Mostashari urges healthcare change | Healthcare IT News

I am a big fan of Farzad Mostashari. He has great optimism when it comes to the industry, and his statements in this article give me hope that despite the arguments, reports, and general sentiment that experienced health care professionals have to go against Health IT, there will be a time in the near future when EHR’s are the norm.

In this article, Mostashari gives us three suggested areas for immediate improvement in Health IT. Patient engagement, revamped workflows, and set system defaults are three important issues, not only for their Meaningful Use implications, but because of their ability to truly improve staff efficiency. A properly utilized system will guide a staff into this efficiency if they are open to the changes, and willing to go through the growing pains to make it work for their practice.

This is a quick read for this Monday morning, enjoy!

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Adam Rantz – Sales and Project Coordinator at DataTrade Solutions and Health IT, Meaningful Use and EHR Blogger

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Health I.T. Keeps NY Islanders On the Ice

I don’t really care that much about hockey outside of the Flyers, but they are sitting at home this year while the Islanders pound their way through the playoffs. This is a quick video, and if you want to skip the intro, just go straight to the 1:30 mark. That is where this report begins to talk about how Health IT is going to “keep the Islanders on the ice.”

PACS and RIS are great tools for many types of specialties and they are especially helpful in Orthopedics. Watch this video for a quick overview of how they can help.

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Adam Rantz – Sales and Project Coordinator at DataTrade Solutions and Health IT, Meaningful Use and EHR Blogger

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Stage 2 and the Patient Portal

In 2014 most Eligible Providers will begin their quest to further their Meaningful Use of certified EHR technology into the dreaded Stage 2. If providers can raise their numbers to the higher thresholds and meet the additional core objectives, they will continue to get their reimbursement money for proving to CMS that they are using their EHR applications to the best of their abilities, or well enough to meet the measures.

Stage 2 also marks an important milestone in the American Medical industry. Certain core objectives involve the use of a certified patient portal, and within that, it requires a certain percentage of patients to use the portal. Let me say that a different way, if patients don’t use your portal, you won’t get your money.

So, for providers who practice in low-income areas where internet use is non-existent then they are pretty much out of luck unless they can think of some creative ways to get their patients involved. Physicians are notoriously smart individuals, so I would imagine that practices are already coming up with creative ways to involve the patients without making it seem obvious that without participation, the practice will be missing out on thousands of dollars.

Offering gift cards, contests, and incentives for portal use are all great motivators to get patients to log in once to win their prize, but the real challenge will be continuing to keep patients involved and active in the maintenance of their own health through the portal, which is the true goal and reason for its inclusion in the Meaningful Use program. A perfectly healthy individual is probably not going to continue to log in if their only doctor visits are a once-a-year physical.

I know that I am the exception to just about every “regular person” rule when it comes to excitement about these things: I have an on-going condition and I work in the industry, so I cannot properly gauge how willing people will be to establish yet another username and password to log in to a portal that is greatly irrelevant to their daily lives, but my guess is that enthusiasm is low. Not to mention the fact that as more and more of my providers go live, I will have to create more and more patient portal logins.

The question I have been trying to answer, is how to build excitement levels and make a patient portal relevant to a healthy twenty-something. The answer is right in front of me, and if you are under the age of 40 it is probably on your phone, tablet device and favorites in your web browser: Facebook.

Facebook in its inception was wildly popular with young people because it was a site where you could keep tabs on friends from high school while connecting with new friends at college. Without Facebook, I could not even tell you how many people would have been lost to me. Now, I am not saying that patient portals need to be like Facebook where we endlessly comment on mundane daily tasks and smear baby pictures all over our walls, but the point I am trying to make is that the patient portal should be centered around the patient, not a business driver that stems from a government incentive program.

Facebook is a social media site, and patient portals are primarily concerned with securing a patient’s information and ensuring that it is not accessible to anyone outside of the practice or network. I am sure that someone much smarter than myself is coming up with a way to make patient portals relevant, and I am really excited to get involved when it does come out. So keep an eye on this issue, it may become a pretty big deal.

 

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Conversion to electronic medical records is costly, frustrating – mcall.com

I constantly have my eye on the national news when it comes to EHR’s and Health IT, and this morning my father let me know that there was a local story about EHRs from The Morning Call. Two things came to mind after I read this article: This sounds like a national story, and I am very happy to hear that Lehigh Valley Hospital is so far ahead of the curve in regards to the connections they have made to outside practices and networks.

This is by far the biggest issue facing the industry. Forget slower workflows, loss of revenue and provider resistance, there is no way to stem the tide of EHR. The providers who are resistant will retire before two long and be replaced by providers who have used EHRs since their career’s began. Younger providers will have no issue with using a computer or navigating an EHR application, but they are not programmers, and they have no control over the interoperability of their practice or networks EHR. This is where the focus is for Health IT, and rightfully so.

I believe I say this about every three months on this blog, but in 5-10 years, we may look back and have a good laugh at how we had such a hard time adapting to this clearly superior way of recording and maintaining patient charts.

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Adam Rantz – Sales and Project Coordinator at DataTrade Solutions and Health IT, Meaningful Use and EHR Blogger

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Best practices for using scribes for clinical documentation | MedCity News

I know what you are thinking, “Two in one day, odd…” I had to repost this for my readers. This is an incredibly big question right now, and it could make all the difference for Meaningful Use. It is quick and to the point. Read it if you are using or considering using scribes in your work flow.

