News and Reports

When a cyber attack hits: Who’s in charge?
The dangers of data breach make for great headlines: data held for ransom, financial fraud, and medical identity theft, to name a few. But despite the many risks of data breach, from a business standpoint, the most immediate threat in most security incidents is failure to comply with regulatory requirements. The vast majority of security […]

California Unveils First-of-its-Kind Cancer Data Sharing Partnership
On Monday, the California Department of Public Health announced a first-of-its kind research project to electronically share data and track cancer trends across the state, Health IT Analytics reports (Heath, Health IT Analytics, 7/28). Details of Project According to a release, the project marks the first time a U.S. health system will collect and securely […]

Burwell: HHS Not Aware of Any Fraud in Federal Insurance Exchange
On Tuesday, HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell testified before Congress that her department has no evidence of consumers fraudulently obtaining coverage through the federal online health insurance exchange, Modern Healthcare reports (Dickson, Modern Healthcare, 7/28). Background A Government Accountability Office report released this month found that the federal exchange automatically re-enrolled 11 fake U.S. residents in health […]

Healthcare headlines from across the Web, July 29
Healthcare IT News‘ focus is on technology, of course, but there’s so much else happening now across the broader realm of healthcare. We’re keeping track of all the top studies, articles and other big happenings in the industry and compiling them on this healthcare watch list. It’s updated daily, so check back in with us […]

ONC gives $38M for health data exchange
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is disbursing about $38 million in grants to 20 organizations, working to drive better information exchange for care coordination and population health. The grants build on programs funded 2009 HITECH Act, and aim to help health data be more widely exchanged among providers, vendors and consumers. […]

DoD awards Cerner, Leidos, Accenture EHR contract
The US Department of Defense handed down the largest and most-anticipated electronic health record system contract in history late Wednesday. And the winner is (drumroll, please) … Cerner, Leidos and Accenture. The contract’s initial piece, valued at $4.3 billion, calls for the team to provide “an electronic health record off-the-shelf solution, integration activities and deployment […]

AHA Urges Congress To Improve Interoperability, Data Sharing
Last week, the American Hospital Association sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to strengthen policies that will support interoperability and health data exchange, Health IT Security reports. Letter Details In the letter, AHA noted that many of the electronic health record systems used by hospitals and health systems: Cost too much and are too […]

CMS Releases FAQs To Clarify Plan To Ease ICD-10 Transition
On Monday, CMS released answers to frequently asked questions to help clarify recently announced measures that aim to provide physicians with some flexibility as they transition to the new ICD-10 code sets, EHR Intelligence reports (Murphy, EHR Intelligence, 7/28). Background U.S. health care organizations are working to transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 code sets to […]

Precision Medicine Requires Regulatory Reform, Data Analytics
President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative will not succeed without a regulatory system that can facilitate big data analytics for genomic research, according to a white paper by the Center for Data Innovation and Health IT Now Coalition, Health Data Management reports (Slabodkin, Health Data Management, 7/27). Background In February, Obama in his fiscal year 2016 […]

When the healthcare system works
I was recently at a meeting where a colleague described a recent interaction with BIDMC. She had a traumatic injury on a weekend afternoon and suspected a fracture. Rather than visit an emergency department filled with high acuity patients, she visited the BIDMC Urgent Care center, knowing they could do imaging and place a cast […]