by admin on March 30, 2012
Healthcare IT News reported yesterday that healthcare stands to reap big rewards from the government’s $200 million “big data” project, launched on 03/29 by the Obama administration.
Aiming to make the most of the fast-growing volume of digital data, the Obama Administration announced a “Big Data Research and Development Initiative,” pledging to “extract knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data,” to help address the nation’s most pressing challenges.
“In the same way that past federal investments in information-technology R&D led to dramatic advances in supercomputing and the creation of the Internet, the initiative we are launching today promises to transform our ability to use big data for scientific discovery, environmental and biomedical research, education and national security,” said John P. Holdren, assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
To launch the initiative, six federal departments and agencies announced more than $200 million in new commitments that, together, promise to improve the tools and techniques needed to access, organize, and glean discoveries from huge volumes of digital data, officials said.
The initiative aims to:
- Advance state-of-the-art core technologies needed to collect, store, preserve, manage, analyze and share huge quantities of data.
- Harness these technologies to accelerate the pace of discovery in science and engineering, strengthen our national security, and transform teaching and learning; and
- Expand the workforce needed to develop and use big data technologies.
Holdren said the initiative is in response to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which last year concluded that the federal government is under-investing in technologies related to big data. In response, OSTP launched a senior steering group on big data to coordinate and expand the government’s investments in this area.
by admin on March 26, 2012
In an article in HealthIT Buzz, Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and Marilyn Tavenner, Acting Administrator for the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, have dubbed 2012 “The Year of Meaningful Use”.
The ONC has set an ambitious goal for 2012: get 100,000 health care providers paid under the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs by year’s end.
The EHR Incentive Programs, which began in 2011, give payments to eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals as they adopt, implement, upgrade, or demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology. “Meaningful use” means providers need to show they’re using certified EHR technology in ways that improve care.
Health IT systems, including EHRs, help providers communicate better with each other about patient care, which reduces medical errors, helps cut down on paperwork, and cuts out needless duplicate screenings and tests. These all lead to better coordinated patient care and lower health care costs.
In 2011:
- More than $2 billion in Medicare EHR Incentive Program payments were made between May 2011 and the end of February 2012.
- More than $1.8 billion in Medicaid EHR Incentive Program payments were made between January 2011 (when the first set of states launched their programs) and the end of February 2012.
- More than 59,000 eligible professionals and 2,000 eligible hospitals have been paid by the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs.
- More than 120,000 providers, representing approximately 40 percent of primary care providers nationwide, enrolled with the RECs to get program information and help in adopting EHRs.
Mostashari and Tavenner state, “There’s every reason to expect that together we can increase these numbers greatly this year to reach our target of 100,000 providers.” They note that many of the ONC’s provider partners have stepped up to the challenge. The American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Association of Family Physicians have engaged their memberships in achieving meaningful use in 2012. The American College of Cardiology has set its own goal of 8,000 cardiologists by 2012—this is one third of its membership.
by admin on February 24, 2012
On February 23rd, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a 455 page proposal for Stage 2 of qualifying for Meaningful Use incentives. Among its provisions, CMS will delay the start of Stage 2 until 2014. (It was originally proposed to start in 2013).
Stage 2 of meaningful use will build on the criteria of Stage 1, such as increasing the threshold for performance of existing measures and moving providers toward exchanging electronically, to drive continuous quality improvement.
In Stage 2, CMS said it will keep the same core-menu structure for required measures. Physicians will meet 17 core objectives and three of five menu options. Hospitals will meet 16 core measures and two of four menu options.
Health information exchange will be ramped up to a more “robust transitions of care” core objective, and the measure to provide patients with an electronic copy of their data is replaced by “electronic/online access” as a requirement.
