Agriculture Close To Avoiding Furloughs
Sequester Hits Disaster Relief
Feds Respond to Oklahoma Tornadoes
Making Government 'Simpler'
OK Senators Leery of Unfunded Tornado Relief
Boldly Go Where No Fed's Gone Before
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
John Pulley
John Pulley has written the Health IT Update blog since May 2011. Prior to becoming a regular contributor to Nextgov, he covered technology for Federal Computer Week and Government Health IT magazines. He has written about government for Federal Times and Air Force Times, as well. Pulley has worked in journalism for more than 20 years. He began his career covering local government for regional newspapers. In addition, he served as a writer and senior editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education for seven years. In 2006, he founded The Pulley Group, an editorial services agency.
State Uses IT to Aid Mental Health
October 8, 2010
FROM NEXTGOV
New York has awarded $8.7 million for a project that will leverage information technology to improve mental health care in the state's Hudson Valley. The funds will benefit the Taconic Health Information Network and Community (THINC), a not-for-profit organization that seeks to improve health care in the region through "health ...
EHRs Certified for Meaningful Use
October 6, 2010
FROM NEXTGOV
Another barrier to large-scale adoption of health IT began crumbling in the past week when three dozen electronic health records and their component parts earned certification for meeting meaningful use standards. Until now, the lack of certified products has hampered efforts by health care providers to adopt electronic records, say ...
Improving EHR's Safety Record
October 4, 2010
FROM NEXTGOV
The Institute of Medicine will undertake a year-long study of how best to fulfill one of the great promises of health information technology: improving patient safety. The Office of the National Coordinator has awarded almost $1 million to underwrite completion of the Institute's inquiry, the U.S. Department of Health & ...
Indiana U., Health IT Get Centered
October 1, 2010
FROM NEXTGOV
Indian University's Bloomington campus is creating a new center to investigate "vexing ethical, legal and social issues" that are emerging alongside information technology that is transforming health care. The Center for Law, Ethics and Applied Research in Health Information (a.k.a. CLEAR Health Information) will receive $4 million from Lilly Endowment ...
Health IT: Home Court Advantage
September 24, 2010
FROM NEXTGOV
Health IT systems are critical to the success of patient-centered medical home models for health care, a new study finds. Health IT "is the essential front-end investment," concludes the study, Medical Home 2.0: The Present, the Future, from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. "For patients to receive appropriate care ...
EHR War: Open vs. Proprietary
September 21, 2010
FROM NEXTGOV
When members of a federal advisory group suggested recently that the government shouldn't be in the business of designing electronic health records, Rick Jung nearly fell out of his chair. Apprehending his attention was a comment that appeared in a post on this blog: "I am nervous that the government ...
IT, Friends Predict Flu Outbreaks
September 20, 2010
FROM NEXTGOV
Using electronic health records and predictive models based on the dynamics of social networks, Harvard researchers were able to identify a group of college students who came down with the flu two weeks earlier than did a randomly selected control group. Monitoring the health of individuals whose social connections make ...
Incentives Drive Meaningful Use
September 17, 2010
FROM NEXTGOV
Federal financial incentives designed to spur health care organizations toward meeting meaningful use standards for electronic health records are living up to their name. Nearly eight of 10 respondents to a recent online survey indicated that they plan to pursue a share of financial incentives worth billions of dollars. Among ...
HHS Inoculates Rural Hospitals
September 16, 2010
FROM NEXTGOV
Rural hospitals struggling to install electronic health records received a shot in the arm this month -- an infusion of $19.8 million in federal funding from the Health and Human Services Department. The grants will help 1,655 small hospitals in 41 states, including facilities on American Indian reservations, according to ...
Health IT Group Urges Restraint
September 15, 2010
FROM NEXTGOV
As the government considers which "quality measures" to include in the second round of meaningful use requirements for electronic health records, members of a federal health IT policy committee are urging restraint. "I am nervous that the government is going to get into the EHR design business," said Judy Faulkner, ...
