The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), Chicago, and the Drummond Group Inc. (DGI), Austin, TX, were named yesterday by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) as the first technology review bodies that have been authorized to test and certify electronic health record (EHR) ...

To mark the important role health information technology (HIT) plays in improving healthcare delivery in America, more than 170 partner organizations have joined together for National Health Information Technology Week, June 14-18. With the theme: One Voice, One Vision: Transforming Health and Care, the 5th Annual National Health IT Week kicked ...

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced $83.9 million in grants to help networks of health centers adopt electronic health records (EHR) and other health information technology (HIT) systems. The funds are part of the $2 billion allotted to HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) under the ...

The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) submitted comments this week to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in response to the request for information, ''HIPAA Privacy Rule Accounting of Disclosures Under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act; Request for ...

(Editor's note: The following is a message from Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.)Healthcare professionals appreciate opportunities to learn from innovative colleagues and communities -- to see what really works, to get ''boots-on-the-ground'' perspectives, to learn best practices and to use the ...

Last week, I mentioned that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had tentatively shut down the Bidirectional Health Information Exchange (BHIE). Doctors identified bugs in the system, which enables the transmission of electronic health records (EHRs) between the VA and Department of Defense (DoD). Officials expected to have the BHIE back up on ...

When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) finally released the long-awaited proposed definition of meaningful use as it applies to electronic health records (EHRs), it opened up a 60-day public comment period. In the spirit of ''full'' disclosure, the government has posted some of these comments on a Web site. Here are just a few ...

What a week it's been for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Aside from celebrating the first anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), officials introduced several new comrades to the public. On Feb. 17, Joy Pritts was named chief privacy officer in the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health ...

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 ...

Hundreds of thousands are injured, communications are scant and trauma centers are makeshift, at best. So how are medical records maintained? They're not, according to reports surfacing from Haiti. Eyewitness accounts tell of overrun hospitals resorting to rudimentary record-keeping processes--pieces of paper tacked to beds and bodies, listing ...