Researchers are working to create a national clinical research network of electronic health records that could be the largest to date, the Washington Post reports.

An international group of medical device regulators and stakeholders released a draft framework designed to harmonize regulation of software as a medical device, or SaMD, Health Data Management reports.

Earlier this week, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society sent a letter  to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner with recommendations on how the agency can maximize the number of successful attesters to Stage 2 of the meaningful use program this year, FierceEMR reports.

The eHealth Initiative announced plans to create a 2020 Roadmap that will examine the transformation of the health care industry in recent years and propose recommendations for continued innovation, Clinical Innovation and Technology reports (Pedulli, Clinical Innovation and Technology, 3/26).

On Tuesday, March 27, 2014 the FDA published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would update how the agency classifies medical devices, including mobile health technologies, Health Data Management reports (Slabodkin, Health Data Management, 3/25).

On Feb. 26, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT released a Notice of Proposed Rule Making to develop a Voluntary 2015 Edition Electronic Health Record Certification Program and update its previous certification criteria and rules.

Preliminary recommendations for stage 3 of the “meaningful use” EHR Incentive Program were released by an Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) workgroup.

The U.S. Access Board is in the process of jointly updating its Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology and its Telecommunications Act (Section 255) Accessibility Guidelines. On February 23, the Board submitted a proposed rule to update these standards and guidelines to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. OMB has 90 days to review the rule under Executive Order 12866. Once cleared by OMB, the proposed rule will be published in the Federal Register and will be available for public comment for a specified period of time.

The global mobile health market is expected to grow at a rate of 49.7% over the next six years, with revenue expected to reach more than $49 billion in 2020, up from $1.2 billion in 2012, according to a report conducted by Grand View Research, Healthcare IT News reports (McCann, Healthcare IT News, 3/4).
Report Findings
The report found that in 2012:

The Obama administration has signed Accenture to replace CGI Federal as the main IT contractor on the HealthCare.gov health insurance exchange, according to a Jan. 10 Washington Post report. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-administration-to-end-contr...

The deal would have a 12-month term and is estimated at about $90 million, the Post reported.

The importance of user-centered design in healthcare is truly life or death. Whether it's new medical devices or technologies; drug research, approval or delivery; patient forms or medical record sharing; emergency disaster planning or increasing the functionality of hospitals and everyday healthcare delivery, everyone is affected in some way by the intersection of usability in healthcare. There are many commonalities, yet each region of the world faces its own set of unique challenges.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's (ONC) Office of the Chief Privacy Officer (OCPO) has released its first and second web-based security training module, CyberSecure: Your Medical Practice

Today’s digital omnivores express a preference for mobile screens across all professional tasks – an important behavioral shift that has potential to dramatically shape the way developers, content providers and marketers engage with clinicians as the three-screen workflow becomes the norm. As physicians and other healthcare

A newly published survey of 1,200 physicians nationwide by the Watertown, Mass.-based athenahealth, which specializes in providing cloud-based based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management, and care coordination, is revealing a mixed bag of opinions among doctors regarding how well electronic health records (EHRs) are working for them, with a range of views about the efficacy, cost-benefit analysis, and usability, of EHRs. Meanwhile, attitudes towards government involvement in healthcare have become more positive in the past year.

On July 23, 2013, the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association sent a joint letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking for greater flexibility in the requirements of the meaningful use program, HealthLeaders Media reports (Commins, HealthLeaders Media, 7/25).

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The federal government is happy to point out that more than 50 percent of physicians and 80 percent of hospitals are using electronic health record (EHR) systems, with those users having received some $14.6 billion in meaningful use incentives initially allocated in the 2009 stimulus.

CMS recently published a final rule that specifies the Stage 2 criteria that eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals (CAHs) must meet in order to continue to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs. This is going to create a large amount of new jobs. EHR vendors will be looking for Healthcare IT professionals with an understanding and experience with the meaningful use requirements.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is developing a framework to think about the use of EHRs in relation to adverse events and patient safety. Lana Lowry, NIST project lead on usability and human factors for health IT, believes that in addition to a set of technical requirements for functionality, systems need to have the same set of user requirements for how a user performs with the system.

We've been working on creating set of best practices for mobile healthcare solutions during the past few months, and it has made us think about the evolution of user experiences and their underlying technology.