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Adam Rantz – Sales and Project Coordinator at DataTrade Solutions and Health IT, Meaningful Use and EHR Blogger

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CMS official offers details on MU audits | Healthcare IT News

I am not a huge fan of Q&A articles, but in this case I will make an exception. This is a must read if you are at any stage in the Meaningful Use game. In this article you will find links to the sample request for audit letter, an audit overview and a fact sheet. If you study up on the latter two, and your practice is in compliance with what is stated in those documents, then you should have nothing to worry about if your practice is audited (at least, that is what Ms. Holland is saying).

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Adam Rantz – Sales and Project Coordinator at DataTrade Solutions and Health IT, Meaningful Use and EHR Blogger

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Canada Doctors Reap ROI From EHRs – Healthcare – Electronic Medical

I know that it is not an “apples to apples” comparison when you try to gauge America’s EHR future off of Canada’s reported success, but it is promising news none the less. The reported numbers in this article are based off of approximately 3 years of data, and our friends to the North are showing us that our constant reporting and monitoring of EHR progress may be a bit premature. I have heard some tales of industry reports where the blame is completely on EHR for loss of revenue and a hindrance on efficiency, but after some further auditing of the system, it was proved that the blame was misplaced.

I ask that if you take one thing away from reading this article it is that sometimes it is best to stick to the plan and keep working towards the goal of a fully functional and efficient EHR. Time will show that the American medical practice will be better off after the paper is gone.

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Adam Rantz – Sales and Project Coordinator at DataTrade Solutions and Health IT, Meaningful Use and EHR Blogger

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Could better manners spur bipartisanship on Meaningful Use? – FierceEMR

Kill ‘em with kindness. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Whichever cliche you want to use, kindness and civility certainly seem to work as better agents of persuasion than hostility and angered-tone. I could not agree more with Ms. Hirsch. The senate committee needs to work with CMS, not throw them under the bus  in the court of public opinion.

The studies out have evidence to support both sides of the argument, but interoperability is certainly the biggest obstacle facing the industry. Certain vendors are ready to play nice, while others seem to be sitting in their towers holding patient data hostage like some kind of Bond villain (lightning crashes, maniacal laugh).

Whichever side of the argument you are on, remember that neither side is going anywhere, we all need to work together to get where we need to be when it comes to Health IT.

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Adam Rantz – Sales and Project Coordinator at DataTrade Solutions and Health IT, Meaningful Use and EHR Blogger

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ONC proposes EHR vendor fee | Healthcare IT News

In my opinion, a vendor fee is a great idea. When Eisenhower put the Interstate Highway System into play in the 1950′s it was primarily paid for by user fees (fuel taxes). If you want to drive on the road, you should at least help to pay for it. It is a great idea, and it is an idea that will not put America into a deeper hole of debt by allocating more non-existent cash to pay for a multi-billion dollar program.

I have my violin out for the EHR vendors, who are, naturally, in opposition to this user fee. Their proposition of changing up meaningful use is already being mulled over, so following that route as an alternative to fund the billions more that will be paid out in the next fee years is not going to happen.

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Adam Rantz – Sales and Project Coordinator at DataTrade Solutions  and Health IT, Meaningful Use and EHR Blogger

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Senators Question HITECH Implementation, Suggest Delaying ‘Meaningful Use’ Program | Bloomberg BNA

My first instinct when I saw the headline of this article was to blast everything it had to say. I immediately passed judgment on this suggestion as yet another Washington Fat-cat move to make an already shaky situation worse. As I read through, my judgement changed. I began to side with this group of Republican Senators and their opinion that maybe Meaningful Use should be delayed. Just about every day I hear someone say something to the effect of, “I am done with ‘Meaningful Use.’” The providers and staff who have completely changed the way they practice medicine, for the most part, made this change to get the incentives and avoid the eventual penalties that will come in 2015.

Speak to any provider who has practiced for over 30 years, they want absolutely nothing to do with this program or EHR applications, and they would rather retire to their life of leisure than jump through the meaningful use hoops. Add to that the recent sequester cuts to incentive payments, which I think is still pretty much under the radar, otherwise we would be hearing a different outcry from another group. This inevitable change will happen. One day every practice and hospital network in America will use some kind of electronic charting system, and I have to say, maybe a delay would not be the worst thing in the world.

I was anxious to get into this business because I saw the bigger picture. Patient’s will be better cared for and better connected with health care providers, but this cannot happen without solving the interoperability issue. Right now EHR vendors have no reason to fix this issue. So many other issues need to be taken care of to keep practices on track for Stage 2. Patient Portals, communications with state registries, and e-prescribing narcotics are just a few of the issues that need to be addressed this year if you want to keep getting your incentives in 2014.

I truly have to say that I believe a delay should be in order. Let’s work together to restructure meaningful use, and in this delay, we can re-evaluate what it means to meaningfully use an EHR application. Is providing patient education really showing you know how to use your EHR? Is it really necessary for an Orthopedic Surgeon to show that he can connect with a state immunization registry? It is not for me to say, but I could think of many other things that would be on my list of EHR uses that would come before that requirement.

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Adam Rantz – Sales and Project Coordinator and Health IT, Meaningful Use and EHR Blogger

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