Portrait of Dr. Karen B. DeSalvo

ONC Launches Challenge to Improve Blood Pressure Control Using Health IT

Dr. Karen B. DeSalvo | July 30, 2014

Heart disease and stroke are two of the leading causes of death in the United States. To combat these threats, the Department of Health and Human Services (co-led by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS]) has joined with private and non-profit organizations such as the American Heart Association, American Pharmacists Association and the YMCA, to launch Million Hearts®, a national initiative to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes by 2017.

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Portrait of Kathy Kenyon

Promoting Patient Safety by Managing Health IT Risks

Kathy Kenyon | July 10, 2014

Everyone agrees that health IT safety is important.  Promoting Patient Safety Through Effective Health Information Technology Risk Management is a research report that looks into the challenges faced by hospitals and ambulatory practices that implement health IT risk management interventions.  The research was conducted by RAND Corporation and the ECRI Institute under contract to ONC.

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Portrait of Leila Samy

Critical Access Hospitals Report Challenges, Yet Forge Ahead with Advanced Health IT Capabilities

Leila Samy | July 8, 2014

Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), some with a census of fewer than 10 patients, are the smallest of the small rural hospitals. In some regions, such as frontier areas, a CAH may be the only local health care provider serving an area the width of the state of Rhode Island! CAHs are small, geographically isolated and have limited resources.

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Portrait of John Rancourt

Coalition of States, ONC & SAMHSA Successfully Piloted Behavioral Health Data Exchange

John Rancourt | June 27, 2014

A coalition of states, in partnership with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, successfully completed a pilot project for the interstate exchange of electronic behavioral health data using Direct. This activity illuminated some of the real challenges with using Direct, both technical and operational, but ultimately demonstrated that such exchanges can be performed.

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