You are here: Home / Archives for EHR

Overview of the Meaningful Use Final Rule

August 31, 2010 By Peter Polack 2 Comments

From the folks of AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association) comes a nice and concise overview of the final rule of the Meaningful Use provisions for electronic medical records implementation. AHIMA is one of the largest associations of health information management (HIM) professionals and was founded in 1928 – which I am pretty sure pre-dates the use of electronic medical records.

This first in a series of white papers offers a basic description of the final rules. We covered some of the specifics in previous posts CMS Final Rule Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

But if you are new to all of this and just want to get your feet wet, here is a good place to start:

CLICK HERE to download the PDF

E-Book PDF: Download (154.1KB)

Bonus Resource: EMR Software Checklist

August 29, 2010 By Peter Polack 1 Comment

For those of you who are at the stage of EMR implementation where it is time to decide on the EMR software system, we have a new resource which I think you will find very useful.
EMR Software Checklist
Medical Practice Trends has partnered with the folks at SoftwareAdvice.com to give you an EMR Software Checklist. They have a huge database of information from many EMR software vendors and have used this to create a checklist of selection criteria to help medical practices with their EMR system decision-making. Then, one of their consultants will call and walk you through the checklist and explain the best practices for researching EMR software. Software Advice will even provide a “short list” of EMR systems for you to consider based on your unique requirements. Last year, they helped over 10,000 organizations find the right software.

What’s the catch? There isn’t one really. It’s a totally free service for you. SoftwareAdvice receives a “finder’s fee” if they successfully match you with an EMR software company. As an affiliate, Medical Practice Trends gets a cut of that. Hey, we have to pay our electric bills, too.

So, here’s what to do:

First, if you haven’t already started your EMR project, get our free report (located in the right-hand sidebar) “Getting Through the EMR Maze”. This will give you an overview of EMR implementation and help you avoid making costly mistakes.

Next, CLICK HERE to go to the EMR Checklist page. Fill out the information and then you can download a PDF of the checklist so you can get started doing your research right away. Good luck!

Hospitals Wooing Doctors with EMR

August 26, 2010 By Peter Polack 2 Comments

A report from American Medical News reports that hospitals are increasingly courting local physicians with free or subsidized EMR systems. Why?

A recent report by the American Hospital Assn. on the effects of the recession found that 72% of hospitals reported a decline in the number of elective procedures, and 70% reported a drop in patient volume from 2009.

A major criterion of meaningful use is proving the ability to communicate and share health information electronically. For hospitals, this means demonstrating that they are sharing this information with physicians. And the quickest way to achieve that is to help doctors get up-to-speed with EMR. Experts say that this also a good way for hospitals to strengthen relationships with the very physicians they count on for referrals.

Other experts urge caution on the part of medical practices. Hire a consultant and make sure the potential system fits in with your overall EMR implementation strategy. As J. Ryan Williams, a healthcare attorney from Cleveland points out:

You could be in a position of accepting the donated technology, share in that cost, then one, two or three years down the road that technology, God forbid, doesn’t allow you to meet your meaningful use criteria. [Then] what good have you done?

Eligibility for EMR Incentives Could Be Widened

August 23, 2010 By Peter Polack 1 Comment

The AMA reports that new legislation is proposing to extend the eligibility for EMR incentives to include licensed psychologists and clinical social workers.

The Health Information Technology Extension for Behavioral Health Services Act also would expand the Medicare hospital incentive to include inpatient psychiatric hospitals, and extend Medicaid hospital bonuses to community health centers, mental health treatment facilities, psychiatric hospitals, and substance abuse treatment facilities. The bill was introduced on Aug. 5 by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D, R.I.), and a companion bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D, R.I.).

Whitehouse said his legislation “will give mental health professionals access to comprehensive and up-to-date medical histories, enhancing the precision of diagnoses and reducing medication errors.”

Using EHRs to Drive Quality Improvement

August 18, 2010 By Peter Polack 1 Comment

Physicians have long suspected that part of the reason that the government and the insurance industry are so gung-ho about EHR adoption is to keep a closer eye on health-care providers. And here is an example of just that.

