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Health IT Buzz

May 16, 2012

Positioning ONC for Continued Success

Today, we announced two exciting changes within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology – the creation of an Office of the Chief Medical Officer and an Office of Consumer eHealth. The primary function of the Office of the Chief Medical Officer will be to infuse a clinical perspective across ONC on [...]

May 15, 2012

ONC Launches Reporting Patient Safety Events Challenge to Help Reduce Medical Errors

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is proud to launch the Reporting Patient Safety Events Challenge, designed to spur development of platform-agnostic health IT tools to facilitate the reporting of medical errors in hospital and outpatient settings. This developer contest is part of ONC’s Investing in Innovation (i2) Initiative, which [...]

May 11, 2012

ONC Seeks Public Comment on RFI on Governance of the Nationwide Health Information Network

The release today of the Request for Information (RFI) on Governance of the Nationwide Health Information Network is a critical step toward enabling trusted and interoperable electronic health information exchange (electronic exchange) nationwide. A common set of “rules of the road” for privacy, security, business and technical requirements will help lay the necessary foundation to enable [...]

May 11, 2012

E-Prescribing Adoption: A Prescription for Progress

Think about the last time you were prescribed a medication. Did your doctor fill out a prescription on a paper pad and instruct you to get the medication filled at your local pharmacy? If not, chances are that he or she electronically routed the prescription to your pharmacy. This process—called electronic prescribing or “e-prescribing”—is helping [...]

May 9, 2012

Improving Health Care in Schools: School Nurse Leader Gives District’s EHR System an A+

Marie DeSisto is an innovator when it comes to electronic health records (EHRs) and improving health care in schools. Thanks to her efforts, school nurses in Waltham, MA, are linked by an EHR system that helps them serve students in ways that go far beyond the basics. Just one example: EHR data on student obesity [...]

May 8, 2012

Accelerating Progress on EHR Adoption Rates and Achieving Meaningful Use

As spring quickly blends into summer, we at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) continue to see signs that providers and hospitals nationwide understand why electronic health record (EHR) adoption and achieving meaningful use is critical to improving patient care. The number of providers and hospitals trading in their old [...]

May 4, 2012

Beacon Community Program’s 2nd Anniversary: America’s Most Wired Communities Light the Way

Every day, technology is improving how we do business, how we stay in touch and how we take better care of our health. Technology is modernizing our world. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was the down payment to accelerate the use of technology as the foundation for the broader [...]

May 3, 2012

Long-Term and Post-Acute Care (LTPAC) Needs Related to EHR Adoption

As the population of the United States ages, the number of people receiving services in Long-Term and Post-Acute Care (LTPAC) facilities is expected to grow rapidly. LTPAC is characterized by a variety of settings, from complex care in long-term acute-care hospitals to supportive services in the community or home-based care. Compared to the general population, [...]

April 30, 2012

Diabetes Specialist Uses Health IT Tools To Help Patients Improve Their Care – Part II

Patients and physicians nationwide are leveraging health information technology to make their health care interaction more efficient and effective without necessarily having to be face-to-face. The use of existing and emerging technologies—such as cell phones, personal health records, mobile apps, and monitoring devices–are creating ways for patients and providers to monitor health conditions remotely. Endocrinologist, [...]

April 27, 2012

Diabetes Specialist Uses Health IT Tools To Help Patients Improve Their Care – Part I

Patients and physicians nationwide are leveraging health information technology (health IT) to make their health care interaction more efficient and effective without necessarily having to be face-to-face. The use of existing and emerging technologies—such as cell phones, personal health records, mobile apps, and monitoring devices—are creating ways for patients and providers to monitor health conditions [...]