33 results.
EHR 2014: Highlights of the Proposed Stage 2 Certification Rule
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: May 2012
In March, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT published a proposed rule on EHR certification, a companion to the proposed rule on stage 2 of the meaningful use EHR incentive program that was published on the same day by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
What’s New in 2: Top Changes in the Stage 2 Rule
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: April 2012
There are few surprises in CMS's proposed rule on stage 2 of the meaningful use program. The provisions generally reflect the recommendations of the Health IT Policy Committee made last year, and in the case of the intended change to the timeline, an announcement was made last December.
....
The 63rd REC: http://healthit.gov
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: February 2012
In a January 6 blog post, Farzad Mostashari, MD, national coordinator for health IT, summarized a busy year at his office, highlighting 10 of 2011's "most notable developments in the world of health information technology and ONC."
Among these were 62 regional health IT extension ce....
Breathing Room: Early Adopters Have More Time for Stage 2
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: January 2012
Last summer the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT heard repeatedly from providers and vendors that they would not have time to prepare for stage 2 of the meaningful use program. With a final rule on stage 2 not expected until summer 2012, vendors and hospitals did not see how th....
Fall Preview: A Look at the Season’s Expected Rules
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: November 2011
Perhaps one of the biggest jobs related to implementing the ARRA provisions right now is keeping track of the moving parts. Publication of the act in 2009 was a kind of Big Bang-an explosion of provisions that rocked the healthcare universe. Since then, however, the pieces have traveled at dif....
Little Breaches: OCR Releases First “Small Breach” Data
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: October 2011
The Office for Civil Rights has been publicly reporting incidents of large-scale health data breaches since early 2010, but last month it reported to Congress numbers that the industry has only guessed at to date-the reports it has received of breaches involving fewer than 500 individuals.
Pick One: Comparing the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: September 2011
Approximately 77,000 healthcare providers had registered for the meaningful use EHR incentive programs through July, program officials told the Health IT Policy Committee at its August 3 meeting. That is a significant number, but it leaves plenty of eligible providers and hospitals still to re....
Access Report: OCR Tries Subtraction through Addition in Accounting of Disclosure Rule
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: July 2011
The Office for Civil Rights proposed rule on the HITECH modifications to the HIPAA accounting of disclosure provision contains an interesting attempt to balance the mandates of the statute with the realities of today's accountings.
OCR was faced with the difficult task of expanding a....
A Possible Delay for Stage 2
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: June 2011
This spring, as the first providers began attesting to their performance in stage 1 of the meaningful use program, the rest of the industry seemed too absorbed with the program's next phase to take much notice.
Through the spring a subgroup of the Health IT Policy Committee was prepa....
Rules of Spring: Reviewing the Upcoming Regulations on HIPAA Privacy Rule Modifications
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: April 2011
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act came out with a bang in February 2009. The rules enacting its privacy and security provisions, however, have trickled out over the subsequent two years. Many of the provisions have the potential for significant impact on HIM operations, and the slow p....
Too Much Privacy? OCR Proposes Easing Protections on Decedent Records
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: September 2010
The HIPAA privacy rule generally conveys to individuals the same rights in death that they held in life. Two current proposals would change that, reducing the protections that covered entities currently must afford a deceased patient's record and easing access to decedent records by family....
Access + Understanding: The Role of Health Literacy in Patient-Centric Health IT
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: May 2010
Improving the ability of patients to understand and apply health information goes hand in hand with designing systems that deliver it. Both are needed to improve outcomes and reduce disparities.
Recent federal initiatives to promote health IT, including the “meaningful use” EHR incen....
Dowling Named to Lead AHIMA
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA - website
Publication Date: December 2009
Dec 02, 2009 07:00 am
The AHIMA Board of Directors announced Tuesday that it has selected Alan F. Dowling, PhD, to serve as CEO of the American Health Information Management Association.
Dowling has more than 35 years experience in health informatics, with a broad-base....
Who's Hiring
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA - website
Publication Date: October 2009
Kevin Heubusch
Oct 12, 2009 12:05 pm
In one sense, the future is already here for those who manage health information. The skills HIM professionals need today are not very different from those they’ll need in 10 years, according to a new survey of practitioners, recruiters,....
Leading on the Legal EHR: New Model Identifies Goals, Behaviors, Activities, and Resources
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: April 2009
Organizations undertaking EHR system design, planning, and implementation can become so focused on getting the clinical details right that they forget to put sufficient attention to the legal implications of maintaining the information over time.
Turning an organization&rsquo....
Blending HIM with Health IT: HIM Systems Analyst Plays Role to Fit an Electronic Record
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: October 2008
David Diaz, RHIA, is an HIM systems analyst at Rady Children’s Hospital–San Diego. The role blends information management and information services functions. “It’s a little different,” he says, but it works well for the facility and its electronic record system.
Certified EHRs: Certification Reduces Risk and Effort in Product Selection
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: August 2008
Selecting, financing, and launching an EHR system is difficult. Product certification seeks to make the first step a little easier.
