In a Health Affairs blog post, a group of Republican senators write, "There is inconclusive evidence that the [HITECH ACT] has achieved its goals of increasing efficiency, reducing costs and improving the quality of care."

The FDA launched a new mobile application that allows users to share and obtain information about drug shortages, Modern Healthcare reports.

Mobile health technologies can improve adherence to chronic disease management, but mixed evidence of the tools' effectiveness necessitates further research, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research,

The majority of health-related Web pages allow third parties to view users' information, raising privacy concerns for health-related search practices, according to a study published in the journal Communications of the ACM, Time reports.

The House Ways and Means Committee passed by voice vote the Electronic Health Fairness Act (HR 887), which would exempt ambulatory surgical centers from the meaningful use program, Politico's "Morning eHealth" reports (Gold et al., "Morning eHealth," Politico, 2/27).

While the adoption of electronic health records among emergency and outpatient departments increased between 2006 and 2011, physicians in such departments largely struggled to use the EHR systems to achieve meaningful use objectives, according to a new report released by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, Medscape reports.

Few patients use health IT tools to connect with their doctors and access their personal health data, according to a new survey from Salesforce, MobiHealthNews reports.

The survey polled about 1,700 U.S. adults.

Just 15% of meaningful use Stage 2-eligible professionals have attested to the program's requirements, according to the latest data from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, Becker's Health IT & CIO Review reports (Jayanthi, Becker's Health IT & CIO Review, 2/4).

On April 27, 2004, President George W. Bush proclaimed a bold goal for the nation: "Within the next 10 years, electronic health records will ensure that complete health care information is available for most Americans at the time and place of care, no matter where it originates. ... These electronic health records will be designed to share information privately and securely among and between health care providers when authorized by the patient." 

More than 10 years later, most observers within the U.S. health care system and the health IT industry would agree that this goal of interoperability has not yet been achieved, and may not even be within clear sight.  Although pockets of interoperability exist, the EHR systems used by inpatient, outpatient and ancillary providers generally cannot exchange patient data electronically, sometimes even among systems developed by the same EHR vendors. Although myriad interoperability standards exist on paper, real world connectivity between individual EHR systems still requires extensive custom interface development, attended by large and often prohibitive costs. 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced this morning an important Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) funding opportunity, which is part of a Department-wide effort to achieve the safe and secure exchange and use of electronic health information to improve health and transform care as outlined in the Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap, Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap Version 1.0.

ONC is accepting public comments on Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap Draft Version 1.0 (link is external). The comment period ends at 5 p.m. on April 3, 2015.

The draft Roadmap (link is external) proposes critical actions that need to be taken by both private and public stakeholders to advance the nation towards a more connected, interoperable health IT infrastructure and was drafted by ONC based on input from private and public stakeholders. The draft Roadmap (link is external) outlines the critical actions for different stakeholder groups necessary to help achieve an interoperable health IT ecosystem.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)  released Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap Version 1.0. The draft Roadmap is a proposal to deliver better care and result in healthier people through the safe and secure exchange and use of electronic health information.

Lawmakers in Congress are circulating a revised draft bill intended to develop a regulatory framework for FDA's oversight of health IT, FierceHealthIT reports (Bowman, FierceHealthIT, 1/26).

The FDA for the first time approved a set of mobile applications that will allow providers to monitor glucose levels in real-time for patients with diabetes, the Washington Post's "To Your Health" reports (Dennis, "To Your Health," Washington Post, 1/24).

A coalition of 35 medical societies led by the American Medical Association sent a letter to National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo calling for major changes to the meaningful use electronic health record certification program, The Hill reports.

The FDA published two draft guidance documents that outline how the agency would classify low-risk general wellness devices and applications and propose risk assessment-based regulation for medical device accessories, Health Data Management reports.

The FDA released its list of guidance priorities for 2015, which includes finalized and draft guidance for several health IT issues, Modern Healthca

Health consumers and health care providers live in parallel universes when it comes to health IT, a smart CMIO friend of mine recently told me. 2015 will be a year when consumers, patients and caregivers pressure providers to converge toward greater convenience, access, transparency and quality using health IT. This health IT forecast for 2015 focuses on the forces that could advance and slow that convergence.

Physicians prescribed less-costly drugs when their electronic health record systems were set to default to generic medications, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Health Data Management

More medical providers are using health IT, but concerns about privacy continue to pose barriers to further adoption of certain technologies,  according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers,