Physicians with an ownership stake in their practices were more likely than other physicians to think of EHR implementation as difficult or very difficult, according to the results of pre- and post-implementation surveys of physicians published Jan. 16 in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is launching a range of online courses to help health IT professionals prepare for the ICD-10 implementation deadline of Oct. 1, 2013, and the association's Training Pathways Guide is available to help health IT professionals choose the appropriate courses to take.

Heathcare IT continues to offer opportunities to improve patient care while adding efficiencies to the healthcare system. But several analyses show that obtaining those potential benefits remains a challenge.

As health IT use and efforts to lower costs remain on the healthcare community's collective consciousness, the American College of Physicians (ACP), updated its Ethics Manual to reflect changes among areas of concern including confidentiality, the use of social media, stewardship of resources, pay-for-performance reimbursement programs and patient-centered medical homes.

Hospital readmission rates carry a large price tag. A study this week published in the Dec. 15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine linked regional rates of rehospitalizations and overall admission rates, concluding that the future of policy efforts should focus on reducing the incentives to use hospital services, rather than better coordination of care.

CHICAGOThe Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is midway through its second year, and its impact is mixed, said Peter W. Carmel, MD, president of the American Medical Association and chair of neurosurgery at New Jersey Medical School in Newark, during the Pendergrass New Horizons Lecture on Nov. 28 at the 97th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Six Sigma and lean processes are more widely embraced by large and small healthcare providers. The key to their success is not the approaches themselves, but rather how they are applied.

SAN FRANCISCOFor those performing transcatheter aortic valve implantations (TAVI), E. Murat Tuzcu, MD, has some advice: prepare, anticipate and rehearse. Tuzcu, an interventional cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic, offered interventionalists some advice on how to avoid common and uncommon vascular complications during TAVI procedures, during a twilight session Nov. 10 at the 23rd annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference.