public health news from FierceHealthIT

Maybe it sounds like a crazy question, but how do you use your EMR system? Are you dedicating it entirely to supporting direct patient care, or do you expect to use it to conduct research, too? I Read more...

With some core data already defined, it's looking like the pace of health IT standards development is likely to pick up. According to John Halamka, chairman of the Healthcare Information Technology Read more...

In a new report, the American College of Physicians is arguing that public investment in health IT will be critical to improve the U.S. healthcare system. The group is urging this year's slate of Read more...

After a year of review, HHS has formally recognized a set of health IT standards for laboratory results reporting, public health reporting for biosurveillance and consumer management of their own Read more...

New York's health commissioner announced this week that the state would launch a new program aimed at encouraging health IT tools during 2007 and 2008. The program, which is part of Gov. Eliot Read more...

Most discussions of health IT focus on its benefits for commercial healthcare providers. But health IT infrastructure can also offer big payoffs for public health, according to a group of thought leaders that convened in Washington, DC last week. Here are some of their ideas. Article

A group of California-based foundation executives expect to turn their regional health information network software into an open-source product by early 2007, in hopes that they'll help foster RHIO development nationwide. Officials at the California HealthCare Foundation had spent $20 million to build the software running the Santa Barbara County Data Exchange. Foundation officials, who spoke at a Washington, DC-area health information conference this week, said it would cost around …

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HHS official offers mixed health IT advancement assessment

While only a "small number" of U.S. healthcare providers have fully adopted health IT because of significant cost and other barriers, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made progress advancing usage with an array of project funding, vendor certification and standards adoption …

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