EMR Articles - Medical Practice Trends

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.

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?

Pros & Cons of Server-Based EMR Systems

August 20, 2010 By Peter Polack 2 Comments

CMS Meaningful Use Rules, Part 2

July 22, 2010 By Peter Polack 2 Comments

In part 1, we introduced the different stages of meaningful use criteria as defined by CMS in their final rules, released July 13, 2010. Many practices and hospitals breathed a collective sigh of relief on the one hand, as several criteria had thresholds that were less onerous than were originally proposed. It seems that CMS has been listening.

Thresholds for CPOE and e-Prescribing

For example, as we mentioned earlier, the threshold for meeting criteria for CPOE (computerized physician order entry) is now set at 30%. This means that only 30% of unique patients (not total patient visits) need to have at least one order entered into the electronic medical record system to meet those goals.

Another example is electronically transmitted prescriptions or e-Prescribing. Originally set at 75% of “permissible prescriptions”, this has been dropped to “at least 40%”. This was due in part to objections that (1) some pharmacies are not quite ready to accept e-Prescribing and (2) some patients insist on getting a paper prescription.

Structured Data vs Unstructured Data

Along the subject of prescriptions, an active medication list must be maintained on patients (with the default threshold of at least 80% of unique patients) in the form of “structured data”. Structured data refers to data that can be identified by the EMR system. In other words, [Read more...]

CMS Releases EHR Adoption Rules, Part 1

July 14, 2010 By Peter Polack 2 Comments

On Tuesday July 13, CMS released the final rule for adopting a certified electronic health record (EHR) system.

After listing about 60 acronyms and abbreviations (and it’s impossible to remember them when reading the subsequent text), what follows is approximately 800 pages of proposals, related comments, and final rulings.

All this is to spell out the meaning of meaningful use (which we first touched on in October ), how to be considered an EP (eligible professional) and when said EP can expect to first receive any kind of incentive payment – for the early adopters, the first “payment year” is calendar year (CY) 2011.

When you actually receive the payment could be the end of the following calendar year). Hospitals will typically be incentivized on a fiscal year (FY) basis.

We’ll attempt to digest this compelling tome, one 100-page piece at a time (or so). Keep in mind, though, that this is only what CMS considers “Stage 1″ of the meaningful use criteria. Stage 2 criteria are expected by the end of 2011 and Stage 3 criteria by the end of 2013. The idea is to have an “initial graduated approach to arriving at the ultimate goal”: total enlightenment of EMR, I suppose.

As we previously mentioned, a meaningful user is one who:

[Read more...]

Electronic Medical Records and Liability

July 9, 2010 By Peter Polack 2 Comments

A recent post on the Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog reported on an interview with a professor of law and bioethics who believes that electronic medical records will bring on a whole host of liability issues for medical practitioners. [Read more...]

CMS to Publish "Meaningful Use" Final Rule by July 14

July 2, 2010 By Peter Polack 1 Comment

According to a report on FierceEMR.com, the CMS has announced that by July 14 it will release its final ruling on the EMR “meaningful use” standards which will finally spell out just how healthcare providers can become eligible for the HITECH (Healthcare Information for Electronic and Clinical Health) Act financial incentive payments.

In addition, it will presumably unveil its plan for aligning its Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) with the EMR financial incentives program.

“We propose to include many ARRA core clinical quality measures in the PQRI program, to demonstrate meaningful use of EHR and quality of care furnished to individuals,” CMS states in an advanced copy of the proposed reg, CMIO magazine reports. “We propose the selection of these measures to meet the requirements of planning the integration of PQRI and EHR reporting.”

Medical Practice Trends Podcast 7: HIPAA, HITECH, and Protecting Your Patients’ Information

June 8, 2010 By Peter Polack Leave a Comment

EMR Update 7 – HIPAA, HITECH, and Protecting Your Patients’ Information
This Issue:

What is data-at-rest vs data-in-motion?
What do the new HITECH Act provisions mean to your medical practice?
What are potential penalties for violating the HIPAA regulations?
What proactive measures can you take to protect yourself and your practice?

Podcast: Download (Duration: 9:07 — 3.7MB)

Are EMRs Bad For Your Health?

March 3, 2010 By Peter Polack Leave a Comment

In an article on the Huffington Post, the FDA is quoted as saying that errors attributed to the use of electronic medical record systems were responsible for dozens of injuries and six patient deaths. This, say critics of EMR, flies in the face of the assumption that adoption of EMR/EHR will improve patient safety and save lives. Some university studies have looked specifically at hospital-based systems and found that some of them had actually caused more adverse drug events than would have been expected, especially since these systems are supposed to have fail-safe mechanisms against just such occurrences.
[Read more...]