Federal Manager's Daily Report Thursday, August 26, 2004 Published by FEDweek, the federal government's largest information resource with now over one million weekly readers to its electronic newsletters.
*********************************************************** Federal Manager's Daily Report is a brand new FREE daily electronic report for all federal managers and supervisors featuring the day's top stories on management and workforce issues. Please pass this information on to your fellow colleagues. You can sign up for this free daily report at http://fedweek.sparklist.com/t/294935575/821889/32/2/ . *********************************************************** In Today's Issue: 1. GAO: HHS Health IT System Runs Into Fraud and Abuse Legal Barrier 2. Seminar: Developing Customer-Focused Organizations 3. OSHA Oversight Too Limited, Says GAO *********************************************************** Today's Issue of Federal Manager's Daily Report is sponsored by Nortel Networks ************************************************************ Nortel Networks converged voice and data, the new reality for mission-critical networks. Our GSA schedule authorized partners can help you evaluate your current systems and plan a smooth migration to converged voice and data services. Visit http://fedweek.sparklist.com/t/294935575/821889/295/2/ to learn more. *********************************************************** Aug. 26, 2004 1.GAO: HHS Health IT System Runs Into Fraud and Abuse Legal Barrier The Department of Health and Human Services faces legal barriers, related to fraud and abuse precautions, to the adoption of its proposed health IT system, and its efforts to address them have so far been limited in scope, the Government Accountability Office has said. GAO said various experts it interviewed "indicated that beyond legal issues related to the privacy and security of health information, there are various laws -- some specifically health-related and some not -- that present barriers to the adoption of health IT. For example, the laws involve antitrust, federal income tax, intellectual property, malpractice and state licensing. Laws related to fraud and abuse include the Physician Self-Referral - Stark -- law and the Anti-kickback statute, which GAO says impede arrangements between providers such as sharing IT resources. Because the laws do not specifically address health IT arrangements, there is some uncertainty among health care providers as to what would result in violations of the laws, so there is some reluctance to invest in health IT, according to GAO-04-991R. Experts it spoke with felt HHS had not addressed the legal issues enough to reassure providers. HHS has 19 health IT initiatives, some of which are designed to provide overall leadership and coordination for health IT across HHS, other federal agencies, and other public and private sector organizations, and collectively represent $228 million in fiscal 2004, said GAO. It said the majority of initiatives and funding are for health IT programmatic activities and grant programs to support the development of standard clinical terminologies and fund demonstrations of health information systems. 2. Seminar: Developing Customer-Focused Organizations The Office of Personnel Management has scheduled a seminar for Sept. 20 - Sept. 24 for managers, project leaders, and others who are accountable for achieving excellence in customer service. Given at the Western Management Development Center in Denver, "Developing Customer-Focused Organizations, Achieving Excellence in Customer Service," is designed to provide public sector managers with the special knowledge and skills they need to provide services more efficiently to their customers and to inspire customer-responsive behavior throughout their organizations. Special emphasis is placed on preparing managers for the consequences of organizational change, and the resulting problems that can adversely affect customer service. The seminar is also designed to give participants a "roadmap" for improving their organizational systems and customer service skills. The $2,600 fee includes meals, lodging, tuition and course materials. Learn more and register at: http://fedweek.sparklist.com/t/294935575/821889/298/2/ 3. OSHA Oversight Too Limited, Says GAO The way the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration ensures that penalties are correctly determined and violations are properly abated - or resolved - could stand improvement, the Government Accountability Office has said. It said that while the national OSHA office receives copies of the regions' annual audits, it does not review them or use them to monitor the extent to which penalties are calculated correctly and violations are properly abated. Audit results identify problems such as the miscalculation of penalties and the failure to conduct required follow-up inspections, according to GAO-04-920. However, it said even if OSHA were to use the results of annual audits for oversight purposes the information may be incomplete, noting that four of the five regional offices GAO reviewed did not conduct audits in full accordance with OSHA procedures during fiscal years 2002 and 2003. To better understand the factors that influence the variation in penalty amounts, GAO said it developed a "multivariate" statistical model. It seems to have done its homework. "To assess the extent of OSHA's oversight of the civil penalty determination and violation abatement processes, we reviewed 2002 and 2003 regional audits from the five regions with the most inspections; visited one of these regional offices and one area office within this region to interview officials and review documents and procedures; conducted telephone interviews with the four remaining regional offices and one area office within each of those regions; interviewed OSHA officials to identify relevant policies and procedures, and reviewed relevant policies and procedures," said GAO. Published by FEDweek LLC 11551 Nuckols Rd. Suite L Glen Allen, VA 23059 (804) 288-5321 Website: http://fedweek.sparklist.com/t/294935575/821889/296/2/ A 100% Veteran-Owned Business --- You are subscribed to federalmanagersdailyreport as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! 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