A report from the Bipartisan Policy Center noted that gaps persist in the nation’s efforts to transition from a paper-based to a computer-based health records system.
The Associated Press: Report: Electronic Health Records Still Need Work America may be a technology-driven nation, but the health care system’s conversion from paper to computerized records needs lots of work to get the bugs out, according to experts who spent months studying the issue. Hospitals and doctors’ offices increasingly are going digital, the Bipartisan Policy Center says in a report released Friday.
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Meanwhile, iWatch News reports on how the health information sector seems especially fond of lobbying’s “revolving door.”
The Associated Press/San Francisco Chronicle: New Data Spill Shows Risk Of Online Health Records Until recently, medical files belonging to nearly 300,000 Californians sat unsecured on the Internet for the entire world to see. There were insurance forms, Social Security numbers and doctors’ notes. Among the files were summaries that spelled out, in painstaking detail, a trucker’s crushed fingers, a maintenance worker’s broken ribs and one man’s bout with sexual dysfunction.
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The state hospital association has asked the Kansas Information Exchange to probe pricing structures of electronic health record vendors, the Kansas Health Institute News reports. Meanwhile, in Utah, some analysts are raising concerns that doctors and hospitals have already signed up with computerized systems that may not work together, the Salt Lake Tribune writes.
Kansas Health Institute News: Kansas HIE Officials Will Meet With System Vendors The Kansas Hospital Association asked KHIE, Inc. to investigate pricing structures of electronic health record vendors and take whatever measures it could to encourage more transparency. T
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IWatch news reports on this emerging issue while Modern Healthcare notes that a New Mexico Telehealth Project May Be National Modelrecent developments regarding health information technology.
IWatch News: Excluded Groups Want In On Health Information Technology Providers frozen out of a $27 billion federal fund for conversion of medical records to electronic form are now fighting back in an effort to qualify for the money and possibly increase the size of the pot. The results of these multi-front battles are uncertain — but they are representative of a larger war. A
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Shefali S. Kulkarni compiled this selection of recently released health policy studies and briefs:
Pediatrics: Disparities In Child Access To Emergency Care For Acute Oral Injury — This study looked at the “impact of insurance status on dental practices’ willingness to schedule an appointment for a child with a symptomatic fractured permanent front tooth.” Six researchers posed as mothers of 10-year-old boys who all had the same injury but different coverage: Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or private Blue Cross dental insurance. T
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