CMS will conduct end-to-end ICD-10 testing.

After several organizations expressed concerns over the lack of end-to-end testing in the move to ICD-10, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have changed their tune and announced that they will perform testing this spring. Testing will occur March 3 to March 7. According to the MedPage Today announcement, the testing will assess how the system works from the provider’s perspective, in addition to how things work on the CMS side.

The Health IT Policy committee suggests refined Stage 3 objectives.

After the Health IT Policy committee suggested a decrease in the number of Stage 3 objectives, the Meaningful Use / MIPS Work Group decided to refine Stage 3 requirements. Considering the state of health IT, the work group eliminated requirements in areas where standards are not mature. Many of the objectives the work group reconsidered are related to public health reporting.

For details on the refined objectives, read the recent Healthcare Informatics article.

Ways to avoid healthcare data breaches.

As illustrated by the number of weekly data breaches, healthcare organizations appear to be experiencing challenges with HIPAA compliance. To illustrate, 2013 saw a 138% increase in data breaches. To change this trend, healthcare organizations and their staff need to be informed and empowered to protect patient data. This week, Healthcare IT News published five recommended ways to avoid data breaches. Review their recommendations and share with your staff.

HIMSS14 is here.

The HIMSS annual conference is here! It will take place next week, in Orlando, Florida. The HIMSS conference is the healthcare IT event of the year. It features a number of high-profile speakers, this year, the keynote speaker is Hillary Rodham Clinton. Thousands of vendors from around the world come to the conference to showcase their products and services and hundreds of healthcare IT experts conduct educational programs for those who are interested.

We will be attending. If you are interested in meeting with us, let us know. Email D’Arcy Guerin Gue at dgue@phoenixhealth.com to coordinate a meeting time.