News
MeHI Grants Aim to Improve Electronic Reporting of Child Behavioral Health Data
August 22, 2017Source: Massachusetts eHealth Institute
BOSTON – The Massachusetts eHealth Institute (MeHI) at MassTech has awarded nearly $200,000 to four qualified electronic health record (EHR) vendors to build efficient pathways for Massachusetts behavioral health providers to electronically submit reportable data to the Commonwealth’s Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI). The grants, the result of an open procurement process under MeHI’s CBHI CANS (Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths) Interface Development Grant program, incentivize the four vendors to build new electronic interfaces and connect 12 Massachusetts behavioral health providers, allowing the providers to efficiently submit CBHI reports, replacing a manual process for the roughly 40,000 reports they submit to the Commonwealth annually.
Learn MoreTechnology Can Lend a Hand to Family Caregivers
July 30, 2017Source: Telegram & Gazette
By: Susan Spencer
John Dowd of Worcester moved back home a few years ago to care for his father, who had Alzheimer’s disease, while managing his own job in field service, a position that required him to travel. He relied on a panoply of technology to make it work: internet-connected security cameras, shoes with GPS tracking insoles, door alarms, medication dispensers with alerts, Google Calendar and lots of texting among his eight siblings for the “constant rotation” of people bringing in dinners.
Learn More3 Areas Where Digital Technology Could Ease the Burden for Family Caregivers
June 28, 2017Source: FierceHealthcare
By: Evan Sweeney
Opportunities exist for digital tools to ease the isolation and stress that family caregivers often experience while caring for a loved one, many of whom are open to solutions that provide easy access to information.
Learn MoreNew Survey Research Report Looks at Home Caregivers & Potential of Digital Health Technologies
June 27, 2017Source: Massachusetts eHealth Institute at MassTech
BOSTON – Today the Massachusetts eHealth Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MeHI) hosted an event to launch a new research report undertaken by the MassINC Polling Group focused on the attitudes of caregivers in Massachusetts toward digital health technologies, identifying challenges faced by these caregivers and ways that they could benefit practically and emotionally from future technologies. The report, “Caregivers and Digital Health: A Survey of Trends and Attitudes of Massachusetts Family Caregivers,” found that over 60 percent of those surveyed said being a caregiver disrupts their lives “a great deal” or a “fair amount,” with many feeling isolated due to the constant 24/7/365 stress of that lifestyle, and also found that digital health technologies could assist with certain challenges.
Learn MoreThe 2017 Healthcare Informatics Innovator Awards: Third-Place Winning Team—East Boston Neighborhood Health Center
January 23, 2017Source: Healthcare Informatics
By: Rajiv Leventhal
East Boston Neighborhood Health Center (EBNHC) is "connecting the body and mind with a next-level health IT-based behavioral health integration program".
Mass HIway Eases Point of Care Reporting for Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention
November 28, 2016Source: Becker's Health IT & CIO Review
By: Kelly Luchini, Mark Belanger, and Jennifer Monahan
The Massachusetts statewide health information exchange (Mass HIway) and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) are making it easier for healthcare providers to report required childhood lead data.
The agencies recently completed connecting all direct-reporting pediatric primary care practice locations in Massachusetts to the Mass HIway to provide real-time reporting of childhood lead data to the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (CLPPP). The primary goal of the DPH's CLPPP is the prevention of lead exposure in children, which is associated with irreversible neurological and behavioral impacts.
Learn MoreMassachusetts Extends Deadline for EHR Adoption
November 1, 2016Source: New England Psychologist
By: Janine Weisman
Massachusetts behavioral health care providers have more time to fully adopt electronic health record systems (EHR) that connect to the state’s health information exchange via a network called the Mass HIway.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services recently announced that the date to connect to the statewide network for transmitting health care data among providers, hospitals and other entities and improve coordination of care would be a date later than Jan. 1, 2018.
Use Cases Driving Uptick in Health Data Exchange with Direct
October 26, 2016Source: Health IT Interoperability
By Kyle Murphy, PhD
The use of the Direct standard to enable health information exchange continues to rise.
With Watson Health, IBM bets big on health care
August 30, 2016Source: Boston Globe
By Priyanka Dayal McCluskey
IBM is making a big bet on health care, and it’s doing it here in the technology and life sciences hub of Massachusetts. Since IBM Watson Health was launched in 2015, the company has made four acquisitions worth about $4 billion and forged numerous partnerships with major hospitals, drug makers, and other companies.
How a Boston blizzard kickstarted telehealth at Massachusetts General
August 3, 2016Source: mobihealthnews
By: Jonah Comstock
Most Bostonians look back on the blizzard of late 2014 less than fondly. But there was a silver lining for Massachusetts General Hospital, which found in the snowstorm the perfect test case for its then-fledgling telehealth program.