4 things we learned from the annual ONC report on health IT

Thanksgiving is Thursday here in the U.S., which, for those of us in the publishing business, means it is a slow news week. So we amuse ourselves reading things like health IT reports from the federal government.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology this week released its annual report on health IT to Congress, as required by the 2009 HITECH Act. That’s the law that ushered in Meaningful Use in 2011.

There’s a lot of usual language in the report, talking about all the health IT programs and initiatives and standards ONC has launched or endorsed in the last 12 months, plus, of course, some interesting data. Here are four interesting things we learned from reading the document For the full article click here 

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3 Health Information Exchanges Make Health IT Investments

3 Health Information Exchanges Make Health IT Investments

New ‘Cures’ language coming soon

UPDATED 21ST CENTURY CURES BILL IMMINENT: The wait is over, or almost. A revised version of the 21st Century Cure Act might be released as soon as today in preparation of a House floor vote next week, sources on and off the Hill are telling Morning eHealth. The bill has been on hold for almost the entire year as Republicans and Democrats haggled over how to offset increases in NIH spending and funding for the cancer moonshot, Precision Medicine and opioid prevention and treatment. But Energy and Commerce Chair Fred Upton said last week a deal had been struck, and the rest of the world will see the fruits of their labor any time now. Lawmakers were trying to create a reconciled bill to pass through both chambers of a lame-duck Congress.

Some health IT things to watch:Check out our Pro Health Care colleagues for more pharma-centric coverage, but here’s a refresher on what eHealth items of interest:
— Definitions of interoperability – (the House bill was more specific)
— Interoperability standards – the House would contract with a standards-development organization to develop them; the Senate tries to create a trusted exchange framework
— TRUST IT Act – Sen. Bill Cassidy’s proposal to create a star-ratings system of EHRs wasn’t well received in the House, so its status in a reconciled bill is uncertain For the full article click here

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Is protectionism hurting health IT innovation?

The results of the U.S. election this month have got me thinking about protectionism.  Webster’s Dictionary defines protectionism as: “the theory or practice of shielding a country’s domestic industries from foreign competition by taxing imports.”  Advocates for a global trade system are obviously opposed to this idea and many attest that even though the strategy seems like a good idea at the time, in the long term it will never really work out.

So why am I discussing foreign policy strategies? I’m a data scientist and eHealth advocate after all. I bring it up because protectionism is exactly what is being practiced throughout the healthcare industry and it is systematically killing healthcare innovation. For the full article click here 

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Vital Signs: Could healthcare IT be the key to better addiction treatment?

In a new, landmark report on addiction, the U.S. surgeon general made a solid argument for the role of health information technology in improving the treatment of patients with drug or alcohol abuse as well as behavioral health problems.

Dr. Vivek Murthy’s office pushed for greater health IT adoption and use by providers of alcohol, drug abuse and behavioral health treatment. But it took no position on a pending federal rule that could relax the current strict privacy protections covering the medical records of many patients receiving those treatments.

The report, Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health, highlights a fundamental health IT dichotomy: Patients get better care if their records are shared among providers, but patients won’t seek treatment if they believe their information will be widely disclosed.

An estimated 23% of the U.S. population age 12 and older—some 67 million people—have engaged in binge drinking. Meanwhile, 10.2%—about 27 million people—used illicit drugs or misused prescription drugs. And more than 40% of people with a substance use disorder also have a mental health condition, the report said. For the full article click here 

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Health IT investors share lessons learned from early investments

If you were to ask a healthcare investor what their investment strategy is, it is likely the product of some brilliant foresight, a little luck, and some lessons learned from bad experiences or near misses.

In a series of phone and email interviews, we picked the brains of health IT investors at four firms. We asked them what they learned from early investments and how those lessons and insights informed their strategy going forward. One theme that threads its way through the investment narrative of these companies is that technology is all well and good, but you need a service to support it as well.

Cotiviti (originally iHealth) and athenahealth were two of the firm’s first investments made in the space, Lamont said in an email.

“They were very much about fixing broken processes through software, services, and data. That’s been our approach – addressing a broken system and improving it through the powerful combination of software, data, and services.  That’s particularly the case when behavior change is an important part of what needs to happen to improve healthcare and materially bend the cost/quality curve.  Appropriately, Aspire Health, Quartet Health, VillageMD and Axial Healthcare all have service as a component.” For the full article click here 

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