The Readmore 2014

Yesterday HHS announced that CMS will involve physicians in a five year demonstration project encouraging small and medium physician practices to adopt electronic health records.Excerpt from Secretary Leavitt's announcement:“This demonstration is designed to show that streamlining health care management with electronic health records will reduce medical...

West Virginia and Unicare rolls out a simple solution to fighting the obesity problem in West Virginia (WV ranks as the #3 heaviest state). The project involves giving West Virginia physicians a small body mass index (BMI) calculator wheel and training in how to use the wheel to recognize obesity earlier, especially in children.Thanks to Jane Sarasohn-Kahn...

Don't miss this week's Grand Rounds hosted by Paul Levy of Running a Hospital. Paul's edition focuses on personal experiences by health care bloggers and how it caused them to change their behavior and beliefs.Take some time today out of your busy schedule and read a couple of the linked stories.While on the topic of blog carnivals - also check out...

First big lions in West Virginia, now bigfoot sightings (more details) in Pennsylvania. The "big lion" sights in West Virginia certainly give new meaning to the motto of "Wild and Wonderful." Here's hoping that it wins the election.UPDATE (10/31/07): The votes have been tabulated...

If you are interested in Dr. Parkinson's business model check out doctokr (doc-talker) based in Vienna, Virginia. For more what doctokr is and how Alan Dappen, MD. provides his unique service check out about/services.Thanks to Dr. Val for the referral. I particularly like this quote from her post:"The physical exam is a straw man for reimbursement....

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn at Health Populi looks at some early statistics of how Iowans feel about the state of our health care system. The survey was sponsored by CodeBlueNow, a consumer-led health advocacy group.I found it particularly interesting that Iowans believe "health care services should stress disease prevention over high-technology cures." I...

Larry Messina beat me to the post. I agree - quote of the day from award winning author, Pat Conroy in a letter to the editor appearing in today's Charleston Gazette."Because you banned my books, every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them. Because book banners are invariably idiots, they don’t know how the world works — but...

A welcome to John Halamka, MD and CIO of CareGroup Health System and the Chief Information Officer and Dean for Technology at Harvard Medical School who has launched a new blog, Life as a Healthcare CIO. Dr. Halamka is also the Chairman of the New England Health Electronic Data Interchange Network (NEHEN), CEO of MA-SHARE (the Regional Health Information...

WSAZ News, the State Journal and Charleston Gazette are reporting that data on approximately 200,000 past and current members of West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) is missing. According to the articles, the data was contained on a computer tape being mailed to a data analyst in Pennsylvania and was reported missing on October...

How big are West Virginia's mountaintop removal sites? Check out the post "How Big is MTR Mining?" over at the Charlestonian Blog to better understand the scal...

The Foundation of Research and Education arm of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) released a report titled "State Level Health Information Exchange: Roles in Ensuring Governance and Advancing Interoperability." The report was funded by ONCHIT.I've just scanned the report but it appears to give a nice overview of the current...

An attorney I work with sent me a link to the following Fox News article, Doctors, Hospital Workers Suspended for Viewing George Clooney's Medical Records. For more news check out Google News search.The article indicates that 40 employees at Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, NJ were suspended for violating the hospital's HIPAA policies and...

Friend and fellow health care blogger, Fard Johnmar, today officially announced the launch of The Digital Health Revolution. A project he has been working on with the folks at Scribe Media since meeting them at the fHealthcare Blogging Summit in Las Vegas.Fard has great insight into the health care industry and I look forward to great content coming...

Last week (October 4) Microsoft rolled out a brand new vehicle that should help accelerate the growing consumer driven health care movement and creation of a national interoperable health information system. HealthVault is a new personal health record (PHR) platform that allows the user to gather, store and share health information online.There has...

David Harlow of HealthBlawg takes to the keyboard like Columbus took to the seas and explores the world of law in Blawg Review #129. Don't miss this edition by one of my fellow health law bloggers.Check out the upcoming editions at Blawg Review. If you are a new law blogger -- sign up to host or submit your favorite law related pos...