The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) may not directly affect health IT professionals as much as legislation like the HITECH Act and HIPAA, but thats no reason to overlook how the landmark 2010 universal healthcare bill builds upon past efforts to continue health ITs proliferation.

The medical information contained within EHRs is undoubtedly valuable to many of healthcares stakeholders, but its presentation as unstructured text often makes locating necessary information difficult, according to a study published July 6 in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. Using a novel method to detect named entities within EHRs, however, researchers demonstrated that constructing more effective information extraction systems is possible at low costs.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a proposed rule that would update the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for calendar year 2013, increasing payments to family physicians by approximately 7 percent and to other primary care providers (PCP) by 3 to 5 percent.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched its Innovation Fellows Program, which aims to bring novel ideas and expertise from outside the agency to help HHS accelerate health and healthcare innovation.

Existing prescription drug use data will be made available to providers and pharmacists when treating patients in ambulatory and emergency departments through a new pilot program launched by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).

The National Quality Forum (NQF) is throwing its weight behind a grouping of 14 patient safety measures that, if widely adopted by the healthcare provider segment of NQFs membership, could cut the number of complications caused by preventable errors. The newly endorsed measures are aimed at heading off such afflictive flubs as foreign bodies left inside patients during or after procedures, accidental punctures and wrong-site surgeries.

HERNDON, Va.During a presentation at the 2012 Healthcare IT Connect Summit on June 20, panelists discussing social media and patient engagement drove home a mantra that CMIOs should make a note of: Know. Your. Audience.

Two healthcare organizations serving central Pennsylvaniaa provider and a payorare teaming up to form what they are calling an Accountable Care Arrangement (ACA). According to a joint release from PinnacleHealth and Capital BlueCross, the alliance will work to decrease utilization of acute-care services.