HIT reading material

Additional reading material about HIT and its associated initiatives and debates is provided below.
These links will take you off the AMA Web site. The AMA is not responsible for the content of other Web sites.

Patient rights and privacy:

• The Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) provides many educational resources on HIPAA, including articles, guides, and fact sheets.
• The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a 2007 report on HIT and privacy protection. (PDF)
• The Markle Foundation's Connecting for Health initiative has developed principles for patient privacy and data protection (PDF) throughout clinical data exchange.
• Connecting for Health has also written material on patients' rights to access (PDF) their own records.

EHR adoption and implementation:

• Health Affairs published an informative article which examines EHR value in solo or small group practices.
• Various strategies for implementing HIT (PDF) are weighed in an interesting Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) paper.
• HIT and E-health's biggest issues and concerns are summarized in an informative Computer World article from March of 2007.
• Tips for "surefire" EHR implementation success are outlined by a physician in Health Leaders Media.

Electronic prescribing:

• Healthcare IT News profiles payers who are testing e-prescribing.

Secondary uses of clinical data:

• The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) has developed a framework for the secondary use of clinical information (PDF).
• An Irish physician wrote an interesting article, published through a data protection conference, on secondary uses of data (Word) in the UK.

HIT donation to physician practices:

• HHS has released information regarding the relaxation of the Stark Rule and anti-kickback regulation for donation of HIT to physician practices.  
• HealthImaging.com  provides a basic overview of HIT donations.  
• Read about IT contracts. AMNews: Jan. 14, 2008. Don't just sign whatever the EMR vendor provides

EHR certification and standards:

• HHS has increased efforts to promote EHR standards.
• Government Health IT published an article on personal health record (PHR) certification debates.

Health information exchange:

• eHealth Initiative's Fourth Annual Survey of Health Information Exchange at the State, Regional and Community Levels provides a comprehensive look at 130 community-based HIE efforts.

Pay-for-performance programs:

• Read about the AMA's Physician Consortium and its development of performance measures.
• Read about the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and their pay-for-performance programs.
• A short article was recently released by Modern Healthcare outlining debate over EHR incentives.