We're taking our annual publisher's holiday next week, so this is the last issue of FierceHealthIT for 2010. It's been quite a year.

Even with the economy mired in a jobless recovery and political gridlock sweeping Washington and beyond, this industry plugged ahead, fueled in large part by the estimated $27 billion federal EMR incentive program, one of the few areas of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that seemed to have broad, bipartisan support. You may be familiar with a certain key phrase related to that stimulus plan: "meaningful use." I must have typed those words 1,000 times this year.

We'll have a rundown of the year in meaningful use in Thursday's FierceEMR, but if you can't wait a few more days--and seriously, who can?--click here.

You may also be familiar with the words "healthcare reform," embodied in 2010 by a lot of political posturing, angry claims of "socialism" and worse from the right and disappointed cries from the left that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a sellout to corporate interests. I've been rather unrelenting on the mainstream media and politicians alike for allowing themselves to be swept up in this maelstrom, but mostly for failing to realize that health insurance reform does not equal healthcare reform. The PPACA, which really is a moderate bill, for the most part just throws more money at the same broken system. It does contain elements of true reform, but you might not know that if you only relied on TV news.

In other health IT news this year, the new requirement that healthcare entities report breaches involving at least 500 patients has helped shine new light on the importance of data security--and leave more than a few people fearing the worst once there is a national, interoperable system of EMRs and electronic health data.

As we head into 2011, health IT professionals no doubt are looking at much more than meaningful use. There are new HIPAA requirements to comply with, including the aforementioned breach notification requirement. CIOs should be getting ready for the switch to ANSI X12 5010 transactions and ICD-10 coding. And many probably are fretting where they'll get the money and manpower to handle so many simultaneous transitions. FierceHealthIT will be here to bring you the news and help you sort through the noise.

Finally, for all you fans of social media, I'd like to welcome you to FierceHealthcare's new Healthcare Leader Idea Exchange on LinkedIn. By joining this group, Fierce invites you to take part in hot discussions, learn from other members and share your passion and knowledge, and most importantly, connect with peers and leaders in the healthcare industry.

Enjoy the holidays, and we'll see you on Monday, Jan. 3. - Neil