Electronic Health & Medical Records

Portrait of Kathryn Marchesini

Guiding Developers through Foundational Federal Laws Applicable to Mobile Health Technology

Kathryn Marchesini | December 12, 2022

As you design, market, and distribute a mobile health (mHealth) app that your customers will use to collect, share, use, or maintain individuals’ health information, it is likely you have questions about what U.S. federal laws apply. You may also wonder which federal agencies oversee various aspects of mHealth — including how this varies by how individuals, their health plan, or health care providers will use the app.  Depending on who is expected to use an app and how they will get and use the app (e.g.,

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Portrait of Kathryn Marchesini

Two Sides of the AI/ML Coin in Health Care

Kathryn Marchesini | October 19, 2022

As we’ve previously discussed, algorithms—step by step instructions (rules) to perform a task or solve a problem, especially by a computer—have been widely used in health care for decades.  One clear use of these algorithms is through evidence-based, clinical decision support interventions (DSIs). Today, we see a rapid growth in data-based, predictive DSIs, which use models created using machine learning (ML) algorithms or other statistical approaches that analyze large volumes of real-world data (called “training data”) to find patterns and make recommendations.

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Portrait of Ryan Argentieri

USCDI+ In Action! ONC and HRSA launch USCDI+ Initiative to support UDS Modernization

Ryan Argentieri | August 29, 2022

A few months ago, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) launched the USCDI+ initiative to support the identification and establishment of domain or program-specific datasets that will operate as extensions to the existing United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI). Recently, our colleagues at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) saw an opportunity to leverage USCDI+ and we have now launched a new USCDI+ collaboration to support HRSA’s Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting through the UDS Modernization Initiative.

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Portrait of Chelsea Richwine

Electronic Public Health Reporting among Hospitals & Physicians in the Year Prior to the Pandemic: Implications for Health Equity & Pandemic Response

Chelsea Richwine | August 18, 2022

The pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed gaps in the nation’s public health infrastructure that pose challenges to effective communication between health care providers and public health agencies.  According to ONC analyses of nationally representative survey data from hospitals and physicians collected in 2019, over 70% of hospitals experienced at least one major challenge with electronic public health reporting and less than 1 in 5 primary care physicians—and about a quarter of pediatric and internal medicine primary care physicians—reported electronically exchanging data with public health agencies.

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