The HIT Standards Committee met on October 29, 2009 and formed an "Implementation Workgroup" which is charged with bringing forward “real-world” implementation experience to the HIT Standards Committee recommendations.  The Implementation Workgroup will have a special emphasis on strategies to accelerate the adoption of proposed standards, or mitigate barriers, if any.  In addition to public meetings designed to uncover new strategies, the Committee also launched a blog. Industry groups, including the AHA, are encouraging hospital leader's to partic

In response to compliants from medical practitioners, patients, and technology engineers that Health Information Technology (HIT) and Computer Physician Order Entry Systems (CPOE) software programs are often faulty and that the manufacturers' shift blame to the medical facility when errors are found, Senator Grassley, on behalf of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter on October 16, 2009, to the CEO of 3M Company requesting information and documentation about 3M's software policies and programs.

In late March the Obama administration named David Blementhal, physician and director of the Institute for Health Policy at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners Healthcare System as the national coordinator for health information technology (HIT). This new post was included in the recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

In his new role, Blumenthal will be responsible for determing how almost $20 billion in new funding will be disbursed over the next few years.

I'm all for saving money and making things easier, at least when it doesn't publicize my Dr's finding from my latest physical.

M. Eric Johnson who is the director of the Center for Digital Strategies at Dartmouth College discovered a number of medical records available for public view during a two week study he completed in January for the Department of Homeland Security. Amazingly these files were available for the taking on peer-to-peer file sharing networks you and I would visit to download our favorite song.

Both the Senate and House have passed different versions of an economic stimulus bill. In addition to tax cuts and new government spending provisions, both bills include many provisions that affect healthcare providers. A conference committee will meet this week in an attempt to iron out the differences.

According to a fact sheet from the Senate Finance Committee, here are some of the key differences in the two bills, relating to healthcare.