Morning Headlines 5/23/13

Doctors and hospitals’ use of health IT more than doubles since 2012

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reports that HHS has exceeded its goal of transitioning 50 percent of eligible providers and 80 percent of eligible hospitals onto EHRs by the end of 2013.

Hagel says DoD to adopt commercial EHR 

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel testified last month before a House Appropriations Committee to report that DoD had fallen behind on its plans to implement an integrated EHR with the VA; that much of the allocated money for the project had been spent with little to show for it; and that when the decision to launch a vendor search for a commercial EHR was made, he "didn’t think we knew what the hell we were doing." At the conclusion of that hearing, Hagel promised that he would halt the commercial vendor search and report back within 30 days with DoD’s new plan for delivering an integrated DoD/VA EHR. This Wednesday, bending to internal DoD pressure, Hagel reversed course on nearly all that he had said before the House Committee, reporting in a memo that DoD would resume its commercial EHR vendor selection rather than develop an integrated solution with the VA or adopting VA’s VistA.

All Maine hospitals sign on to electronic health records exchange

All of Maine’s acute-care hospitals have agreed to participate in HealthInfoNet, Maine’s statewide query-based HIE. Thirty-four of Maine’s hospitals are already connected to the network, and the last four are scheduled to go live by the end of the year. HealthInfoNet is also connected to 376 ambulatory practice sites.

Practice Fusion Continues To Reach Beyond Digital Health Records, Adds Free Expense Tracking To New Booking Engine

Free Web-based EHR vendor Practice Fusion launches a patient-facing site that allows patients to compare doctors and book appointments. After the appointment, patients can review their spending history across the entire history of their medical visits.