Concerns still exist, but unique patient identifier may be an idea whose time has come, according to a Rand Corp. study released online today.

Quoted: It turns out that the compromise fashioned to adhere to the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act [HIPAA] mandating the creation of a system to accurately identify patients has resulted in a system in which privacy is at risk, while not doing enough to prevent errors.

Quoted: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services collaborate with state agencies to give incentives to small practices to use health IT, with incentives totaling up to $58,000 per physician over five years or $290,000 per practice over five years

Physicians have until Nov. 26 to submit an application for the incentive. CMS, as of October, has received 18 applications, the organizations reported.

Quoted: CDC Health-e-Cards - Send an electronic greeting card to friends, family, co-workers!

Quoted: They're not your typical greeting cards...The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has developed more than 80 electronic greetings called Health-e-Cards to spread health information. Some are animated, others have music, and one urging screening for colorectal cancer features actor Jimmy Smits.

CDC officials said they did not have any estimate of what each card cost to produce. It's minimal, said Ann Aikin, CDC health communications specialist, noting the cards are built in-house...

http://www2a.cdc.gov/ecards

Quoted: Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and others see health information technology (IT) as key to fixing a dysfunctional health-care system. But moving health care into the digital age will be far from easy.

Quoted: Both houses of Congress are considering appropriations bills that would hold spending by the Office of the National Coordinator [ONC] near this year's level.

Quoted: Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) have introduced health care information technology legislation in the U.S. House a month after issuing a draft bill for public comment.

The legislation would amend the privacy rule to require application of penalties to business associates in the same manner as applied to covered entities

Microsoft unveiled Thursday the second version of its Connected HHS Framework, which it hopes will connect disparate systems from programs within the agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Quoted: The company also announced the formation of a 15-member alliance of industry partners that will adopt the framework and work with Microsoft and HHS, said Kevin Dolan, Microsoft’s alliance director for U.S. public sector health and human services. “It’s common that there are multiple programs within the agencies that focus on health and human services,” Dolan said. “The data in those programs are disconnected and that doesn’t provide caseworkers with a full vision. It also doesn’t lead to coordinated care.”

For instance, caseworkers usually have access to client data only within their siloed systems, explained Dolan. The framework would ideally grant them access to information from other programs including child welfare, Medicaid, and even programs beyond HHS. The framework can be looked at primarily as a service-oriented architecture that follows industry and federal enterprise standards, said Dolan. The purpose, he added, is to identify common business and technology functions required across these federal programs, and then provide them in a way that allows coordinated case management.

Quoted: The former National Coordinator for Health IT touted health ITs ability to transform health care at a California conference.