Health IT
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You might only know it from "Jeopardy!" but IBM's famous Watson technology has found a new use. Veterans Affairs plans to use it as part of a pilot program to quickly search electronic medical records. If it works as planned, it'll allow VA doctors to spend more time with their patients. Jim Demetriades is the director of emerging health technologies at the Veterans Health Administration. He joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with more on the program.
January 15, 2015 -
Federal health agencies need help drafting their latest update to the Federal Health IT strategy guide. The Federal Health IT Strategic Plan relies on new research gathered about electronic health records in both the public and private sectors. But those agencies are looking for public input to make it perfect. John Teeter is managing director of the Federal Advisory Global Center of Excellence for Health at KPMG. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he shared ways to improve the new strategy guide that will inform public health policies until the year 2020.
January 12, 2015 -
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded a five-year, $563 million contract to Accenture to continue its work on Healthcare.gov. It's a high-profile contract in health IT in the federal government, but it's only one contract. Horace Blackman is vice president of health and life sciences at Lockheed Martin. He shared his Top 3 for 2015 on In Depth with Francis Rose. Horace says health IT growth is poised to explode -- and 2015 won't be the end of it, either.
January 05, 2015 -
The Department of Veterans Affairs investigated a security hole in a telehealth program. VA said personal information for more than 7,000 vets was been exposed, but the Federal Times reports both the VA and the vendor that provided the service said no data was stolen. Keith Trippie, chief executive officer of The Trippie Group, was former executive director of the Enterprise System Development Office at the Department of Homeland Security. In his Top 3 for 2015, he tells In Depth with Francis Rose even with the security risks telehealth initiatives will help government serve citizens better and save the government money in a couple different ways.
December 29, 2014 -
The Veterans Affairs Department says veterans using a specific contractor for home telehealth services found a vulnerability that potentially could've exposed personal information of veterans. VA said the vulnerability has been closed and it has offered those affected credit monitoring services.
December 24, 2014 -
Telehealth and mobile health technology will become more common as the federal government moves into a new phase of Health IT priorities. The new Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020 lays out five goals for collecting, using, and disseminating interoperable information. 35 agencies contributed to the plan. Dr. Karen DeSalvo, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to explain the strategic plan.
December 11, 2014 -
The Veterans Affairs Department is on the street with a new procurement to replace its patient scheduling system. The department has used the current system since 1986. It's the one scheduling staff used to manipulate data on patient waiting times in Phoenix and several other locations across the country. Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu writes about this RFP and more in this week's edition of Inside the Reporter's Notebook.
November 25, 2014 -
A Pentagon review of the military's health facilities concluded the quality of DoD's medical system is generally in line with what's offered by private sector providers. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said "average" is not good enough.
October 02, 2014 -
The White House has unveiled new or expanded commitments to open government. Included are plans to adopt an open source software policy, with a deadline of Dec. 31, 2015, as well as plans to improve delivery of government digital services.
September 29, 2014 -
Nov. 15 is the deadline for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to patch up the cybersecurity holes in the Healthcare.gov website. The Government Accountability Office offered 22 technical recommendations to the agency last week. Those problems appear just as the website nears its first birthday. Raj Sharma is co-founder and CEO of the Censeo Consulting Group. On the In Depth with Francis Rose Industry Chatter segment, he shared some ways to predict, and fix, longstanding problems with large federal IT projects like Healthcare.gov.
September 25, 2014 -
The Defense Department says its forthcoming purchase of a commercial-off-the-shelf electronic health record system is the best way to bring it into line with modern health IT practices and make its data more interoperable. But even after the system is deployed, DoD will be living with legacy data and paper records for years to come.
September 25, 2014 -
The National Cancer Institute is trying to connect with its audience in new ways. Scientists in a user-experience lab are designing technologies and collecting data on customers' experiences to understand the needs of cancer patients and researchers. Silvia Salazar is the Informatics Research Lab Manager at NCI. She shared details about the lab on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
September 25, 2014 -
By next summer, the Defense Department plans to make an award for a new off-the-shelf electronic health record system that meets modern health IT standards. But the system won't be a silver bullet for DoD's challenges in exchanging medical data with VA, or within the department itself. Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu has details on the legwork DoD will be doing over the next couple years to make its existing data more interoperable.
September 24, 2014 -
The Pentagon has been thinking about how to upgrade and replace its electronic health record system for a very long time. But in the eight years that have passed since those discussions began in earnest, much has changed in terms of the capabilities of commercial EHR systems.
September 12, 2014 -
The Veterans Affairs Department will release the Summary of Care and Blue Button applications for mobile devices this fall. The release is part of a burgeoning effort to create connections with patients outside of the traditional office visit.
September 03, 2014