US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
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Medsphere Supports Renewed Call for Extension of Financial Incentives for EHR Adoption to Behavioral Health Facilities
Medsphere Systems Corporation...today joined the growing chorus of voices supporting the Behavioral Health Information Technology Act of 2013 (S.1517). This legislation, introduced by Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) a little more than a year ago, would amend the Public Health Service and Social Security acts to define behavioral and mental health professionals as healthcare providers, making behavioral health hospitals eligible for Meaningful Use financial incentives for adopting EHRs. Read More »
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Medsphere Systems and Phoenix Health Systems Complete Merger
Medsphere Systems Corporation and Phoenix Health Systems today announced the merger of the two companies, effectively adding Phoenix’s comprehensive and diverse information technology (IT) expertise to Medsphere’s existing focus on VA VistA and VistA-derived systems. Moving forward, Phoenix Health Systems will retain its name and operate as a division of Medsphere; the expanded company will now offer a broader menu of IT services, including hosting and cloud-based interoperability, IT service desk support and project management around many EHR solutions, including enterprise OpenVista. Read More »
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Medsphere to Grow Interoperable Healthcare IT Platform with $40 Million Preferred Equity Investment from TPG Sixth Street Partners
Medsphere Systems Corporation...today announced new $40 million funding to support organic growth and pursue opportunistic strategic acquisitions through a preferred equity investment by TPG Sixth Street Partners. "We are pleased to add a new partner to our software solutions-driven campaign for quality, affordable healthcare," said Medsphere President and CEO Irv Lichtenwald. "Our technology and business model allow all providers to address core needs and we are energized by the support of institutions like TPG Sixth Street Partners." "Medsphere represents a compelling opportunity to support a differentiated healthcare technology platform," said Michael McGinn, Partner and Co-Head of TPG Sixth Street Partners' Capital Solutions business.
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Medsphere Voices Support for Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015
House legislation seeks to close gaps for families facing mental health challenges, extends federal support for health IT adoption to mental health providers Read More »
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Modernizing VistA: Enabling Scalable Interoperability In A Legacy System
While the technical challenges are formidable, leveraging cutting-edge tools and platforms can be part of the solution for achieving fast, secure and scalable interoperability within the mission-critical legacy system. However, the needs of clinical staff must remain paramount in designing solutions. A seemingly elegant systems architecture, for instance, is not viable unless it enables maximum efficiency for the providers who use it to treat the nation’s veterans. Thus, two technology approaches could have substantial effects on performance... Read More »
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NantHealth Acquires Harris Healthcare Solutions
NantHealth, a subsidiary of NantWorks, LLC, today announced it has completed the acquisition of Harris Corporation’s (NYSE:HRS) commercial Healthcare Solutions business, a clinical systems integration innovator. Harris retained its government healthcare services business. NantHealth’s existing cOS, eviti and omics platforms, combined with Harris’ FusionFX® suite of products, delivers on the promise of whole health systems integration and revolutionizes the patient-clinician experience by bringing molecular medicine insights directly to the point-of-care.
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Naturopathic Physicians and the Veterans Administration
AMVETS, one of the country's largest veterans service organizations, has teamed up with the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) to promote natural, non-pharmacological approaches to treating veterans suffering from chronic pain. In a Dear Colleague letter in the U.S. House of Representatives, lawmakers have called on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to take steps to employ licensed naturopathic physicians, who are trained in natural, non-invasive methods of healing. Congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI), concerned about the dangers of overmedicating veterans, especially with prescribed opioid drugs, has penned a letter that many colleagues have signed including Representatives Julia Brownley (D-CA), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), and Walter Jones (R-NC) as the letter's initial signators.
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No Link Found for Deaths and Veterans’ Care Delays
An investigation by the watchdog office for the Department of Veterans Affairs has been unable to substantiate allegations that 40 veterans may have died because of delays in care at the veterans medical center in Phoenix, according to a letter from the new secretary of Veterans Affairs. Read More »
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North Carolina's Central Regional Hospital Rolls Out VistA For Less Than $1 Million
Central Regional Hospital, a state psychiatric and medical facility located in Butner, North Carolina, has just completed a full-scale implementation of the open source VistA electronic health record (EHR) system. The hospital, after three years of work, was able to self-implement and customize the fully-featured EHR at a cost of less than $1 million. The 398-bed hospital serves the acute and long-term inpatient mental health and medical needs of North Carolina citizens from 26 counties and employs more than 1,900 staff, including 50 doctors, 300 professional nurses, 700 nursing assistants, 40 psychologists, and 70 social workers. Central Regional Hospital is a major teaching site for 23 psychiatric residents per year from Duke University and the University of North Carolina medical schools. It also provides training for medical students from both schools as well as psychiatry subspecialty fellowship training. Read More »
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Northrop Grumman to Release Mobile Blue Button for Veterans at HIMSS 2014 Conference
Northrop Grumman is going to release a major upgrade to its Mobile Blue Button for Veterans app during next week's Annual Exhibition and Conference of the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in Orlando, Florida, according to Jennifer Treger, Director for Northrop Grumman’s Veterans and Military Health Programs. The upgraded app, called the Mobile Blue Button for Veterans has a modified look and feel and has significantly enhanced capabilities. Read More »
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Obama Nomine Makes her Case to Take Over Tech at VA
LaVerne H. Council, the private-sector IT consultant and former Fortune 50 CIO who is President Barack Obama's pick to take over the Office of Information and Technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs, told lawmakers May 5 how she planned to manage the VA's technology team and its $4.2 billion in annual tech spending. Read More »
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Object Management Group Announces Business Process Modeling for Health Workshop on September 27
The Object Management Group® (OMG®), an international, open membership, not-for-profit technology standards consortium, today announced it will host the Business Process Modeling for Health Workshop at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans Hotel on September 27 from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. Registration costs $149 USD and is open to the public...The Workshop will feature experts from the healthcare field and business modeling who will explain how OMG business process modeling (BPM) standards can improve the portability of clinical processes and workflows...
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Open Health News Continues To Grow-Visitors Cross the 375,000 Mark
We have been very busy lately and did not have time this year to write a recap of major events related to our news web site. Well, a bit late, we start here with a review of our traffic figures. Traffic to the website continues to grow and we are now approaching 20,000 unique visitors per month. As the table shows below, the total number of unique visitors since we launched the site nearly four years ago has surpassed 375,000 and the total number of Page Views has broken the 8 million mark.
- The Future Is Open
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Open Health Round-Up For 2014: Notable Articles, Reports, And Events
Even the hidebound field of health care can undergo a lot of change over the course of one year. Key health IT trends that I saw throughout 2014 are summarized in another article. Here I'll list some of the most notable articles and reports related to open source, standards, and transparency in health. Read More »
Open Source EHRs: Will They Support Clinical Data Needs of the Future? (Part 2 of 2)
The first part of this article provided a view of the current data needs in health care and asked whether open source electronic health records could solve those needs. I’ll pick up here with a look at how some open source products deal with the two main requirements I identified: interoperability and analytics. Interoperability, in health care as in other areas of software, is supported better by open source products than by proprietary ones. Read More »