New This Week on HealthIT.g​ov

New This Week on HealthIT.gov In this Issue FY 2014 ONC Budget Request now available. New on HealthIT Buzz blog: posts on how HIE is helping hospitals fight MRSA. Frequently Asked Questions have been updated. Beacon snapshots explain what’s working. National Learning Consortium includes new HIE resources. Privacy and Security tips on mobile security. HIT Standards Committee meets Wednesday. FY 2014 ONC Budget Request President Obama issued the 2014 Budget Proposal this week and if you haven’t seen the ONC section of the HHS Budget, you can check it out on page 113 of the Budget in Brief. You can also take a look at the blog post which also links to our priorities for 2014. New on HealthIT Buzz blog This week we wrapped up our four-part series on health information exchange “bright spots” with a bang this week, publishing the story of Indianapolis hospitals that are using HIE to alert staff about patients who carry MRSA and “creating organization-wide change plans to encourage adoption of the new MRSA prevention system.” If you follow us on Twitter (@ONC_HealthIT) then you already read this excellent blog post. If not, check it out. The second blog post announces a Code-a-thon we’re launching – where else – at the Health Datapalooza this June. We are encouraging teams to compete using Medicare claims data to build an “app, tool or product that could be used by primary care providers to improve patient care.” Send only your best developers to join the competition! Frequently Asked Questions We have revamped the ONC regulation frequently asked questions webpage and added a pair of new FAQs in the process. The first describes the scope of the demographics data required to satisfy the “clinical decision support” and “patient list creation” certification criterion, and the second provides a more detailed interpretation of the “patient-specific education resources” certification criterion. A separate link for each FAQ is now available for your convenience. Beacon snapshots Today we released a snapshot of each of the 17 Beacon communities, summing up each one’s demographic makeup, the state of the health-care marketplace in which it operates and its organizational characteristics. Our researchers say that, given the “complexity and heterogeneity of the Beacon Communities’ efforts, this brief is the first step in gaining a solid understanding of the Program’s success.” So take a look at the Evaluation of the Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program. National Learning Consortium (NLC) We have worked up some new HIE Resource, please peruse when you get a minute: Exchange 101: Introduction to Direct Adoption and Implementation on the What is HIE? page of HealthIT.gov. This collection of outreach materials can be used to educate different audiences, such as providers, specialists, and healthcare professionals, about health information exchange. To view other NLC resources, visit the EHR implementation lifecycle steps. Privacy and Security Adopting mobile devices in your practice? We have a variety of resources you might find useful to learn the risks and steps to protecting and securing mobile devices, even download free materials for your practice. HIT Standards Committee Meeting The The HIT Standards committee will meet next Wednesday (April 17). We have not yet updated that page with the agenda and other meeting materials, but if you watch this link, we will publish those materials early next week..