BEI HIT Blog
Healthcare Informatics, February 6, 2013
BEI Commentary: Consider enlisting your patients’ help in making sure their medical records are accurate. This has the side benefit of involving them further in their care, and showing them that you care!
Backed by a study from the Office for the National Coordinator of Health IT (ONC), researchers at the Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger Health System and the National Organization for Research at the University of Chicago (NORC) recently discovered that patients can help make the information in their EHR more accurate. These results were touted in a recent webinar from the National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC).
According to Prashila Dullabh, M.D., project lead at NORC, the researchers assessed the need for patient feedback in improving the quality of their EHRs through a pilot project at Geisinger. Users of the Geisinger patient portal, MyGeisinger, were encouraged to provide feedback on their medication list within their medical record prior to an office visit. Dullabh says 1500 patients received the feedback form, and approximately 30 percent responded to this offer to update. Read More
Healthcare informatics, October 5, 2012
BEI Commentary: The Republicans want more bang for their buck! If Romney gets elected, physicians will really need to bring their “A” game.
Recently, House Republicans sent a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking her to suspend the payments related to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Electronic Health Record (EHR) Meaningful Use Incentive program. The House republicans say HHS is “squandering taxpayer dollars by asking little of providers in return for incentive payments.”
According to Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Wally Herger (R-CA), and Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts (R-PA), the Stage 2 meaningful use rules are in some ways weaker than the proposed Stage 1 regulations. The result, they say, will be a “less efficient system.” Read More
Healthcare Informatics, August 16, 2011
BEI Commentary: Although this article focuses on hospitals, it clearly shows how the Meaningful Use incentives have clearly made an impact on the deployment of HIT and the use of functionality that is considered impactful and meaningful in the healthcare environment.
According to a recent report from the Orem, Utah-based KLAS Research, computerized physician order entry (CPOE) rates have grown almost 168 percent after the passage of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act/Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (ARRA-HITECH). The report, “CPOE 2011: The ARRA Effect,” states that the number of hospitals going live in 2010 has jumped to 233 per year since ARRA passed, from an average of 87.
Colin Buckley, strategic operations manager at KLAS, said the report’s findings were encouraging to those in the industry, however, healthcare organizations’ readiness for CPOE depends a lot on their vendor partners. “Most of the organizations doing CPOE are having a lot of success, and they’re going deeper, faster, so they shouldn’t have many problems with meaningful use stage goals,” Buckley says. “For folks that are not yet on their way with CPOE the biggest challenge is being able to get in line with their vendors and getting their internal resources and expectations in line to get everything done in the next few years.” Read More
Healthcare Informatics, July 27, 2011
BEI Commentary: Some good practical advice on EHR implementation
1. Not understanding the 3rd party applications, and clearinghouses.
a. Once the ink is dry on your EMR contract, you begin the process of understanding all the other pieces of your application. These are often 3rd party software solutions that are provided by the vendor. However, you soon find out that the vendor wants you to work with these “subcontractors” directly in order to resolve integration issues, development deficiencies and customizations.
b. RX and billing clearinghouses as well as 3rd party applications are notorious resource sponges. Be prepared for they added effort and workflow changes required to make these pieces fit into your EMR puzzle. Nothing is “plug and play” even if it is solution included with your contract.
2. Not being prepared for all the interface work.
a. An EMR is a glorified note book without the interfaces to all your clinical data. Your project success metric should included connectivity to your top Lab, Rad and RX hubs.
b. Your vendor may surprise you when they tell you that they require their own propriety interface engine. These are conduits that communicate from the application to your primary interface engine (eGate, Cloverleaf). Now you have a double entry HL7 map that will require internal resources to interface to your own systems. Don’t expect the vendor to provide much help here. Read More
BEI Commentary: Physician adoption of EHRs based on the HITECH incentives is really happening.
From: Healthcare Informatics, May 19, 2011
At an eClinicalWorks (Westborough, Mass.) Northeast Users’ Group meeting last week in Brooklyn, N.Y., Amanda Parsons, M.D., assistant commissioner of the Primary Care Information Project (PCIP) and NYC REACH for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and Mat Kendall, M.P.H., director of the Office of Provider Adoption Support at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), discussed how they were continuing to encourage adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) on a federal and state level.
According to Kendall, 65,000 providers have enrolled in the 62 regional extension centers (RECs) across the country, on track with ONC expectations. Kendall mentioned that states like South Carolina and Massachusetts have already exceeded provider target numbers, while other states like Mississippi, Maine, and Rhode Island are close to achieving their goals. Read More
