With 2016 already half over, it's time to look back at the stories that most resonated with Healthcare IT News readers these first six months of the year. Taken together, they represent many facets of a fast-changing industry: policy changes and security challenges, frustrations with technology and aspirations for what it can help accomplish.
In January, acting CMS administrator Andy Slavitt made waves across the industry when he alluded, in a speech at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, that meaningful use – which for better and worse has shaped health information technology for more than six years – would soon "effectively over and replaced with something better." With the MACRA proposed rule soon unveiled in April, that looks to be the case for physician practices. What happens with regard to hospitals' participation in MU remains to be seen. FULL STORY
Featuring more than 100 photographs, taken during a busy week where nearly 42,000 healthcare and technology professionals flocked to Las Vegas to learn about clinical analytics, revenue management, cybersecurity and hundreds of topics besides, this online gallery was a big hit. FULL STORY
In the run up to the big show, guest columnist (and HIMSS16 social media ambassador) Brian Ahier explained how one four-letter word – data – was bringing healthcare closer than ever to the big goal we're all after. FULL STORY
As 2016 dawned, ECRI Institute listed what it expected to be some of the most pressing technology trends in the year ahead. "Hospital leaders have to deal with a lot of new technology issues," said Robert P. Maliff, director of ECRI’s applied solutions group, which spotlighted emerging priorities such as networked medical device security and wearable wireless sensors. FULL STORY
On March 4, Charles Perry, MD, resigned as chief medical information officer at New York's Queens and Elmhurst Hospital Centers, part of NYC Health + Hospitals, protesting that the health system's planned April 1 Epic EHR rollout was being rushed, and could jeopardize patient safety. A spokesperson from NYC Health + Hospitals countered, telling Healthcare IT News: "The idea that we’d jeopardize patients to meet a deadline is simply wrong – if a patient safety issue is identified, the project will stop until it is addressed." FULL STORY
Fewer than one in four U.S. hospitals are expected to meet the government’s goal of providing at least half of their patients with value-based care by 2018, according to a survey by Health Catalyst. Worse, just 3 percent of those polled currently comply with targets set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But they're trying: 52 percent of respondents indicated analytics would be critical to success in a value-based system. FULL STORY
From virtual care platforms to precision medicine, data analytics to interoperability, the healthcare IT landscape is constantly changing thanks to new approaches driven by entrepreneurs making waves in the sector. FULL STORY
To the distress of many, ransomware become a depressing fact of life for hospitals and healthcare providers in 2016. In February, a cyber attack against Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center – during which the hackers locked data, demanded a booty of $3.4 million in Bitcoin and forced caregivers to depend on handwritten notes and faxes – was arguably the first shot across the bow for healthcare. FULL STORY
In an interview with Healthcare IT News Editor-at-Large Bernie Monegain at HIMSS16, Judy Faulkner, the normally soft-spoken CEO of Epic, waxed rhapsodic about the beauty of well-coded EHRs. "Code is three things," she said. "One, it's mathematics. So, it's millions and millions of lines of math. Two, it is a language. You really have to think in it. … It has to be art too; good software is art." FULL STORY
In April, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that it had terminated its $14 million electronic health record contract with Epic. Officials had determined there were 'significant risks' to continuing rollout, it said, and had concerns about a viable final product. In a response on its website, Epic offered its side of the story: "There were many unusual issues which were not initiated by Epic. These included extensive hardware procurement delays, changes in third-party vendors with subsequent re-contracting mid-install (and) a change in data center … each of which caused significant delays. The system was finally scheduled to go live October 2015 but, for reasons we do not know, in September 2015 the Coast Guard decided not to continue the contract." FULL STORY
