HIPAA

Hospitals are learning from industry how to cut medical errors

By the Economist AFTER a brain aneurysm in 2004, Mary McClinton was admitted to Virginia Mason Medical Centre in Seattle. Preparing for an x-ray, the 69-year-old was injected not, as she should have been, with a dye that highlights blood vessels, but with chlorhexidine, an antiseptic. Both are colourless liquids. The dye is harmless; the…

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Physical violence more common in healthcare facilities than hacking and cyber attacks, survey shows

Jeff Lagasse for Healthcare Finance Almost a quarter of healthcare security directors at hospitals think their facilities are unprepared for incidents involving a shooter. More than twice as many hospitals have experienced physical violence incidents as compared to hacking and cyberattacks, according to a research study among top security directors at healthcare facilities. The report shows 47…

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In Outpatient CDI, Timing is Everything

Article by Susan Richards Morgan, CCS, CPHQ, CPC, CDEO, CRC, CPMA, CEMC, CPC-I. This article was originally published on the A Journal of AHIMA Blog on April 25, 2018 and is republished here with permission. Currently, most clinical documentation improvement (CDI) programs have been developed inside hospitals with an inpatient focus. Medicare generally expects an inpatient admission to need two…

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Apple’s plan to put health records on your phone has huge implications for medicine

By Christina Farr for CNBC Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple Inc., takes part in an education-focused event at Lane Technical College Prep High School in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., March 27, 2018. Apple wants to bring consumers’ medical information, like lab tests and immunizations, to its iPhone, and now 40 health systems have agreed…

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Can Texting Get a Healthcare Provider in Trouble?

Article by Ron Hedges. This article was originally published on the Journal of AHIMA  on March 27, 2018 and is republished here with permission. Can texting get a healthcare provider in trouble? The answer to that question, like many other legal ones, is “it depends.” A recent decision, Latner v. Mt. Sinai Health System, Inc., No. 17-99-cv (2d Cir.…

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1 in 5 health employees willing to sell confidential data: 7 survey insights

Written by Julie Spitzer for Becker’s Health IT & CIO Review Nearly one in five healthcare employees would be willing to sell confidential data to unauthorized parties for as little as $500, according to a survey from Accenture. For the report title “Losing the Cyber Culture War in Healthcare,” Accenture surveyed 912 provider and payer organizations across…

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Fax machines are still common in medicine — and med students are puzzled when forced to use this ancient technology

Christina Farr for CNBC Amol Utrankar was in his second year of medical school and working a shift at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee, when a supervisor asked him to obtain a new patient’s medical records. Utrankar, who was 22 at the time, needed to get the records from a smaller community hospital, where…

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