PARCA certifications seen as key to career change

Meredith Quinn, newly certified PACS
administrator

This month, PARCA eNews highlights its certification program with a profile of Meredith Quinn who recently earned her CPAS Technical, CPAS Clinical and CPSA exams all within a few days. Meredith started as a pharmacy technician and worked for several different pharmacies before changing to medical coding in Kansas City. She then expanded her skills to include coding, compliance and auditing for a number of hospitals. After a brief stint at Cerner she became Medical Coder and Auditor for Adventist Health. While pursuing her interest in nuclear medicine, she came across a PACS administration text book by Herman Oosterwijk and became inspired to pursue a career in PACS administration. Using a self-study approach, she passed her three PACS certifications in a single week. She lives with her husband of 10  years in Kansas City, Missouri. PARCA eNews spoke to her by phone to learn about her experience with PARCA and the certification process.

RSNA 2020 goes virtual for Nov. 29 to Dec. 5 annual meeting

PARCA eNews – Nov. 11, 2020 – RSNA 2020 forges ahead with its annual meeting going online with a virtual meeting venue, and people are getting used to attending such meetings. 

As of this writing, over 16,000 people had registered for sessions being held Nov. 29-Dec.5, 2020. The number of virtual only registrations in 2019 were 2,487.

“We’re very pleased to have this many attendees registered so far in advance of our first-ever entirely virtual event, and we expect registration to continue to grow,” said RSNA president James P. Borgstede, MD in a press release.

Data breaches spike in September led by Blackbaud

PARCA eNews – Nov. The number of breaches and records compromised spiked in September with 95 healthcare breaches reporting 9.7 million medical records reported to the US Department of Health and Human Services breach portal.

The number of healthcare breaches nearly tripled with a fourfold increase in the number of records compromised. 

The massive increase was primarily due to ransomware attacks include a massive attack on Blackbaud, which provides cloud services, financial management and analytics for a large number of non-profit organizations including foundations, universities, hospitals and healthcare organizations.

Training radiologists with AI seen as key to radiology tech leadership

PARCA eNews – Nov. 6, 2020 – A new pathway for radiologists in training has been developed at Brigham & Women’s Hospital that pairs fourth-year radiology students with AI developers to both improve AI and to integrate radiology residents with an AI future in radiology practice.

Recognizing that artificial intelligence and machine learning is here to stay, Brigham and Women’s designed a curricula that combines AI and radiology.

'Fast MRI' detects significantly more breast cancer in women with dense breasts

PARCA eNews – Nov. 3, 2020 – Should women with dense breasts be routinely referred for simplified MRI technique following a negative 3D mammogram? That is the question researchers at Penn Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania are asked following results of a February 2020 JAMA Network study.

That clinical trial compared 3D mammography to abbreviated or fast MRI in 1,444 women with dense breasts. The researchers showed that 3D mammography detected 7 invasive cancers, compared to 17 detected with fast MRI, which was considered a significantly higher rate of cancer detection.

Microsoft makes big bid for Cloud imaging data for healthcare

Microsoft announced a new Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare on Oct. 28. The new offering includes the company’s cloud-based DICOM server that can be used together with Microsoft’s Azure programming interface for fast interoperability.

Declining radiology revenues continue

PARCA  eNews – Oct. 30, 2020 – Reimbursement for radiology services have been declining over the past decade according to a study in the Journal of the American College of Radiology. The study analyzed global fees, which encompass both the technical and professional components of reimbursement.

The declining payment trends began with reductions to diagnostic radiology services following the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and affected multiple modalities including bone densitometry, CT, CT angiography, mammography, MR angiography, MRI, nuclear medicine, radiography, and ultrasound.

HHS adopts final HealthIT strategic plan

PARCA eNews – Oct. 30, 2020 – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published its final 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan (the Plan) Oct. 30, 2020, which includes provisions for supporting patient access to their own health information.

HHS extends compliance dates for information blocking and Health IT certification requirements

Oct. 29, 2020 – The US Health and Human Services has extended the deadline for compliance with a number of requirements of the 21st Century Cures Act in response to challenges to organizations complying resulting from the pandemic.

