Fred Trotter
Fred shapes our software development and data gathering strategies, which doesn't stop him from getting elbow-deep in the code on a regular basis. He is co-author of the first Health IT O’Reilly book Hacking Healthcare, and co-creator of the DIRECT protocol mandated in Meaningful Use. Fred’s technical commentary and data journalism work has been featured in several online and print journals including Wired, Forbes, U.S. News, NPR, Government Health IT, and Modern Healthcare.
Transparency victories regarding facility-level COVID data
HHS has recently released data about vaccinated personnel at different hospitals. They have also released a new “master key” that helps to identify how hospitals are being enumerated as part of the COVID reporting system. Both of these new data resources have been made public as part of the collaboration that CareSet and other data…
Read MoreCareSet Collects COVID Collaborators
Last night, HHS released COVID-19 capacity data at the hospital-level. Previously, this data had only been available on a state level. CareSet had early access to the hospital data in order to help create the Facility COVID PUF Community Frequently Asked Questions document. It is available on our GitHub page. If you have questions about…
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Commenting on Hospitals Public List of Standard Charges
This is my final post in the series covering the Hospital Price Transparency Executive Order. CMS recently proposed guidelines for how hospitals should list their standard charges to the public, as required by the Executive Order. I submitted comments to CMS on this portion of the proposed rule because of its great significance to patients,…
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Establishing a Health Quality Roadmap
My last blog in the series was Predicting Out-of-Pocket Patient Expenses. President Trump signed the Executive Order on Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First. CMS is currently requesting comments on its plan for implementing this order in this proposed rule. (Comment period ends 9/27/19) Section 4 of the executive order seeks to…
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Predicting Out-of-Pocket Patient Expenses
The previous blog, Transparent and machine-readable prices (and surprise medical billing) was the second in a series on the Hospital Price Transparency Executive Order. President Trump signed the Executive Order on Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First. CMS is currently requesting comments on its plan for implementing this order in this proposed rule. (Comment…
Read MoreTransparent and machine-readable prices (and surprise medical billing)
Yesterday I posted Implementing the Hospital Price Transparency Executive Order; Making Health Savings Accounts Better. President Trump signed the Executive Order on Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First. CMS is currently requesting comments on its plan for implementing this order in this proposed rule. (Comment period ends 9/27/19) Patients and Pricing Section…
Read MoreImplementing the Hospital Price Transparency Executive Order; Making Health Savings Accounts Better
Recently, President Trump signed the Executive Order on Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First. CMS is currently requesting comments on its plan for implementing this order in this proposed rule. Many have criticized the healthcare policies of the Trump administration, but I think it is important to acknowledge that the…
Read MoreClinician Attendees can earn CME at CES
Today while attending CES to talk about AI in healthcare, I learned that CES is the first health tech conference to offer Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit for its clinician attendees. This is huge news and is an important step in reconciling the clinician and technical communities.
Read MoreHHS fighting silos
HHS finally used the “s”-word (silos) talking about themselves. The Context: When anyone seeks to understand what is happening within HHS, a “search” must be conducted. In the era of paper records, this was a literal, physical search. An HHS employee would go to filing cabinets somewhere and find resources. Now a “search” means figuring…
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