Hawaii governor allocates $14 million for statewide EMR efforts; Nurse fired for inappropriately accessing patient records;

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> Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie last week announced that more than $14 million in capital improvement project funds would go toward improving electronic medical record efforts throughout the state. In particular, the funds will help acute, long-term care, ambulatory and critical access hospitals with implementation efforts. Announcement

> Newport News, Va.-based Riverside Health System recently announced a security breach involving its electronic health records and former nursing employee, the Daily Press reported. According to the newspaper, the breach--discovered in November--involved more than 900 patient records that were accessed by the nurse over a four-year period. The nurse has since been fired, and Riverside is offering free credit monitoring for one year to anyone impacted. Article

Mobile Healthcare News

> In the 1960s science fiction television series Star Trek, a medical "tricorder" was used by Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy to diagnose diseases and collect bodily information about a patient. Now, an Illinois man is in legal hot water, facing charges in a $25 million fraud scheme for peddling a nonexistent telemedicine computer tablet named after the fictional McCoy character. Article

Healthcare IT News

> The Health IT Policy Committee (HITPC) adopted recommendations from its Consumer Empowerment Workgroup on patient-generated health data (PGHD) at its December meeting and is expected to finalize its complete Stage 3 recommendations in February. The committee reaffirmed that its objective--"patients [should] have the ability to electronically submit patient-generated health information"--should be part of Meaningful Use Stage 3, according to a report from a technical expert panel convened at the request of the Office of the National Coordinator. Article

Health Insurance News

> HealthCare.gov managed heavy traffic Tuesday as Americans in 36 states rushed to meet the new enrollment deadline for health plans effective Jan.1: There were two million website visits, the call center fielded more than 250,000 inquiries and the queuing system handled approximately 129,000 emails. Article

And Finally... I wonder if his nickname will be "Roll." Article