Morning Headlines 12/9/14
The Federal Strategy For Collecting, Sharing, And Using Electronic Health Information
ONC has updated its Federal Health IT Strategic Plan: 2015-2020, establishing a set of goals that focuses on advancing interoperability, improving care delivery, engaging patients through digital health tools, and supporting medical research efforts through data mining and retrospective studies.
Why So Many New Tech Companies Are Getting into Health Care
Bob Kocher, MD, a former healthcare economics advisor to the Obama administration, publishes a piece in the Harvard Business Review analyzing the digital health innovation boom in the US, and the cost-saving opportunities that the new startups should be targeting.
Walgreens app makes virtual doctor visits a reality
Walgreens partners with telehealth vendor MDLive to provide virtual visits through its mobile app. The new service now available for residents of California and Michigan, with additional states coming online in 2015.
The Advisory Opinion on that page states "The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is designated a health plan... VHA's treatment activities…