On Sept. 27, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the launch of HealthCare.gov on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Healthcare.gov. ''HealthCare.gov on Facebook offers Facebook users a new tool to understand and stay informed about the Affordable Care Act,'' said Sebelius. ''This new page is another resource that people ...

(Editor's note: This post is written by Vern Enge, a self-professed Luddite on staff at ADVANCE.) Doctors definitely lead the medical pack when they bob from one exam room to the next, a compact computer nestled under their arm. Their tiny Panasonics and Dells harbor a complete library of information, allowing them to call up complete patient ...

I called it. ''They're going to name someone as soon as I post,'' I declared in January when I pitched my article about the vacant post at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). At the time, there were occasional blogs about Medicare's missing chief--even a quick flurry of comments when it appeared Glenn Steele might earn the nom. ...

In another HITECH milestone, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has posted a list of covered entities (CEs) that reported breaches affecting 500 or more individuals. The list, available to the public via OCR's Web site, fulfills an obligation outlined in last year's HITECH Act. CEs have been required to report such breaches since last ...

I first heard about Dave deBronkart, aka ''e-patient Dave'' about a year ago when I attended HealthCamp Philadelphia, and I've been following him ever since (literally-the man's all over Twitter). He's one of the most vocal proponents of getting patients more involved in their care, and the folks in Washington have taken notice. He's become a de ...

Yes, readers of the HIM world, it was 1 year ago today that President Obama took that fateful pen to paper and signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), paving the way for electronic health records (EHRs) and all the perks and headaches associated with them. The push for EHRs is part of the Health Information Technology for ...

Remember those reading comprehension tests in middle school? You'd plow through a passage and then answer questions about the plot. Q: ''Why couldn't the Smiths leave for vacation?'' A: ''They couldn't find Buddy the dog.'' If only life could still be so simple. As adults, we're faced with form after form of archaic language and indecipherable ...

The images are abundant; visual accounts of makeshift hospitals, open wounds and resilient patients. And it's not just on news networks. Ordinary doctors and nurses, upon returning from Haiti, are posting photos and videos on Facebook, Flickr and other content-sharing sites. It's an effective and jarring way to show how much help is needed, but I ...

It's Friday--time to catch up on the news. I was hoping to share a delightful health-related story with you, but there were too many good ones, and who am I to single out? So, on to a list we go; I'll leave it up to you to pick and prune according to your preferences. CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen explores record access issues ...

For those of you unaccustomed to Twitterspeak, ''FTW'' stands for ''For the win,'' a throwback to those great sports moments when an athlete takes a game-winning shot. It's a way to express your love or appreciation-a more efficient way to say ''This rocks!'' within the confines of a 140-character tweet. My title is really more of a question ...