Meaningful Use standards prove to be a headache time and time again. For small hospitals, doing their best to implement an EHR and then meet standards may not be enough. And the consequences can be dire — they may not receive their incentive money, and are left worse off than before they purchased the EHR.
And with the recent sequestration, will Meaningful Use incentives be slashed? An editorial by Tom Sullivan discusses the possibility, and talks with Scott Lundstrom, group vice president of consultancy at IDC’s Health Insight Unit. Lundstrom suggests some reason to worry. Anne Zieger analyzes the editorial and chimes in her thoughts about how health IT may have something to worry about soon.
Because HIMSS 13 just finished, there were a few posts about some of the information from the conference here at Healthcare Scene. Mandi Bishop attended and gives an overview of her experience over at EMR and HIPAA. She compares it to the Wizard of Oz, and discovering that the main behind the curtain is simply that.
At another conference, SXSW, John was able to meetup with one of his hospital colleagues, and showed that you may run into anyone at a conference. They can be great networking opportunities, and being able to meet with others allows you to find out about different products and services.
In the smartphone and tablet world, here’s an app you’ll want to download. One way to be healthier is limiting one’s sodium intake. The Mayo Clinic revealed that while the average person should not have more than 2,300 mg of sodium a day, most Americans get around 3,400 mg. Sodium 101 was created to help people make smarter choices, and understand the amount of sodium they are getting each day. Excess sodium can lead to weight loss and a host of other problems, including many auto immune diseases, so this is an important topic.
On the subject of weight loss, a recent study has found that financial incentives inspire weight loss. The participants in the incentive groups were given a sum of money for meeting their health goals, but also were required to pay a certain sum to a pool that participants were entered to win in the end.
