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Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights director Richard Campanelli says that many covered entities have done a good job of coming into compliance with the HIPAA privacy requirements that took effect in April, although there remain some misunderstandings about the requirements that need to be cleared up.
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In testimony before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, the president of the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) said that although labs are committed to compliance with the transaction standards, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) needs to provide more specific guidance to assist providers struggling with implementation and also must streamline the mechanisms for development and maintenance of the transaction standards.
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With surveys indicating that the required Oct. 16 compliance with transaction and code sets (T&CS) HIPAA requirements would be spotty at best, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has drawn industry support for deciding to implement its contingency plan and accept legacy claims for an undetermined period of time while efforts toward full compliance continue.
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At the Seventh HIPAA Summit held in Baltimore in mid-September, Doctor HIPAA former Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) executive William Braithwaite said that while Transactions and Code Sets (T&CS) testing should have started in April at the latest, vendors should have provided software to all their clients and completed testing, clearinghouses should have finished testing for all customers, and health plans should have finished testing all transactions with providers and clearinghouses, the reality was that much of the testing still was being done and some entities hadnt yet started.
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News: A man was admitted to a hospital after presenting to the emergency department (ED) with chest pain. After an initial cardiac catheterization revealed serious coronary disease, open-heart surgery was performed.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) recently announced that it will revise the fixed and variable performance areas evaluated during random unannounced surveys, starting in 2004.
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A virtual anticoagulation clinic is being credited with dramatic improvements in patient safety at Abington (PA) Memorial Hospital, which recently won the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety Award from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).
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Many cleaning products leave floors more slippery than they were before cleaning, the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI), reports.
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Russell Kendzior, executive director of the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI), offers this advice on how proper floor maintenance can reduce falls in health care facilities:
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The summer 2003 Industry HIPAA survey conducted by HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) and Phoenix Health Systems found that not enough time was seen as the major roadblock to meeting the Oct. 16 implementation deadline for transactions and code sets (T&CS).
