Top News
The Defense Health Agency, established in October 2013 as a successor to TRICARE, requests $1.6 billion to support its health IT systems in 2015. It also wants $91 million for R&D to develop a new EHR by 2017 and $68 million to integrate its systems with those of the VA. Meanwhile, the VA’s 2015 budget requests include $269 million for EHR development.
Reader Comments
From TooMuch Coffee: “Re: WA state healthcare insurance exchange. You mention that 15k applications are stuck in limbo. I agree that’s not great, but they have signed up around 500k successfully. The site basically works, unlike OR and HI sites.” I’ve written about Oregon’s struggling exchange, so here’s the story on Hawaii’s: it received $204 million in federal funding, went live two weeks late due to software problems, has enrolled fewer than 5,000 people (at a cost of about $46,000 each), and has already been declared unsustainable without ACA rule changes since few potential customers and insurers are interested and it’s supposed to be self-funding its $15 million annual operating budget with 2 percent of the take. Meanwhile, the US Government Accountability Office says it will audit Oregon’s exchange, which cost $304 million and hasn’t enrolled a single person without manual help.
From Concerned: “Re: UHN in Toronto. Can anyone confirm that they are replacing QuadraMed EHR with Cerner?”
From Nobody Knows: “Re: value-based risk contracts. Is there a resources that details which payers and providers are engaging in them vs. those doing fee-for-service? I’ve tried AIS, HIMSS Analytics, and Billian’s and so far, no dice. Even a high-level report would be nice.”
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
This week on HIStalk Practice: You won’t want to miss the summary of my chat with eClinicalWorks CEO Girish Navani, who shares his thoughts on the MU program, population health, and health information exchange, plus provides an estimate of the company’s valuation if it were to go public. Despite the growing number of employed physicians, work still needs to be done to integrate physicians and develop performance-based reward programs. The pay gap between primary care providers and specialists narrowed in 2013. I recap some vendor announcements from last week and muse on various HIMSS sights and sounds, including the future of Practice Fusion; Allscripts and its new tag line; what’s driving Aprima’s recent growth; and, the hot topic of ICD-10. Thanks for reading.
This week on HIStalk Connect: Samsung unveils the Galaxy S5, which integrates with both its two new smart watches and its new activity tracker. Basis, the maker of the B1 activity tracker, is acquired by Intel for a rumored $100 million. The …read more
