Morning Headlines 1/14/15

Data Analytics Update: Health IT Policy Committee Meeting

At this week’s Health IT Policy Committee meeting, ONC reports that 77 percent of eligible hospitals and 56 percent of eligible providers scheduled to attest to Stage 2 Meaningful Use have done so. Hospitals still have a month left to attest, while providers have three months left.

Ellmers Reintroduces the Flex-IT Act

Congresswoman Renee Elmres (R- NC) reintroduce HR 270, the Flexibility in Health IT Reporting Act of 2015, a two-page bill that would reduce the Meaningful Use reporting period from 365 days to 90 days.

Clinical Documentation in the 21st Century: Executive Summary of a Policy Position Paper From the American College of Physicians

The Annals of Internal Medicine publishes a paper investigating the effect EHRs have had on the structure and usefulness of clinical notes, concluding that EHRs have real room for improvement, but that the primary driver of change in clinical notes has been the documentation requirements imposed to support an increasingly complex billing process.

Why We’re Picking Walmart And CVS Over Doctors’ Offices

The Huffington Post covers the rise of retail clinics, whose numbers have seen a sevenfold increase since 2007, driven largely by CVS and Walgreens.