A Blue Cross Blue Shield provider (Highmark) is developing quality measures for its providers (internists, family practitioners and cardiologists) that are tied to financial incentives.

According to their spokesman, “Ideally, use of health information technology will transform care through access to full information at the point of care, use of decision support to assure better adherence to evidence-based guidelines and coordination of care among multiple caregivers. In so doing, we expect to see a reduction in unwarranted variation and improvement in patient safety.”

There is no doubt that the widespread use of EMR will lead to better documentation and therefore enhanced patient safety. But we must also be aware of the potential for increased control over the practice of medicine.

Are Hospitals Necessary for EMR Adoption?

August 16, 2010 By Peter Polack 1 Comment

A post on HealthAffairsBlog illustrates the case of a community in Delaware where the adoption of electronic medical records was spear-headed by the local hospital system, Christiana Care. But it also brings up three challenges that any community would have in trying to reach that same goal:

  1. How to we get everyone communicating on the same network?
  2. Who is going to pay for the start-up costs?
  3. How do we ensure that all physicians benefit?

The answer to all three, according to the writer, Dr. Robert Laskowski of the Christiana Care Health  System, is the hospital. He argues that most small and solo practices do not have the resources or the wherewithal to implement EMR on their own and that if local hospitals would take the lead, it is a win-win scenario.

Do EMRs Make Practicing Medicine Safer or More Dangerous?

August 13, 2010 By Peter Polack 3 Comments

Recently I wrote about a Harvard study that found evidence that physicians that use electronic medical records systems (EMRs) are less likely to be involved in a malpractice lawsuit. But regardless of whether your charts are better documented and therefore make you less of a target for a claim, does using EMR make you practice medicine better?

According to the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, there have been several cases of EMRs gone amok. In most cases there was no harm to patients. But they quote Dr. Jeffrey Shuren of the FDA as attributing six deaths and 200 injuries to poorly implemented CPOE (computerized physician order entry). Many critics of the government’s EMR implementation plan point to these cases as examples of not enough regulation and oversight.

On the other hand, the ONC (Office of the National Coordinator [for Health Information Technology]) spokesman says the they are working closely with a number of organizations including the FDA to improve safety. Critics say that the ONC has too friendly a relationship with the EMR industry, and feel that the FDA needs to be given more authority to collect and analyze errors caused by EMR systems.

Using EMR Reduces Your Risk of a Malpractice Claim

August 10, 2010 By Peter Polack 4 Comments

According to a study from Harvard University, physicians who use electronic medical records systems may be less likely to be sued.

“When providers use electronic records in the outpatient setting, the likelihood of a paid malpractice settlement was about two-thirds as high,” said one of the lead authors, David Westfall Bates, MD, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, MA, and professor of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The study group says their findings “support the hypothesis that EHR adoption and use lead to improved quality of care and patient safety, resulting in fewer adverse events and fewer paid malpractice claims. ” In addition, EHRs may result in more extensive and more legible documentation leading to stronger legal defenses when malpractices lawsuits are filed.

E-Book PDF: Download (105.3KB)

What is EMR?

August 3, 2010 By Peter Polack 3 Comments

YouTube Preview Image

CMS Meaningful Use Rules, Part 3

July 29, 2010 By Peter Polack 3 Comments

In part 1, we discussed just what is meant by a meaningful user and in part 2 we touched briefly on some of the changes made in the meaningful use rules from the proposed rules to the final rules. Whereas initially there was an 80% threshold that had to be met for pretty much every objective, after much discussion and consideration, CMS agreed that for some of these measures that was too high a bar to jump.

Here is a nice summary of the final rules thresholds for each of the meaningful use objectives and measures. Thanks to Robin Raiford, RN, from the HIMSS Legislation and Regulation Review Task Force, for providing us with this great resource.

It’s too detailed to see clearly on the website so….

RIGHT-CLICK HERE to download the PDF file

E-Book PDF: Download (165.8KB)

« Older Posts