Moving forward in fits and starts, many state health insurance exchanges are mired in legislation – in some instances even despite the backing of Governors.
This battle is being fought not just in the nation’s capital but in state legislatures, where opponents are effectively blocking efforts – prompting Senior Editor Mary Mosquera to ask: Are politics extinguishing state health insurance exchanges?
Mosquera also examines the 5 facets of health IT at greatest risk should the Supreme Court justices overturn the ACA, or any parts of it.
And politics, lobbying specifically, played a large part in the new ICD-10 compliance deadline. First Street Research analyst Alex Bronstein-Moffly takes a look inside AMA lobbyists’ role in the ICD-10 delay and finds a powerful organizations in terms of both financial might and key Congressional contacts.
Be it ICD-10 or other health IT areas, federal leadership is necessary to figure out what works and, perhaps as important, what does not. But federal involvement is not all it takes. How an economist, the Boston Red Sox, and a comic book foster health reform – oh yes, and there’s a three-legged stool in there, too.
Venture capital investments in health IT, meanwhile, soared in the first quarter of 2012 on the wings of “significant momentum” and “a robust M&A environment.” Related Q&A: ONC’s Wil Yu on how app contests offer more than just money.
Some of that money, no doubt, will find its way into Big Data projects of one fashion or another, meaning hospitals would be wise to consider 4 ways they can harness big data to both increase revenue and improve care outcomes.
With predictions of health data soon reaching into the zettabyte range and skyrocketing toward the yotttabyte scale beyond that, Big Data will be key to both types of exchanges, health information exchanges and those contentious health insurance exchanges struggling for wider adoption.