Last March ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule established exceptions to the 21st Century Cures Act’s information blocking provision and adopted new health information technology (health IT) certification requirements to enhance patients’ smartphone access to their health information at no cost through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs).

The interim final rule issued Oct. 29, 2020 extends the program compliance dates beyond those identified in the April 21, 2020 as follows:

Universal patient identifiers are about patient safety

Photo credit: University of Texas, Austin

Aaron Miri is the chief information officer for Dell Medical School and UT Health Austin. He brings more than a decade of healthcare experience driving growth and innovation, leading both provider and commercial healthcare enterprises and providing thought leadership and close collaboration with state and federal representatives. As CIO, Miri is passionate about humanizing technology by collaborating with clinicians, technology partners and business champions to truly transform healthcare delivery for consumers, patients and providers.

In 2018, Miri was congressionally appointed by Senator Chuck Schumer to the Health and Human Services (HHS), federal Health IT Advisory Committee, established under the 21st Century Cures Act. He was federally appointed by HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell to serve on the HHS Health IT Policy Committee established under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Miri is the prior chair of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) National Public Policy Committee and serves as an expert adviser to the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and to other congressional panels engaged in numerous Health IT policy topics. PARCA eNews spoke to Mr. Miri about the challenges of adopting a national universal patient identifier.

Patient ID Now Coalition delivers 3 recommendations to ONC workshop

Courtesy of Patient ID Coalition

PARCA eNews – August 31, 2020 – Two members of the Patient ID Now Coalition made three recommendations on behalf of the Coalition at the August 2020 ONC Working Session on patient identity and matching.

HIMSS Vice President for Government Relations Tom Leary and Meryl Bloomrosen, Senior Director, Federal Affairs for Premier Healthcare Alliance, represented the Patient ID Now Coalition at the session during the Alliances & Coalitions segment.

As part of their observations, the Patient ID Now Coalition made the recommendations following a necessary first step of Congress removing Section 510 of Labor HHS Appropriations, which bans HHS from promulgating a unique patient identifier.

First ransomware attack tied to patient death, negligent homicide charge possible

PARCA eNews – Sept. 18, 2020 – In what is believed to be a first, a ransomware attack has led to a patient death according to reports in HIPAA Journal and Fortune Magazine.

The Sept. 10, 2020 attack crippled the Heinrich Heine University Clinic in Dusseldorf, Germany. The 78-year-old woman patient required immediate emergency treatment for an aneurysm and had to be diverted to another emergency facility 21 miles away. The one-hour delay was noted as contributing the the patient’s death.

CMS announces innovative payment model for radiation oncology

PARCA eNews – Sept. 18, 2020 – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled a new payment model for cancer patients receiving radiotherapy that allows providers to focus on delivering high-quality treatments.

The new Radiation Oncology model allows for value-based focus by creating a simpler, more predictable payments that incentivize cost-efficient and clinically effective treatments to improve quality and outcomes. Current payment is based on the number of treatments and where patients receive it such as in a hospital outpatient department or a freestanding radiation therapy center, which can lead to more time traveling for treatment with little clinical value, according to CMS Administrator Seema Verma.

Trend to home PACS for radiology likely to continue

PARCA eNews – Aug. 9, 2020 – Radiologists will be shifting more of their workdays to reading from home or other remote locations after the COVID-19 crisis has passed, according to a new survey.

In an effort to examine effects of COVID-19 on radiology practices, a group of radiologists conducted a survey of nearly 290 practices representing a geographically diverse cross section of institutions. The results were published in mid-May in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

PHI vulnerable to extraction from online presentations

Patient data can be extracted from Images imported
from a PACS into an online PowerPoint  

PARCA eNews – Aug. 28, 2020 – The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), the American College of Radiology (ACR), and the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM), are warning that online medical presentations are at risk of accidental exposure of protected health information (PHI).

