Information Age Health Care: Mo. Gov. Signs Telehealth Coverage Law, Ky. Expands Telehealth

Mo. Gov. Signs Telehealth Coverage Law, Ky. Expands Telehealth

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has signed into law a bill that will require health insurers to cover telehealth services. Meanwhile, recent changes to Kentucky's regulations have expanded telehealth access for Medicaid beneficiaries. Kansas City Business Journal, Public News Service.

New Kentucky Regulations Expand Telehealth Access

In related news, recent changes to Kentucky's telehealth regulations have boosted Medicaid beneficiaries' access to health care services via telehealth, Public News Service reports.
Rob Sprang -- director of Kentucky TeleCare -- said the new regulations expanded the type of health care providers who can treat Medicaid beneficiaries via telehealth technology to include social workers, speech pathologists, physical therapists and other providers.
In addition, the new rules ended limitations on the number and types of health care services that can be provided through telehealth, he said (Stotelmyer, Public News Service, 7/8).

Ethics and HIT

Challenges...
http://jamia.bmj.com/site/icons/amiajnl8946.pdf

patient safety should trump all other values; corporate concerns about liability and intellectual property ownership may be valid but should not over-ride all other considerations;
transparency and a commitment to patient safety should govern vendor contracts;
institutions are duty-bound to provide ethics education to purchasers and users, and should commit publicly to standards of corporate conduct; and
vendors, system purchasers, and users should encourage and assist in each others’ efforts to adopt best practices.

Meaningful Use (MU) & Nursing

Nurses are central to ensuring Meaningful Use ...

http://www.himss.org/ASP/topics_FocusDynamic.asp?faid=395

Bowles, K. (October, 2010). Achieving Meaningful Use with Information Technology: Telehealth Research. Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (OJNI),14 (3). Available at http://ojni.org/14_3/Bowles.pdf

Bowles, K.,(February, 2011) ONJNI....Achieving Meaningful Use With Decision Support Research http://tinyurl.com/4ol9r6p

CMS & MU:

Meeting the Requirements for Meaningful Use: Attestation Calculator

HIMMS:

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Meet Meaningful Use proposed Stage 2 certification criteria and standards
Receive Medicare and Medicaid incentive funding and avoid penalties
Implement Meaningful Use specifications practically and successfully
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Information Age Health Care

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Mo. Gov. Signs Telehealth Coverage Law, Ky. Expands Telehealth

New Kentucky Regulations Expand Telehealth Access

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