Leveraging Technology
Fewer than 1% of rural Medicare beneficiaries received a telemedicine visit in 2013, according to a study reported this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The average number of telemedicine visits for the 41,070 rural beneficiaries who did was 2.6, for a total of 107,955…
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology yesterday announced $1.5 million in funding to test selected clinical interoperability standards for health IT in priority areas, such as medication management, laboratory data exchange…
Policymakers can advance care delivery and benefit patients by expanding access to telehealth in Medicare and new payment models, according to a new AHA issue brief. “A growing body of evidence shows that telehealth can not only expand access to services but also create cost savings,” the report…
Telehealth is increasingly viewed as a cost-effective method to deliver patient care and expand access. The growing use of telehealth reflects larger health care trends that place the patient's care and experience at the center of treatment decisions.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology seeks public input through June 3 on how to measure the achievement of widespread exchange of health information through interoperable certified electronic health record technology by…
The AHA today launched a web resource offering comprehensive information on telehealth, available at www.aha.org/telehealth. The site includes information on federal and state telehealth initiatives, research documenting telehealth value, AHA-member case studies showing telehealth in action and AHA…
The AHA yesterday encouraged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to eliminate its “all-or-nothing” approach to meaningful use of electronic health records, which is “overly burdensome” and not required by statute.
The Department of Health and Human Services is looking to make meaningful use of electronic health records “more flexible and much more focused on clinical outcomes and interoperability” as it implements changes to the Medicare physician payment system under the Medicare Access and CHIP…