Health IT News from Federal Agencies and Capitol Hill – Edited by Carolyn Bloch
The Health Policy Commission (HPC) on October 23, 2013 made $10 million available to help certain Massachusetts community hospitals. Eligible institutions in the state can apply for up to $500,000 from the first phase of HPC’s investment program. The “Community Hospital Acceleration Revitalization, and Transformation program or referred to as CHART is focused on improving the delivery of health care in community hospitals. (more…)
Beneficiaries can now access their TRICARE benefits and benefit information on their mobile devices through a variety of mobile applications and mobile-optimized sites to obtain information on the go. (more…)
The San Diego Regional Health Information Exchange (SDRHIE) with the new name “San Diego Health Connect” at www.sdhealthconnect.org has evolved from a federally funded HIE into an independent community-supported organization. In addition, agreements were signed with Scripps Health and Sharp HealthCare to participate in directing the exchange. With the two new additions to the HIE, the potential for the number of patients that the HIE can serve will go from 800,000 to more than 2.1 million. (more…)
Keynoter Gary Gottlieb, M.D, President and CEO at Partners Healthcare told the attendees at Partners Healthcare Connected Health Symposium held in Boston on October 23-24 how very important it is to measure value outcomes relevant to each patient. As Dr. Gottlieb explained, “The healthcare system needs to use validated tools such as Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) to compare outcomes across providers and institutions to see whether clinicians are actually improving the health of patients.” (more…)
Life Sciences Discovery Fund (LSDF) located in Seattle at www.lsda.org announced awards to go to for-profit and non-profit organizations in Washington State. The awardees will received a total of $1.25 million in “Proof of Concept” grant funding to work to accelerate promising health-related technologies from concept to commercialization. (more…)
The Alabama Medicaid Agency on October 7, 2013 issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking vendors to develop, implement, and maintain an Advanced Fraud Detection and 100 percent web-based Case Management System. The system will need to be able to use the newest technology along with fraud and abuse detection services available in the marketplace. (more…)
A three month study on telehealth services conducted by WILLCARE in Chautauqua County in New York State was completed earlier this years as part of the New York State Department of Health’s Telemedicine Demonstration Program. The project studied the effectiveness of using telehealth to monitor the vital signs of individuals living at home who have been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, diabetes, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. (more…)