*** AHIC Approves Recommendations for Advancing Health IT Priorities ***
The American Health Information Community (AHIC) recently approved a set of recommendations for achieving widespread adoption of electronic health records. Developed by the panel's four work groups, the recommendations identify areas where standards are needed, such as where new or modified policies are needed to address aspects of HIPAA.
Read more.
*** AHIMA Survey Shows Need for Renewed Focus on Privacy Efforts ***
The number of hospitals and health systems achieving significant compliance with HIPAA privacy regulations has dropped slightly in the last year, to 85 percent in 2006 from 91 percent in 2005, according to a survey released last month by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). The majority of respondents – 55 percent – cited a lack of sufficient resources as the most significant barrier to full privacy compliance.
Read more.
*** NIST Releases Standards for Security Logs ***
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released technical guidelines on how federal agencies, which must comply with a growing number of legislative requirements such as HIPAA, should manage security logs. The guidelines cover log generation, transmission, storage, analysis and disposal. The guidelines include suggestions for creating a log management policy, prioritizing log files and creating a centralized log management infrastructure to include all hardware, software, networks and media.
View NIST Special Publication 800-92 (PDF).
*** CMS Begins Batch Processing of NPIs ***
Beginning May 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announces the capability for health industry organizations to submit healthcare providers' applications for National Provider Identifiers (NPIs) to the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) via electronic file interchange (EFI). With EFI, a CMS-approved health industry organization can submit a healthcare provider's NPI application data, along with the application data of many other healthcare providers, in a single electronic file in a CMS-specified format.
EFI is an alternative to healthcare providers having to apply for their NPIs via the web-based or paper application process. After the NPPES processes a file, it makes available to the organization a downloadable file containing the NPIs of the enumerated healthcare providers. Interested health industry organizations should view the EFI materials available from the CMS NPI page and from the NPPES web site before downloading and completing the Certification Statement and registering as EFI Organizations. A completed Certification Statement must be approved by CMS before an interested health industry organization can participate in EFI.