In a paper on the ACR website, the group shows how advances in web-crawling and content processing technology is increasingly able to allow large-scale information extraction from previously stored files. The technology allows extraction of medical images contained in PowerPoint presentations and PDF files and recognized alphanumeric character information embedded in those images, including patient information.

KA imaging technology given FDA nod; begins COVID-19 early detection trial

PARCA eNews – September 22, 2020 – The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) awarded 510(k) clearance to Ka Imaging, Inc., Monday for Reveal, its portable, dual-energy X-ray detector that, company officials, said can be used to slow the spread of COVID-19.

The company’s Reveal™ machine enables bone and soft-tissue differentiation without motion artifacts in a single X-ray exposure. In other words, with one shot, the detector simultaneously delivers DR, bone, and tissue images.

Pandemic pushes telehealth to top IT concerns

Credit Office of Connected Care - Veterans Affairs

PARCA eNews – Sept. 18, 2020 – COVID-19 exacerbates technology challenges for healthcare organizations, pushingTelehealth functionality and capacity to the top of the list medical executives face, according to a KLAS survey conducted in September.

The survey found that 8 of 19 executives named solving telehealth problems as their number one problem during the early stages of the pandemic. Since then, nearly all of the executives say they have workable solutions in place, or are implementing one.

Full benefits of AI in radiology requires evaluating human impacts

Elizabeth Krupinski, PhD, is Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. She is a member of the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research. Prior to joining Emory, Dr. Krupinski was a Professor at the University of Arizona in the Departments of Radiology, Psychology and Public Health, and was also Vice Chair of Research in Radiology. She is past chair of the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference, past president of the American Telemedicine Association, and past chair of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine. Dr. Krupinski’s research interests are in medical image perception, observer performance, medical decision making, and human factors as they pertain to radiology and telemedicine. Dr. Krupinski received the Academy of Radiology Research Distinguished Investigator Award in 2014 and the ATA President's Award for Individual Leadership in 2017. She serves on a number of editorial boards for both radiology and telemedicine journals and is the Co-Editor of the Journal of Telemedicine & Telecare. She serves regularly as a grant reviewer for the NIH, DoD, TATRC and other federal, state and international funding agencies and has served as a member of a number of FDA review panels. She is a frequent and sought after speaker at medical imaging conferences. PARCA-eNews spoke to her by phone about her perceptions and observations about artificial intelligence (AI) implementations in radiology.

COVID-19 spurs deployment of at-home PACS

Photo credit – BARCO, Inc.

PARCA eNews – June 20, 2020 – With the pandemic reaching into the southeast part of the US, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System made the decision to implement widespread remote radiology, in part to protect its radiologists.

Srini Tridandapani and colleagues at UAB’s Radiology Department successfully deployed more than two dozen at-home radiology workstations within a couple of weeks time. The group recounted their experience in the May 20 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.

Remote medical imaging reading is here to stay

Credit HealthImaging

PARCA eNews – July 2, 2020 – While the current pandemic has forced many more people to work from home, the trend to remote reading in radiology, has if anything, only accelerated.

In a report on the SIIM virtual meeting in June, by Matt O’Connor for HealthImaging, a panel discussion on "Remote Reading in the COVID-19 Era," Matthew Hayes, a PACS manager at Radiology Partners made the case for PACS administrators to plan for this growing trend shift to remote reading.

ONC's Tech Forum to go virtual Aug. 10-11

Credit – Analytics India Magazine

PARCA eNews – July 15, 2020 – This year, ONC will host an all-virtual Tech Forum August 10-11, 2020. Convening industry experts and federal partners together, the Tech Forum continues the summertime tradition started with the “Interoperability Forum” in 2017, and emphasizes a focus on technology and the use of IT in healthcare to better distinguish its content from the ONC Annual Meeting.

Imaging finds inflammatory syndrome in kids with previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2

Image credit – Evelina Children's Hospital

PARCA eNews – July 15, 2020 – A study of 35 children with a spectrum of abnormal imaging results obtained with chest x-rays, ultrasound, CT scans and MRI has identified a new syndrome in children that may be related to COVID-19 exposure.

