Colorado

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CMS To Invest $5+ Billion a Year in Open Source and Cloud-based IT Infrastructure for Medicaid

After more than 40 years of relying on monolithic mainframe platforms to administer its services, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has embraced a new modular, open and agile approach to Medicaid health information technology for the Federal government and States. In many ways, this is the best of what open source advocates and technology innovators could have hoped for when it comes to open source policy from a government agency. According to Andrew Slavitt, Acting Administrator of CMS, the agency will spend more than $5 billion a year to fund this transformation.

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Colorado’s Direct Primary Care Bill: A Better Way to Pay for Healthcare?

Kelsey Ray | The Colorado Independent | April 10, 2017

Coloradans frustrated with the high costs of primary healthcare, take heed: A bill to protect a lower-cost model heads today to the state House floor after passing committee in both chambers. Fed up with the administrative burdens of “fee-for-service” insurance billing, family doctors across the country increasingly are turning to a payment model called direct primary care, in which patients and their primary care physicians enter into payment agreements that eliminate the middleman of traditional insurance...

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Drones Are More Helpful than Ever in Hurricane-Ravaged Texas and Florida

Thom Patterson | CNN | September 25, 2017

Unmanned aircraft — small and large — swooped in during the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey to get a glimpse of the devastation. That's why insurance companies have been using drone technology more than ever before to quickly -- and safely -- assess damage from the storm. It's only been fairly recently that commercial drone technology has advanced enough to take on this task on a large economic scale. And the insurance industry is just beginning to fully embrace it...

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Inside Big Pharma's Fight to Block Recreational Marijuana

Alfonso Serrano | The Guardian | October 10, 2016

Marijuana legalization will unleash misery on Arizona, according to a wave of television ads that started rolling out across the state last month. Replete with ominous music, the advertisements feature lawmakers and teachers who paint a bleak future for Arizona’s children if voters approve Proposition 205, a measure that would allow people aged 21 and over to possess an ounce of pot and grow up to six plants for recreational use. “Colorado schools were promised millions in new revenues” when the state approved recreational pot use, says the voiceover in one ad. Instead, schoolchildren were plagued by “marijuana edibles that look like candy”...

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Medicaid Expansion, Insurance Exchanges Taxing State Health Agencies

John Moore | Kaiser Permanente | August 29, 2013

Medicaid is set to expand next year, and state IT departments are grappling with pressing deadlines, new eligibility rules and millions of potential applicants as they ready systems to accommodate the changes. Read More »

Opinion: VA System Inadequate To Meet Veterans’ Health Care Needs

Gretchen Hammer | Health Policy Solutions | November 7, 2012

The promise of access to high-quality, affordable health care is one we can deliver on for our veterans if we continue to work together in communities to understand and address the health needs of veterans and their families and if we pursue all avenues to increase health insurance options for veterans who are currently without adequate health coverage.
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Stanford Researchers Show Fracking's Impact to Drinking Water Sources

Press Release | Stanford University | March 29, 2016

Only one industry is allowed to inject toxic chemicals into underground sources of drinking water – hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Concerns about this practice have riled the U.S. political landscape and communities around the country, perhaps nowhere more so than in Pavillion, Wyoming, population 231. A new study by Stanford scientists published in Environmental Science & Technology finds for the first time that fracking operations near Pavillion have had clear impact to underground sources of drinking water.

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Wyoming Department of Health Joins Forces with Medicity to Develop Statewide Health Information Exchange

Press Release | Medicity | March 21, 2018

Medicity, a leading expert in clinical data aggregation and interoperability, announced its partnership with the Wyoming Department of Health to form a statewide, medical community-owned health information exchange (HIE). Following a thorough assessment of the state’s health information environment, the Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) determined the need to establish a secure venue for providers to obtain patient information across the state. The Wyoming Frontier Information Exchange (WYFI), a centralized repository of clinical data for participating patients, will utilize Medicity’s data aggregation and interoperability capabilities to meet the needs of its population’s health, while improving quality of care.

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