Information Edge news and information

A proposed federal privacy rule affording patients access to information about who has accessed or received copies of their medical records may be more trouble than its worth in terms of patient benefits, some industry leaders say.
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No one goes on a cruise with the intention of falling ill, but bad things happen even to fun-seeking people. Since the average age of a cruise ship passenger is 46, and an estimated 14.3 million people sauntered up the gang planks of 220 North American cruise ships last year, sick passengers are a...
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Steadily increasing antibiotic use, the lack of new antimicrobials coming down the pipeline and the growth of multidrug-resistant organisms have together forced some real creativity among those who head up hospitals' efforts to control drug costs and combat overuse.
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On Oct. 1, 2013, nearly the entire U.S. healthcare industry is scheduled to start using the ICD-10 family of diagnostic and procedure codes in response to a federal mandate. It's a date that, without close examination, still seems comfortingly distant. But distances in healthcare, as they can be in...
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An important goal of hospital website design is a simple one: Help people find what they're looking for quickly. And thanks to the ability to record every click and every search, arguments over what people are looking for can be settled fairly easily.
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While physician practices and hospitals rush to meet meaningful-use criteria required to obtain federal information technology subsidies and also prepare for new reporting mandates included in the healthcare reform law, there are doubts whether government computers will be able to digest all the...
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For more than two years now, the federal agency that serves retired warriors has been waging its own battle.
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Is the primary federal privacy law up to the task of protecting patient information in the 21st century?
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On Sept. 29, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), citing a lack of bipartisan support, announced he was, for the time being, throwing in the towel on a legislative effort to end the long-standing regulatory—and political—uncertainty regarding what...
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While physician practices and hospitals are busy readying themselves for the first phase of meaningful-use requirements for electronic health-record systems, quality experts are trying to identify outcomes-based performance measures that are up to the task of assessing patient-centered care.
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