Home > Articles > In the news: Senators request easing of meaningful use requirements; HHS releases over $267M for RECs; and more
Posted on April 12, 2010 by Steve Fox and Vadim Schick
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A group of 37 U.S. Senators sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius expressing concern regarding the current definition of meaningful use. The senators urged the Secretary to "allow providers to 'temporarily defer a limited set of IT goals' without otherwise changing the ultimate timeline or requirements of the program." The senators also sought to change the eligibility determination based on Medicare provider numbers, considering many healthcare providers have multiple medical campuses under one such Medicare number. According to Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), such changes would "improve the guidelines HHS has set in way that will encourage widespread use of basic, functional IT tools and improve patient care.”
- HHS released over $267 million from the stimulus funds to help 28 non-profit Regional Extension Centers (RECs). This latest award brought the total of stimulus-funded RECs to 60, and is expected to support 100,000 primary care and hospitals within 2 years. According to Secretary Sebelius, these 28 awards "represent [HHS's] ongoing commitment to make sure that health providers have the necessary support within their communities to maximize the use of health IT to improve the care they provide to their patients."
- Thomson Reuters released its annual study identifying the 100 top U.S. hospitals based on their overall organizational performance. The 10 areas measured are: mortality, medical complications, patient safety, average length of stay, expenses, profitability, patient satisfaction, adherence to clinical standards of care, and post-discharge mortality and readmission rates for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia. The study has been conducted annually since 1993. Is your hospital one of the 100 Top Performing Hospitals? Find out here.
- According to the Baltimore Business Journal, a proposed Maryland law could change how primary care providers do business, by creating a patient-centric primary care delivery system whereby insurance companies would financially reward primary care providers for better outcomes. However, the new law would also ease patient privacy rules by allowing greater sharing of patient information among medical practices and insurance companies. The law will likely pass with little or no opposition.
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