Department of Health and Human Services strengthens patients right to access lab test reports

The final rule which was announced on February 3, 2014 amends the Clinical Laboratory Improvements Amendments of 1988 to allow the laboratories to give patient or a person designated by the patient, his or her “ personnel representative” access to the patient’s completed test reports on the patient’s or patient’s personal representative’s request. At the same time, the final rule eliminates the exception under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule to an individual’s right to access his or her protected health information when it is held by a CLIA-certified or CLIA-exempt laboratory. Read More

Will the next edition of Electronic Health Record certification criteria affect you?
The HHS office of the national coordinator for the health information technology issued the proposals for the next edition (the “2015 edition”) of the EHR technology certification criteria.

The proposed rule marks the first time ONC has proposed an edition of certification criteria separate from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ “meaningful use” regulations. Read More

Does Interoperability enhance care?
Interoperability defines extent to which healthcare systems and devices exchange data and share the interpreted data. It is the ability to make healthcare systems and organizations work together. Interoperability is essential in providing quality care .

Interoperability facilitates the communication among the patients and providers. Joyce Sensmeier – vice president of informatics for HIMSS said, “If you don’t get the information out there in right place the care is going to be absolutely compromised. It has to be accurate and available .” Read More

Employees in an organization should keep in mind that protecting the patient’s health information must be of high priority. They should believe that patient health information is part of their responsibility, and their civic duty.

We are aware that there have been a large number of protected health information breaches and many healthcare organizations have been struggling to comply with HIPAA. Five ways to avoid health data breaches are Read More

ONC pilot projects prove that health IT can improve clinician’s access to important clinical resources like Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs), which are data sources, doctors and other providers can use to help fight the prescription drug abuse epidemic.

The centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the prescription drug abuse epidemic is growing. CDC estimates 15,000 people pass away each year from overdoses involving prescription pain killers. In addition to the deaths costs associated with the prescription drug abuse epidemic have also shot up in the recent years Read More

ONC’s 2014 Edition EHR Certification Criteria define the requirements that the EHR technology must meet in order to be used by eligible professionals (EP’s), eligible hospitals (EH’s), and critical access hospitals (CAH’s) participating in the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs. In improver to these criteria, ONC made some policy changes to the HIT certification program. Read More

Survey says, Yes! The EHR Incentive program is on track. 2013 data from the annual National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey shows that:

• Nearly 80% of office–based physicians used some type of electronic health record system, an increase of 60 percentage points since 2001 and almost double the percent in 2008.
• About half of office–based physicians surveyed said they use a system that qualifies as a basic system, up from just 11% in 2006. Read More