Healthcare IT News For VARs — September 19, 2014

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

In this week’s news, the White House seeks help from developers to expand the adoption of interoperable electronic health records (EHRs), and New Jersey faces worsening data breaches.

White House Seeks EHR Help From Developers

In its Blue Button initiative, according to CIO.com, the White House is appealing to developers to lend a hand in their open source community to expand the adoption of interoperable EHRs. The initiative is administered by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health, along with the Department of Health and Human Services, and will allow consumers to pull a digital copy of their health records through participating patient data administrators. So far, about 500 data holders (providers, plans, and other entities) have signed on to Blue Button.

GAO Says Healthcare.gov Consumer Data At Risk

Even after the recent security breach, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report stating that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which runs Healthcare.gov, hasn’t ensured that the network’s security systems were completed, specifically referencing the agency not finishing certain assessments of the site’s privacy risks, nor performing a comprehensive test of the security systems. It also indicates that CMS did not produce a backup site for HealthCare.gov that would allow for data recovery in the event of a systems failure. The full, 78 page report is available here.

ACOs Saving Medicare More Than $800 Million

Of the 243 Medicare accountable care organizations  (ACOs) launched in 2012, 64 have saved enough to earn bonuses. In total, the ACOs have cut Medicare spending by $817 million, of which they received $445 million in bonuses. Of that same group, four ACOs significantly overspent, and now owe money to Medicare. Read more at California Health Line.

New Jersey Plagued By Data Breaches

An investigative report released by NJ Advance this past Sunday morning revealed that the data of more than 1 million patients in New Jersey hospitals and medical facilities have been compromised since 2009. The report indicates that information has been compromised in nearly all sectors of the medical health industry (specifically insurance, hospital systems, medical groups, laboratories, and state agencies). According to NJ Biz, the report also finds that the instances are becoming more common.

Healthcare IT Talking Points

This article on iHealthBeat is the first of a two-part series on direct messaging, and discusses behavior of EHR vendors (like not obtaining accreditation) and how it has made it difficult for some providers to exchange direct messages with customers. The article focuses primarily on eClinicalWorks, and Harrison Memorial Hospital.

Logicalis, an international IT solutions and managed services provider, has come up with a list of six things that weigh heavily on the minds of CIOs. They include…

• Security
• Meaningful Use
• Big Data
• Mobility
• Imaging
• ICD-10

Read more details at PR Newswire.

For more news and insights, visit BSMinfo’s Healthcare IT Resource Center.