Joseph Conn April 06, 2009 The dam has broken. The federal government is poised to pour, by Congressional Budget Office estimates, as much as $38.3 billion into healthcare information technology support through 2015 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The results of the 19th annual Modern... ... FULL STORY
Jessica Zigmond April 06, 2009 Three years ago, Congress appropriated billions of dollars to HHS for the agency’s pandemic influenza plan after animal outbreaks of the extremely pathogenic avian flu virus were discovered in a dozen countries throughout the world. Today, even though scientists say the threat of a pandemic is... ... FULL STORY
David May April 06, 2009 As is usually the case during tough economic times—whether it’s because of painful necessity or to seize an opportunity—more Americans are heading back to school. The medical fields are certainly seeing some of that. In the case of healthcare—where even in this dismal economy workforce shortages... ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 Hospital capacity fell by nearly 13% during the decade that ended in 2006, but that capacity continued to vary widely across the U.S., according to a newly released report from the Dartmouth Atlas Project. A shift to outpatient care contributed to the decline to 2.46 staffed acute-care hospital... ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 The Federal Trade Commission issued a 17-page how-to guide to help organizations comply with new privacy measures required under what it calls the “red flags” rule. The rule—set to be enforced beginning May 1 after a six-month reprieve—is directed at creditors and financial institutions. Last year... ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 Nearly two years after announcing plans to merge, two major Rhode Island healthcare systems have yet to submit a completed application to the state health department and Rhode Island attorney general’s office for review. Four-hospital Lifespan Corp. and three-hospital Care New England announced... ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 For the first time since the recession began in December 2007, hospitals in March posted a decline in employment, following waves of mass layoffs that spiked last September and have remained higher than normal ever since. Preliminary seasonally adjusted data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics... ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 Physician informaticist Paul Tang, vice president and chief medical information officer at the Palo Alto (Calif.) Medical Foundation, and Judith Faulkner, chairman, president and CEO of Epic Systems Corp., Verona, Wis., are among the 13 members announced by the Office of the Comptroller General to... ... FULL STORY
Jessica Zigmond April 06, 2009 Three years ago, Congress appropriated billions of dollars to HHS for the agency’s pandemic influenza plan after animal outbreaks of the extremely pathogenic avian flu virus were discovered in a dozen countries throughout the world. Today, even though scientists say the threat of a pandemic is... ... FULL STORY
Jennifer Lubell April 06, 2009 Robert Minkin, president and CEO at Exempla St. Joseph Hospital in Denver, expects to see long-term gains by participating in a new CMS demonstration project that will “bundle” payments to hospitals and physicians—even though at the outset his hospital will be getting paid less by Medicare. ... FULL STORY
Joseph Conn April 06, 2009 The dam has broken. The federal government is poised to pour, by Congressional Budget Office estimates, as much as $38.3 billion into healthcare information technology support through 2015 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The results of the 19th annual Modern... ... FULL STORY
Joseph Conn April 06, 2009 Early this year, as members of Congress heated up the debate on the merits and faults of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, our readers went to the “polls” themselves in a referendum of sorts on healthcare information technology and its role in their hospitals and physician office... ... FULL STORY
Joseph Conn April 06, 2009 In this crazy economy, who can predict the future? As it turns out, our readers can. Or, at least they can predict the future of their own IT projects. In our survey this year, we approached the prediction problem with three different sets of questions.. ... FULL STORY
Joseph Conn April 06, 2009 David Brailer made information technology interoperability the focal point of his two-year stint from mid-2004 to mid-2006 as the first head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. He also championed the regional health information organization, or RHIO, as a... ... FULL STORY
David May April 06, 2009 As is usually the case during tough economic times—whether it’s because of painful necessity or to seize an opportunity—more Americans are heading back to school. The medical fields are certainly seeing some of that. In the case of healthcare—where even in this dismal economy workforce shortages... ... FULL STORY
Stephen Lieber April 06, 2009 Healthcare reform, with healthcare information technology as its backbone, has transcended decades of discussion with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The stimulus act provides more than $20 billion in net healthcare IT incentives—total incentives before savings may... ... FULL STORY
Mark Leavitt April 06, 2009 Since its founding in 2004, the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology has pursued a mission to accelerate adoption of health information technology by achieving four goals—or, more accurately, three goals and a wish. ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 In reference to the article on Lance Poulsen and his COO (Rebecca) Parrett being sentenced to 30 and 25 years, respectively (March 30, p. 4), I believe justice will be served if they are required to remain in prison for the full sentence. In a former position, I became intimately familiar with the... ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 A list of the nation's largest master's programs in health administration, ranked by total number of students enrolled in the 2008-09 school year. Source: Association of University Programs in Health Administration. Published April 4, 2009. ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 Harry Totonis was named president and CEO of the national electronic-prescribing network Surescripts, Alexandria, Va. Totonis will replace co-CEOs J.P. Little, 47, and Rick Ratliff, 48, who have jointly run the company since its merger last year with RxHub. Both Little and... ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 David Wales, acting director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition since August 2008, will leave in May. Wales, 39, joined the FTC in 2006 as deputy director and has led the commission’s antitrust enforcement for the past nine months, a period marked by several actions... ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 Mark Merrill, president of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and executive vice president of Texas Health Resources, will be leaving his post to become president and CEO of Valley Health, Winchester, Va. Merrill, 55, will be replacing Michael Halseth, Valley Health’s current... ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 For a decade, the American Medical Association attacked the way insurance companies calculate what they pay doctors for out-of-network care. This year, UnitedHealth Group and its subsidiary Ingenix agreed to pull the plug on data sources that most of the industry has been using to calculate the... ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 When “ER” ended its 15-year run as a health drama last week, the Hollywood, Health & Society program waved goodbye sorrowfully. ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 “He’s a great symbol from our point of view. We cannot have a better first person to attack healthcare reform than someone who ran a company that ripped off the government of hundreds of millions of dollars.” ... FULL STORY
April 06, 2009 Covenant Health System, Lubbock, Texas, expects to construct a 16-bed, $5.8 million free-standing emergency department and does not have a scheduled opening date planned (“Launching satellites,” March 23, p. 46). The company provided incorrect information on the project. ... FULL STORY
