BEI HIT Blog
SRSsoft, February 17, 2012
BEI Commentary: Although this blog is written by a vendor, it’s point is valid. Customer service for your EHR is very important. We have seen several practices receive poor support from their vendor, making the EHR experience more frustrating. If you are selecting an EHR, make sure to validate the level of customer service. If you are unsatisfied with the support that you are getting now, see if you can transfer your support contract to a VAR or other resource.
In today’s increasingly complex environment, superior service and support from your EHR vendor are critical to long-term practice viability. Reliable customer service can no longer be viewed as just a box to be checked on the EHR scorecard during the selection process—it is vital to success.
The EHR industry is characterized by fairly poor customer satisfaction—the average KLAS score for service sits at a low 73% (Ambulatory EMRs for 11–75 Physicians). Physicians who cannot rely on their EHR company for excellent support will find their productivity and success jeopardized. No longer is the impact of an EHR limited to its use in managing charts—the increasing demands of government and other payer programs have extended the reach of an EHR beyond the four walls of the practice, and success or failure now has increasingly significant financial implications. Physicians must be able to successfully share information, connect to HIEs, and report on clinical data. In the future, they will need to respond to new reimbursement models such as ACOs. All of these communications are complicated and fraught with potential technical challenges—even with the best EHR solutions—making access to the highest quality customer support vital. Read More
Bloomberg.com, February 9, 2012
BEI Commentary: Not only is Medicare focused on Fee-For-Value programs (also called outcomes based payments), United Health is getting in the game as well. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that United says that up to 70% of its members will be covered by some type of FFV plan by 2015. EHRs will play a key role in allowing physicians to participate in an FFV program.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), the largest U.S. health insurer by sales, will pay doctors based on the quality of their care in a cost-cutting effort that also benefits the company’s consulting business.
UnitedHealth expects to save twice as much as it would spend on incentive payments for doctors because patients will be healthier, according to company documents forwarded by spokeswoman Cheryl Randolph. The program may cover as much as 70 percent of the insurer’s commercial members by 2015, from less than 2 percent now, the company said.
The nationwide expansion of the program follows similar efforts by the U.S. government and rival insurers to trim medical costs by shifting away from paying based on the amount of services provided. Optum, UnitedHealth’s services business, will be able to sell software, data and consulting to providers making the changes, Sam Ho, chief clinical officer of the insurer’s UnitedHealthcare unit, said in an interview. Read more
Health Data Management
BEI Commentary: A recent study shows that eprescribing has a higher patient fill rate because more information, such as copay amount, is available to patients and physicians at the point of care.
A study of de-identified pharmacy data finds patient-first-fill medication adherence–the number of times a patient actually fills a new prescription–increases by 10 percent when the prescription is electronic.
E-prescribing network vendor SureScripts conducted the study with pharmacies and pharmacy benefit management firms. A 2010 study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that up to 28 percent of paper prescriptions are not brought to the pharmacy. Other times, patients are unprepared for the amount of their co-pay when they fill the prescription and abandon the prescription at the pharmacy, meaning they elect not to buy it, according to a 2010 study in the Annuals of Internal Medicine. That study showed patients with a co-pay of $40 to $50 were 3.4 times more likely to abandon the prescription; 4.68 times more likely if the co-pay was more than $50. Read More
EHRWatch, January 30, 2012
BEI Commentary: Allscripts is the second major ambulatory vendor to partner with M* Modal. Greenway has done so already. With these new capabilities, physicians will be able to dictate into an EHR and have the note transcribed as well as abstracted, saving a lot of pointing and clicking. This should be a major productivity enhancement for clinical staff, when fully implemented.
One of the ongoing hurdles for providers moving to EHRs is the convenience, or lack thereof, of inputting data during patient visits.
One evolving solution to that hurdle is the development of voice recognition and recording technology.
On that front, M*Modal Inc., a provider of clinical narrative capture services, recently announced that it has entered into a strategic reseller and development relationship with Allscripts for its speech and language understanding technology, which will be available for Allscripts clients across all ambulatory and acute-care platforms. The relationship will provide capabilities to create content-rich, voice-driven narrative patient documentation within Allscripts electronic health record (EHR) systems. Read More
EHR Watch, January 26, 2012
BEI Commentary: Wouldn’t it be great to know how patients are doing in between office visits? If data could be collected in real-time, patients could be seen when needed, for instance, when remote monitoring equipment indicates there might be a problem. A new technology from a company called Biotronik, allows continuous, automatic, wireless remote monitoring of patient and implantable cardiac device status with daily updates—all independent from any patient interaction. With immediate access to patient information, physicians can remotely monitor and assess patient device data and determine the level of care needed.
