This report examines the effect of our current system of centralized claims data collection and retention that is used by many government agencies to analyze health information. The report recommends the use of decentralized models in order to better safeguard the privacy and security of patient information.
Author: Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services
Publication: Department of Health and Human Services
This report to Congress identifies ways to collect and evaluate health care disparities data, as required by Section 4302 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Section 4302(b) requires data collection of five key demographic categories: race, ethnicity, sex, primary language, and disability status. Any method of data collection of these elements must protect patient privacy, minimize administrative burdens, and improve program data under Medicaid and CHIP.
Author: The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's Chief Privacy Officer recently released this instructional guide on the importance of privacy and security of health information for health care providers. A key component of the electronic health record incentive program, an effective privacy and security program must be integrated into participating medical practices. The guide can be used as a resource by health care providers to make privacy and security of health information a priority in their medical practices.
This brief describes efforts by health insurance plans to collect race, ethnicity and language data of their members in order to improve the quality of health care. The article sets forth trends in the collection of this data and lessons learned.
Publication: Health Affairs/Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Brief Series
This brief describes the nature of performance measurement and examines whether public reporting of performance data improves the quality of health care and lowers costs.
Author: Ateev Mehrotra, Peter S. Hussey, Arnold Milstein and Judith H. Hibbard
Publication: Health Affairs
This article examines the effect of providing consumers with provider cost information on decreasing rising health care costs in the U.S. The article explains that cost reporting may actually have the opposite effect, and encourage consumers to seek out higher cost providers, because they assume those providers are higher quality providers. The article goes on to make recommendations for future cost reporting models.
This report looks at the readiness of health care providers to meet electronic health record adoption incentives established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It also looks at progress in the adoption of health information technology (HIT), and the importance of HIT in health reform efforts, such as patient centered medical home models and accountable care organizations.
This report, put out by the U.S. GAO, examines the various legal and health care factors that make it difficult for consumers to obtain price information for health care services they receive. The report also examined the effectiveness of a number of public and private price transparency initiatives, and concluded that these initiatives vary greatly in the information provided.
In 2009, Congress enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which incorporated the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, in order to move the U.S. toward a national health information system. The law also created incentives for the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology. This analysis examines the various adoption incentives in the law.
This analysis describes the major provisions of the Electronic Health Record incentive programs, as clarified by the final rule issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on July 13, 2010. This piece explains the definition of meaningful use, as used in Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and what this means for the Aligning Forces for Quality communities.
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