The children were admitted to the Evelina London Children’s hospital in London for fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea and conjunctivitis (pink eye). Chest x-rays in 19 of the patients showed bronchial wall thickening, chest CT scans found collapsed lung with pleural effusion (fluid in the lungs) but no embolisms.

Web-based lung and COVID-19 imaging data management system offered free

PenRad donates its PenLung CT tracking software

PARCA eNews – July 9, 2020 – Tracking CT exams amid the current COVID-19 pandemic has stretched many radiology departments to the breaking point, so to help out PenRad Technologies has decided to donate its PenLung, web-based CT tracking software to US based diagnostic imaging centers, according to a report in Imaging Technology News (ITN), an online industry magazine.

Microsoft re-issues warning to patch Exchange server security

Credit Microsoft Security

PARCA eNews – June 24, 2020 – Microsoft has issued a further warning to all Exchange users to patch the critical Microsoft Exchange memory corruption vulnerability CVE-2020-0688.

Microsoft released an update to correct the vulnerability in February 2020 and an alert was issued in March when the flaw started to be exploited by APT groups according to HIPAA Journal.

Flaw in Philips ultrasound machines allows bypass of authentication

Photo credit Phillips

PARCA eNews – July 15, 2020 – Philips issued a warning about an authentication bypass affecting Philips Ultrasound Systems (CVE-2020-14477) that can potentially be used to allow an attacker to view or modify information. The vulnerability is due to the presence of an alternative path or channel that can be used to bypass authentication controls.

FBI and CISA warn organizations of risks of TOR users

PARCA eNews – The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) last week released a joint report with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warning of cyber-attacks using The Onion Router (Tor).

Tor is software that allows users to browse the web anonymously by encrypting and routing requests through multiple relay layers or nodes. While this software can be used legally to protect individuals who wish their information to remain anonymous on the internet, cyber threat actors can use Tor software and network infrastructure for anonymity and obfuscation purposes to clandestinely conduct malicious cyber operations.

Adding the next layer of security: offensive cybersecurity research

Offensive cybersecurity researcher Vasilios Hioureas

With the recent reports about the cybersecurity vulnerabilities of PACS systems and networks, PARCA eNews reached out to cybersecurity expert Vasilios Hioureas, who is an offensive cybersecurity researcher for Malwarebytes. Malwarebytes proactively protects people and businesses against dangerous threats such as malware, ransomware and exploits that escape detection by traditional antivirus solutions. Mr. Hioureas is a software engineer and analyst with more than 15 years experience in analyzing security weaknesses in a variety of systems. He previously held positions as Information Security Engineering Manager at ARES Management, malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab and software engineer for gaming developers. At Malwarebytes, Mr. Hioureas creates and tests exploit proofs of concept, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities and leaks, and creates automated tools for discovery of public cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities. Mr. Hioureas has written and commented on a variety of cybersecurity issues for a number of online publications including ZDnet, Security Boulevard, Wired, and Digital Trends.

3D Scanners making their way into clinics and hospitals

Tech scans the cranium of a child – Image credit Sculpteo

PARCA eNews – May 15, 2020 – A lot has been written and featured in news about the 3D printing revolution and how such technology is being adapted to medicine to print everything from bone replacement parts to blood vessels and even human eyes.

Much less attention has been paid 3D scanners, which are being developed in conjunction with 3D printing. Currently being developed and experimented in academic research institutions, 3D scanning tools may soon make their way into hospitals, clinics and even doctors’ offices.

CISA and FBI issues top 10 cybersecurity exploits

PARCA eNews – May 12, 2020 – The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI released its latest list of cybersecurity exploits over the past 4 years. The technical guidance is intended to help IT security professionals at public and private sector organizations prioritize security efforts.

Healthcare IT professionals jump into the COVID-19 fray

Enli’s COVID-19 care coordination solution is a 

cloud-based patient tracking program

PARCA eNews – May 10, 2020 – With the COVID-19 outbreak spreading across the country like wildfire, healthcare IT professionals have jumped in with both feet developing more than 95 COVID-19 interoperability projects in just a few short weeks. 

