Tag: iHealthBeat
Computer Outage at St. Louis Health System Affects EHR Access
On Tuesday, BJC HealthCare in St. Louis experienced a computer outage for 20 hours that affected operations across the health system, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Outage Details According to the Post-Dispatch, the outage occurred from 3 p.m. on Tuesday to about 11 a.m. on Wednesday (Liss, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 7/30). The outage blocked access […]
Online Tool Analyzes Tweets To Determine States’ Caloric Balances
University of Vermont researchers used an online, interactive tool to study the number of calories U.S. residents consume, as well as how they expend those calories, the Washington Post‘s “Speaking of Science” reports. Study Details The researchers used the tool, called the Lexicocalorimeter, to analyze more than 50 million tweets from Twitter users across the […]
CVS Health, IBM Partner To Develop Care Management Technology
On Thursday, CVS Health and IBM announced they are partnering to bring IBM’s Watson technology to CVS Health pharmacists and practitioners in an effort to improve health care management for patients with chronic diseases, USA Today reports. Background on Watson Technology IBM’s Watson computing system can: Analyze large amounts of information; Develop knowledge over time; […]
Study: Telemedicine Effective for Providing Talk Therapy to Vets
Telemedicine can be just as effective as in-person visits for delivering talk therapy to older veterans with depression, according to a study published in The Lancet, Reuters reports. Study Details For the study, researchers divided more than 200 veterans over age 58, who were diagnosed with major depressive disorder into two groups. Both groups received […]
DOD Selects Cerner Team for Massive EHR Overhaul Contract
On Wednesday, the Department of Defense announced that electronic health record vendor Cerner, Leidos, a government systems integrator, and Accenture Federal have been awarded its EHR modernization contract, FierceEMR reports (Bowman, FierceEMR, 7/29). Background In February 2013, DOD and Department of Veterans Affairs officials announced plans to halt a joint integrated EHR, or iEHR system, […]
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 […]
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 […]
