

Learn how numbers can tell a story about your health.

Earlier this year, the Department of Health and Human Services issued their "Final Rule" to modify HIPAA - the 1996 legislation that's the beating heart of healthcare security, privacy and data portability.

In part 4 of his patient engagement series, author Leonard Kish describes how social networks give both patients and caregivers what they need.

There are a handful of ways care providers can choose to interface, or connect, to external health organizations, be they a member of the local medical community or an official health information exchange (HIE) organization. Formal HIEs are gaining steam thanks to maturity and providers’ motivation to meet Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements, but the active process of exchanging health information – the verb, not the noun – has been the goal since the HITECH act pushed the industry into the modern world via electronic health records.

So how, exactly, do health organizations send health records to an external organization? Since “by hiring a professional” doesn’t really provide you with any real knowledge, let’s examine a handful of HL7 message transport methods most commonly used by our customers and throughout the health industry. Each method has pros and cons, which will be explored.

While legislators talk about “bending the cost curve,” one company serving Medicare patients has discovered how to provide better care at lower cost—with wireless scales, free transportation, regular toenail trimmings, and doctors who put the...

Because of the lack of transparency over prices, the U.S. health care market has little correlation between price and quality. Sellers have almost total control over the market, and they resist any attempts to change the game by introducing more data -- or easy-to-use tech tools to analyze and compare the data -- because transparency would hurt their capability to charge high prices and avoid quality comparisons. But there are signs that the barriers are starting to crumble.

Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami will tell patients what insurance companies get paid. That's a big deal.

Working with health data is a tricky business. Consumers want to access such information when they need it, and that it be kept safe and secure when they don't. Regulations, however, ...

The public release of hospital charge data triggered an expected amount of discussion. The shocker was that most downplayed the significance. We disagree.

Read about the four interoperability paradigms that FHIR chief architect Grahame Grieve described in a recent meeting: REST, Documents, Messages, Services.

I'm down with the Health Data Initiative, and look forward to seeing some interesting uses of de-identified government data streams at the Health Datapalooza next month in DC, but the feds need to remember that while there is great value to pumping...

In my last post, I talked about the concept of slacktivism in the era of social media. Slacktivism is sort of a pseudo-activism , where participants takes part

Federal rules that aim to give patients more control over their information are posing technical and administrative problems for the doctors and hospitals that have to implement them.

"We’ve made our share of mistakes. As a skier, I describe health IT startups as the “double black diamond in white-out conditions of startups.” You’ll get beaten around, but if you survive it’s a heckuva accomplishment. One of the mistakes we’ve avoided is expecting things to come quickly and burning through too much capital too quickly."

From improved security and administration to better tablet battery life, there's a lot to like in Windows 8 for healthcare organizations.

An Obamacare-funded non-profit wants to turn routine doctor visits into a treasure trove of data on what medical treatments work best.