As part to the Office of the National Coordinator’s Interoperability Proving Ground, the subset of interoperability projects focused specifically on COVID-19 mushroomed with projects ranging from care coordination tracking programs to COVID patient monitoring and tracking projects to assessment tools for determining whether a person should be tested along with links to the person’s local health authority for testing.

COVID--19 spurs uptick in cybersecurity attacks

PARCA eNews – May 8, 2020 – In a March 2020 consulting firm Deloitte issued a report entitled ‘COVID-19’s Impact on Cybersecurity’ showing that cybercriminals are capitalizing on the pandemic. 

The report issued by the company’s Cyber Intelligence Center noted a spike in phishing attacks, malware and ransomware attacks since the COVID-19 crisis has prompted companies, government agencies and private institutions conduct more business via remote computer connections. 

ONC and CDC compile a single-page COVID-19 resource page

PARCA eNews – May 7, 2020 – The Office of the National Coordinator in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has compiled a comprehensive list of resources for Health IT tracking, and dealing with the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The resources are aimed at providing clear direction for electronic health information exchanges and facilitate effective strategies to combat COVID-19 including:

AHA issues guidelines for secure working from home

PARCA eNews – May 2, 2020 – With many physicians and healthcare providers working from home and seeing patients via telehealth platforms, the American Hospital Association (AHA) and American Medical Association (AMA) published guidelines to ensure such communications remain safe from cyber threats and comply with privacy regulations.

Noting that cyber criminals are taking advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to target physicians and other health providers to gain access to patient records information.

To help providers to protect their computers and home networks, the organizations compiled a checklist of actions providers should take immediately to strengthen their cybersecurity. Acknowledging the checklist is not an exhaustive list of security measures, the list covers most of the basic measures IT professionals routinely use for office and clinic networks. It covers safeguards that need to be taken for passwords, web browsers, antivirus software, updated operating systems and firewalls.

ONC, CMS ease enforcement of Interoperability Final Rules in response to COVID-19 crisis

Don Rucker, MD National
Coordinator for Health
Information Technology (ONC)

PARCA eNews – April 21, 20220 – The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), in conjunction with the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) announced today compliance flexibilities regarding the implementation of the interoperability final rules announced on March 9, 2020. 

The relaxation of enforcement was a policy decision made as a result of the COVID-19 emergency.

Imaging practices impacted by COVID-19

Photo credit – Diagnostic and Interventional
Cardiology

PARCA eNews – March 24, 2020 – Because cardiovascular disease is the comorbidity that carries the highest death rate in COVID-19 patients, at about 10.5 percent, the use of cardiac imaging, places cardiovascular imagers in the front lines of COVID-19 patient care.

As cases of acute cardiovascular disease and cardiac complications caused by COVID-19 rose dramatically in early March and April, all the major cardiovascular imaging societies issued COVID-19 guidelines and lists of considerations for how to continue imaging operations safely under the threat of viral contamination for the duration of containment efforts.

FHIR lighting the way to patient record sharing

Grahame Grieve of Health Intersections, PTY LTD –
photo credit HiMSS 19

Grahame Grieve has been called the father of FHIR as the principal evangelist for the web-based standard for exchanging patient health records. The acronym stands for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources and over the past eight years it has slowly emerged as the standard of choice for sharing patient records as they move around the healthcare system. This past month the FHIR HL7 standard was given a big boost as the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator issued its final rules for interoperability requiring certain government health coverage plans to support a standardized API HL7 FHIR for patient information exchanges.

Scientists develop handheld imaging device with 100 times higher resolution than CT

PARCA eNews – March 25, 2020 – Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed the prototype of a handheld medical imaging device that can produce images down to resolutions of 1 to 2 micrometres.

CMS expands telehealth services covered by Medicare

A patient and his medical provider communicate 

via Video Technology Conferencing (VTC).

PARCA eNews – March 20, 2020 – In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) broadened access to Medicare telehealth services so that beneficiaries can receive a wider range of services from their doctors without having to travel to a healthcare facility.

