Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a comprehensive strategy to reduce the regulatory and administrative burden related to the use of health IT, including EHRs. Reflective of public comment, the Strategy on Reducing Regulatory and Administrative Burdens Relating to the Use of Health IT and EHRs targets burdens tied to regulatory and administrative requirements that HHS can directly impact through the rulemaking process. The report’s strategies, recommendations, and policy shifts aim to give clinicians more time to focus on what matters – caring for their patients.

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More than 1,200 stakeholders gathered this year in Washington, DC for the ONC’s 10th Annual Meeting, Connecting Policy and Technology: Bringing the EHR to the Patient. Among many other health IT topics, attendees discussed patients’ access to health information and privacy considerations, health care cost transparency, and the latest updates to health IT standards. If you were not able to join us in DC, you can view the webcast.

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When disaster strikes, most of us think about how we can best protect ourselves and our loved ones. We can’t always think about our health records though. Disasters can often aggravate chronic disease and cause disruptions at hospitals, clinics and other health care and social service facilities. If we even have them, very few of us think about taking our health records when evacuating, but that’s where health IT can help.

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New data released by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) examines how people diagnosed with cancer access and use their online medical record. Nearly 60 percent of individuals with a previous cancer diagnosis reported being offered access to their online medical record by a healthcare provider or insurer (Figure 1), according to data from the National Cancer Institute’s Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). This rate is compared to 50 percent for people never diagnosed with cancer.

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Today, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is releasing an updated version the Health IT Playbook, a tool to help clinical practices reduce the burden of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and make the most of their health IT investment. The Playbook is an intuitive, easy to navigate, web-based resource designed particularly to help solo and small to medium-sized physician practices with adopting, optimizing, upgrading, or changing EHR systems.

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