Somewhere on your toaster oven is a UL sticker. That’s your reasonable assurance that the appliance won’t burst into flames. Likewise, the t....
Physician Practices and Information Management: HIM Professionals Offer Value in Changing Practices
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: August 2008
Health information management professionals offer contemporary physician practices a lot of expertise. In the coming era, they offer even more.
Sometimes overlooked in the talk about information technology is information management. For all the benefits that IT offers physician pract....
Demonstrating CARE: Is a Unified Federal Assessment Tool on the Horizon?
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: July 2008
A care assessment tool for Medicare beneficiaries, currently used in a demonstration project, points the way to a unified, standardized federal assessment tool.
Patients who transition between inpatient, rehabilitation, and long-term care facilities face risk. Their transitions are o....
Coding’s Biggest Challenges Today
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: July 2008
Coding departments are hectic places in 2008, busy adapting to new requirements. To meet the challenges, they are seeking the right staffing, education, and coordination.
How many challenges does coding face today? Open positions, revenue cycle, MS-DRGs, POA, RACs,....
IT Standards for PHRs: Are PHRs Ready for Standards? Are Standards Ready for PHRs?
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: June 2008
The personal health record market looks like a blur, but organizing around common technical standards will help PHRs gain traction with providers, payers, and consumers.
In late April the National Alliance for Health Information Technology released a consensus definition for a person....
On the Leading Edge in Long-term Care
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: April 2008
Margie White started out as a nursing assistant in acute care. A brochure for AHIMA’s independent study program introduced her to HIM. She completed the program and applied for a job as medical record clerk in a long-term care facility.
And she kept going. White earned her RHI....
International Certificate in ICD-10 Coding: WHO-FIC, IFHRO Program Offers Standardized Training, Coder Recognition
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: May 2007
ICD codes are used the world over. The circumstances for the coders who apply them, however, are by no means standard. Opportunities for education, professional development, and workplace recognition vary widely around the world.
That is changing this spring, as two organizations in....
PHRs for the Masses?: Consumers Say They Are Interested in PHRs, but Will They Use Them?
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: April 2007
Providers, payers, and employers are excited about personal health records (PHRs), as are vendors, policy groups, and the federal government. But what about consumers, the half of the equation that will use them?
When asked, the general population typically says they are in....
Piecing together the PHR
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: April 2007
What health information is most useful to consumers? That’s a question only consumers can answer, one by one.
The personal health record, or PHR, might lack a common definition, a common data set, a common format, and a short list of sponsors. But it has one thing i....
Language of Health Data Exchange
Author: Bloomrosen, Meryl; Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: April 2006
Rapidly advancing data exchange initiatives have left a trail of acronyms in their wake. Is a SNO a RHIO, and where did LHIIs go?
As thinking on the nature of regional and nationwide data exchange evolves, terms devised from necessity have been left behind just as....
Compliance Officer Brings HIM Insights to Data Standards Work
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: March 2006
Data standards may seem like the work of IT specialists, but Nancy LeRoy knows that HIM can contribute valuable information about document flow and management. "The nuts and bolts of the HIM profession feed into standards work," she says.
LeRoy, BS, CCS, CCP, serves as cochair of th....
Interoperability: What it Means, Why it Matters
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: January 2006
Healthcare’s hottest topic finally has two things it has badly needed: plain language and a sense of urgency.
Every health information story in 2006 will circle back to one word. In one way or another, every HIM story this year will relate to interoperability.
Healthcare....
Treating Physician Practices with a 5 Percent Solution
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: October 2005
It’s an amazing challenge,” Suzanne Columbus admits. By 2008 the senior EHR implementation advisor must help at least 500 physician practices adopt health IT.
Columbus works at IPRO, New York State’s quality improvement organization (QIO). That puts her in the middl....
In New Role, Years of Experience
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: May 2005
Scan Michelle Wieczorek’s credentials—RN, RHIT, CPHQ, CPUR—and consider how she came to work at the center of the external and internal Web sites of a major health system.
The biggest reason doesn’t have to do with knowing how information becomes pixels on a s....
Flash Forward: Leadership's Commitment is Crucial at a Hospital where Tomorrow Comes Today
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: January 2005
When Angela Lehman, RHIA, arrived at Oklahoma Heart Hospital, Oklahoma City, in April 2004, the facility was less than two years old. From day one, it had been nearly paperless. For Lehman, the director of health information, the hospital leadership’s full commitment to the EHR’s s....
Helping Coders Keep Current
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: July 2004
On the heels of new medical procedures and new devices come the new codes and new interpretations to describe them. That’s why Terry Tropin says that coding’s biggest challenge is “keeping up.”
Tropin, RHIA, CCS-P, CPC, is manager of coding education at the Ameri....
Expanding Universe: a New Manager Educates Herself -- and Upper Management, Too
Author: Heubusch, Kevin
Source: Journal of AHIMA
Publication Date: March 2004
In HIM, the universe is expanding. The key to expanding with it, says Mechel McKinney, BSB/A, RHIA, is education: educating yourself to do bigger and better HIM work and educating upper management about HIM’s important role throughout an organization.
McKinney began her HIM car....