EHRs, Interoperability and MACRA

Recently, the American Academy of Family Physicians recommended to The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) that interoperability measures be more patient-centric in order to forward care coordination and continuity. At the ONC’s Annual meeting on May 31st it was said by Epic Vice President that the concept of interoperability needs to be widened to include “interoperability of knowledge” which he feels are methods to determine which of the vast amounts of data are actually important.

Do mHealth Apps Fall under HIPAA Laws?

The short answer…yes! In February of this year, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a document covering just this very topic. The longer answer…as mHealth grows, so do the number of questions surrounding privacy of records, the relationships of app developers and covered entities under the act, and the scenarios in which the definitions might be made.

mHealth=Mobile Health

mHealth is an abbreviation for mobile health, a term used for the practice of medicine and public health supported by mobile devices. The term is most commonly used in reference to using mobile communication devices, such as mobile phones, tablet computers and PDAs, for health services and information.  The mHealth field has emerged as a sub-segment of eHealth,