The policy changes that provide coverage for a greater range of services delivered by telehealth systems build on the regulatory flexibilities granted under the President’s emergency declaration.

Radiology shifts from diagnostic testing to preparedness for COVID-19

PARCA eNews –March 16, 2020 – In the early rise of the COVID-19 crisis in Wuhan, China, hospitals and government public health authorities were relying on chest CT findings of peripheral ground-glass infiltrates and or organizing pneumonia as a surrogate for COVID-19 infection. 

Most medical imaging devices run on outdated operating systems

PARCA eNews – March 12, 2020 – An overwhelming majority (83 percent) of medical imaging devices are running old operating systems with little to no ability to receive crucial security updates according to a new report by security tech form Palo Alto Networks.

Radiology group reports PACS hack

PARCA eNews – March 11, 2020 –Northeast Radiology today announced that it is addressing a data security incident, caused by unauthorized individuals, which may have involved the personal information of some patients. 

Northeast Radiology and its healthcare management services provider, Alliance HealthCare Services, have completed an investigation with a leading forensic security firm and are evaluating systems and processes to help prevent future occurrences.

HHS and CMS issue final interoperability rules

PARCA eNews – March 9, 2020 –The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced the final rules for implementing interoperability and patient access provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act.

HiMSS 2020 cancelled due to Covid-19 concerns

The Orlando Convention Center, site of HiMSS 2020 was empty as a
result of the cancellation of HiMSS 2020

PARCA eNews – March 5, 2020 – The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society citing the Covid-19 concerns cancelled its massive HiMSS 2020 conference and exhibition that had been scheduled for March 9 to March 13 in Orlando Florida.

VNA and PACS market to grow to $3.87 billion by 2023

PARCA eNews – March 5, 2020 – Meticulous Research, a global market research company published a research report on its global forecast to 2023 for the VNA and PACS market.

Meticulous Research analyzed the vendor neutral archive (VNA) & picture archiving and communication system (PACS) market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.2% from 2018 to reach $3.87 billion by 2023.

Operating an open source PACS

Avram Adam is Network/Systems Administrator at Arizona State Radiology group, which operates 13 locations and provides radiology services to four hospitals in the Tucson area. Adam has been working in PACS for radiology for about two years and before that worked with the City of Tucson and at a credit union primarily in systems administrator and network administrator roles. As chief technology officer as well the HIPAA security officer for Arizona State Radiology he manages all the networking systems, which handle about a half a million studies a year.

Q. What prompted you to seek open source PACS solutions?

Because current offerings don’t have all of the functionality we are looking for.

DHS warns of Citrix vulnerability under attack

Credit Citrix blog

PARCA eNews – Jan. 18, 2020 – The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity unit has issued an alert about a weakness in the Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Ctirx Gateway web server applications that are experiencing active attacks.

Public comment sought on ONC 5-year plan

PARCA eNews – Jan. 15, 2020 – The draft 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan (plan) was posted Jan. 15 by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), for public comment.

The plan was developed in collaboration with over 25 federal organizations and is intended to guide federal health information technology (IT) activities over the course of the year.

MAZE malware adds blackmail element to ransom demand

PARCA eNews – Jan. 8, 2020 – The FBI issued an advisory calling for private organizations to be vigilant to combat the Maze ransomware attacks that started last November.

Dubbed MAZE, the ransomware uses multiple methods for intrusion, including creation of malicious look-alike cryptocurrency and spam campaigns impersonating government agencies.

The view for 2020: AHIMA continues to push for patient safety in 2020

PARCA eNews _ Jan. 2, 2020 – Despite the setback to lifting the decades old ban on development of a universal patient identifier last September, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) vows to continue to push forward on patient safety by making 2020 the year of Patient Matching.

Mary Butler outlined AHIMA’s goals for 2020 in an article on the organization’s website, stating that, "AHIMA has never waited for Congress to start advocating for better ways to improve patient safety, so the association is ready to make 2020 “The Year of Patient Matching” regardless of whether the Senate votes to remove the ban on a UPI." Ms Butler wrote."