Health Information Exchange Finance Study

Lately I've been asked by multiple people about the RHIO/HIE work we did a few years ago. With wider adoption of EHR and EMR, health information exchanges are finally beginning to be able to sink their teeth into data, and their value is being better understood. Still the most detailed analysis of HIE finance is the two-year study conducted while I was senior analyst at Healthcare IT Transition Group. The full 129-page study is now available online again.

New Hospital Admin Education Website

Hannah Anderson's goal was to compile an unbiased and updated list of every school that offers a hospital administration degree in the US.  She felt that the existing lists were not comprehensive, easy to find, and many websites have outdated information and links. www.HospitalAdministration.org is a valuable new resource for hospital administration students, and for seasoned administrators when we're asked to make recommendations. All the schools are listed on the front page and lead directly to each program, and can be viewed state-by-state. Thanks, Hannah!

Got Teeth? Here Comes HIPAA Enforcement

Two-day workshops in April, May and June have been set to train state attorneys general in HIPAA enforcement. The economic stimulus law attached stronger penalties for HIPAA privacy and security violations, and perhaps more importantly, removed sole prosecutorial powers from the Office for Civil Rights at HHS (OCR) for enforcement of federal privacy and security provisions by granting dual enforcement authority to state attorneys general. Going further, the law also expanded application of HIPAA criminal provisions to any individual who obtains or discloses health information kept by a covered entity -- not just the covered entity itself -- which essentially reverses the Bush administration Justice Department, which held that only "covered entities" are eligible for prosecution. So, if that EHR software company has an oopsie with your medical records, your state attorney general can go after it. CHOMP! Read the Modern Healthcare article.

Patients Want Their Providers Online

The second-annual study from Intuit Health, the Health Care Check-Up Survey, found that 73% of Americans surveyed would use secure online tools to access lab results, request appointments, pay medical bills, and communicate with their doctor's office. CarePrecise began building web portals for healthcare providers a few years ago, and has seen a rise in interest from providers, who want to be able to point patients to written information in the controlled environment of their websites. Providers are also looking at adding scheduling applications, and some are participating in PHRs (patient health record portals). Read the Information Week article.