By Arlene Bierman, M.D., M.S., Director of AHRQ's Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement Twitter: @AHRQNews We are only just beginning to harness the power of “real world data” to provide the evidence needed to improve health care quality, safety, and outcomes. One of the major goals of AHRQ 2.0 is catalyzing the learning healthcare system, where internal data together with…

By Allison Hart, VP of Marketing for TeleVox Solutions at West Twitter: @TVoxSolutions Twitter: @AlliMHart Population health management is a healthcare concept that has gained a lot of attention in recent years. It is viewed as a solution for improving care quality, clinical outcomes, efficiency and even financial outcomes. However, many healthcare providers struggle to understand how they can implement population health…

By Jeffrey Shuren, M.D., J.D., Director of FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health Twitter: @US_FDA Since 2012, we at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health have set as our North Star the vision of patients in the U.S. having access to high-quality, safe, and effective medical devices of public health importance first in the world. “First in the world”…

By Matt Fisher, Esq Twitter: @matt_r_fisher Host of Healthcare de Jure – #HCdeJure A patient walks into a physician’s exam room with an ever present smartphone or another digital device. The patient is especially concerned for the information that could be discussed during this visit and wants to be sure that they can remember everything that is discussed and presented…

By Dr. Elizabeth Marshall, MBA, Director of Clinical Analytics, Linguamatics Twitter: @Linguamatics Observing the Dance “You can't save everyone” I painfully remind myself after hearing about the fentanyl overdose of the 29-year-old man that we so desperately tried to help over the years. A man that floated in and out of our lives - when he wanted to work (as a…

By Waqaas Al-Siddiq, CEO and Founder of Biotricity Inc. Twitter: @biotricity_inc The most urgent problem facing the U.S. healthcare system today is cost. Traditional factions of political party affiliation, socio-economic status, and patient-payer-provider categorization all agree that the astronomical costs of the current system are not sustainable—and only increasing. Paradoxically, a staggering amount of these expenses are either preventable or…

By Jack Plotkin, CTO, Virtual Health Twitter: @VirtualHealth_ Over the last 10 years, the healthcare industry has experienced a major shift in both the prevalence and importance of information technology. Electronic health records have progressed from bleeding edge, to basic requirement, to competitive differentiator. Claims and authorizations have made the leap from the fax machine to the cloud. Patient engagement has…

By Tommy White, Vice President, Solutions Management PointClear Solutions Twitter: @PointClearHIT Most healthcare providers understand that the majority of patient care doesn’t take place in the doctor’s office during a visit. Rather, much of healthcare happens between visits — and depends in large part on how well patients are engaged in their own care. The fact is, physicians can only do…

By Annie Wardle, CEO/Founder, Talk Out Loud Twitter: @talkoutloudbiz Technology is advancing with every passing second. No one is this world is unaware of the latest techniques for getting the required information or answers to important questions. Same is the case with the healthcare field. Healthcare professionals should work on the use of new techniques with the help of which they…

From the Hayes Healthcare Leaders Blog Series (@HayesManagement) By Brent D. Magers, FACHE, FHFMA, CMPE, Executive Associate Dean and CEO, Texas Tech Physicians Twitter: @TTPhysicians With the advent of Electronic Health Records (EHR) in the late 2000s came rampant resistance. Meaningful Use requirements forced healthcare organizations to begin implementing an EHR but many were unhappy about it. As we transition…

By Lisa Eramo, BA, MA, Freelance Healthcare Writer Twitter: @Lisa_Eramo EHRs were a hot topic at the 88th annual American Health Information Management Association’s (AHIMA) conference held October 16-19 in Baltimore, MD. Various sessions addressed ways in which health information management professionals working in physician practices and hospitals can help mitigate risk, engage patients, and develop best practices. Copy and paste/cloned…

By Irv H. Lichtenwald, President and CEO, Medsphere Twitter: @MedsphereH If community hospitals are a general barometer of health in the surrounding area, the emergency room is the canary in the coal mine. Viral outbreaks, increases in violence, loss of health insurance from local layoffs—all are social ills that make their presence known first in the ER. Based on recent ER…

By Lucia Savage, J.D./ Chief Privacy Officer , and Karson Mahler, J.D./ Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Policy Twitter: @ONC_HealthIT As electronic health record (EHR) adoption becomes widespread, and providers increasingly embrace the patient engagement opportunities of digital health, EHR customers look to EHR vendors to ensure that health information is available where and when it is needed. And yet we…

By Jim Tate, EMR Advocate Meaningful Use Audit Expert Twitter: @JimTate, eMail: Inquiry@meaningfuluseaudits.com Changing Requirments: Shifting Gears In 2015 CMS released a Final Rule that upset the Meaningful Use (MU) apple cart. No longer did we have to remember what were Core vs. Menu measures. Suddenly both Eligible Hospitals (EH) and Eligible Professionals (EP) had a greatly simplified process to…

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) (@PCORI) has awarded the National Health Council (NHC) (@NHCouncil) $246,300 through the PCORI Eugene Washington Engagement Award program to create a patient-specific curriculum on health care quality. “Stakeholders agree health care quality should be measured and such information should be used by patients to decide among providers and treatments,” said Eleanor Perfetto, NHC Senior…