ONC

Patient engagement starts with insurance selection

A new regulation in national health care law requires private insurance companies and employers to provide consumers with a description of their policy’s medical coverage called a Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC). The law will also provide consumers with access to a glossary of medical and...

ONC wants help establishing road rules for health information exchange

Before U.S. physicians can hop on the nationwide health information exchange highway, they need to know the rules of the road. They may have to leave it in park for a while though -- as these rules don't yet exist.

Under the Public Health Service Act...

ONC seeks comments on nationwide health information network governance

The ONC is in the process of shaping the governance structure needed to establish the nationwide health information network, or NHIN, and is seeking comments from the...

Mostashari at HIMSS 2012: mHealth will deliver patient engagement

LAS VEGAS - In his HIMSS 2012 keynote address, national HIT coordinator Farzad Mostashari, M.D. laid out the case for health IT, and personalized the story down to earlier in his career as assistant...

Got a meaningful use stage 2 comment? Here’s some ONC advice

LAS VEGAS – Sometimes on the glorified karaoke exhibition known as American Idol on U.S. television, a fan favorite gets voted off the show because viewers assume that the obviously most-talented contestant will surely get enough votes to remain in the competition during the voting periods –...

Stage 2 of meaningful use coming this week

When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced late last year that stage 2 of meaningful use would be released in February, most of us...

ONC tracking health IT implementation grants through online dashboard

Given the amount of grants the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) doles out to health care organizations for health IT implementation, the idea of monitoring the effectiveness of those grants would seemingly be a wise initiative. That's why ONC announced it's creating a national database...

Meaningful use stage 2 deadlines: Giving way to ICD-10 implementation?

The meaningful use stage 2 schedule has given way to the demands of ICD-10, but yes Virgina, there will be no extension for coding upgrade deadlines. Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human...

Health IT Policy Committee looks toward stage 3, specialty inclusions

Much like the final rule on accountable care organizations, which reduced burdensome requirements so health care professionals feel able to participate, meaningful use...

10 things you need to know from the IOM HIT safety report

Research is inconclusive about how safe health IT is for patients overall -- and poorly designed software can cause errors in an already complex national system of health care delivery -- making government oversight of HIT safety and serious adverse events (death serious injury and unsafe...