There’s more news coming out of the recent IHE Connectathon in Chicago.
Biotronik, a German manufacturer of cardiac medical devices and remote patient management solutions, has announced it has successfully completed its final interoperability testing process for an Internet-based system for patient and implantable cardiac device information.
At the event, the company tested its implantable device cardiac observation (IDCO) profile and demonstrated its ability to connect to third-party EHR systems and cardiovascular data management systems using defined industry standards. The connecting technology from the BIOTRONIK Home Monitoring® system to the EHRs is called BIOTRONIK EHR DataSync®. Read More
Information Week, January 25, 2012
BEI Commentary: As expected, mobile applications related to EHRs are starting to become more popular. Kaiser has recently announced the ability for patients to access their medical records via an Android app, with iPhone coming soon.
Nine million Kaiser Permanente patients now can access their electronic health records (EHRs) and securely email their physicians using their smart phones and other mobile devices.
Kaiser Permanente, which has the largest civilian EHR system in the world, this week introduced a new mobile EHR application for Android smartphones. An iPhone application also is in the works and will be available from Kaiser Permanente in coming months. In the meantime, iPhone users, as well as users “of any mobile device,” can access their Kaiser Permanente EHR via a new “mobile-optimized” version of the Kaiser website, kp.org, said Kaiser Permanente CIO Phil Fasano in an interview with InformationWeek Healthcare. Read More
Healthcare Economist, January 16, 2012
BEI Commentary: As we have said many times before, HIT will become an integral part of an ambulatory practice in the future, and will need to be well implemented in order to support the new P4P initiatives. Here is the first volley on this that we have seen from Medicare.
In 2015, Medicare will begin implementing a value-based purchasing (VPB) program for physicians. Initially the program will target only certain physicians and groups of physicians, but by 2017 all physicians is participate in this program.
The VBP program will evaluate physicians along two broad dimensions: quality and cost. In the final rule:
Section 1848(p) of the Act requires the Secretary to ‘‘establish a payment modifier that provides for differential payment to a physician or a group of physicians’’ under the physician fee schedule ‘‘based upon the quality of care furnished compared to cost *** during a performance period.’’ The provision requires that ‘‘such payment modifier be separate from the geographic adjustment factors’’ established for the physician fee schedule. In addition, section 1848(p)(4)(C) of the Act requires that the value modifier be implemented in a budget-neutral manner. Read More
Healthcare IT News, January 10, 2012
BEI Commentary: We have seen lots of data on the number of physicians signed up for Meaningful Use incentives. Here is the latest of information. Of note is that in 2011 approximately 1/3 of all eligible Medicare providers signed registered. If this rate keeps up, the vast majority of Medicare providers will be participating in this program before it is over.
The Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record program has paid more than $2.5 billion to physicians and hospitals in incentive payments for all of 2011, with December contributing to the steep growth curve. The final 2011 data won’t be in until early March because physicians can register and attest in the Medicare program until the end of February to receive payment for what is considered calendar 2011, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. States also can take weeks to submit their final Medicaid incentive data.
Medicare incentives for demonstrating meaningful use of EHRs reached $1.38 billion for the year, while Medicaid payments for providers to adopt, implement and upgrade their EHRs were estimated at $1.15 billion, for a total of $2.53 billion. In November, payments amounted to $1.8 billion. Read More
EHR Watch, December 30, 2012
BEI Commentary: An interesting article discussing how a large multispecialty practice was able to acheive Meaningful Use. They had to do a lot of work and change some processes, but in the end they felt is was worth it. They are able to point to several efficiencies, including reducing the number of tests and procedures, and reducing the medical records staff from 22 to 3!
For many providers, the year ahead will be a continuation of efforts to select and implement an EHR system.
So, with our last post of the year, it seems fitting to share excerpts from a testimonial by Premier Healtcare, LLC, a Bloomington, Indiana-based multi-specialty group with more than 80 providers and 500 staff that recently attested for Stage 1 Meaningful Use.
There may be a tip or two or two providers could use in the year ahead. Happy New Year! Read More
Information Week – Healthcare, December 22, 2011
BEI Commentary: It is always nice to see documented results showing the benefit of HIT. In this case, Philadelphia area hospitals were able to reduce readmission rates by 7% and save $4 million in one quarter. This represents the promise of HIT: Improved outcomes and cost savings.
A survey of 29 Philadelphia-based hospitals has found that the 18 facilities that submitted patient readmissions data saw a 7% drop in their 30-day same-hospital readmission rates. The figures represent more than 400 patients who avoided being re-hospitalized and $4 million in savings for the third quarter of 2011.
How did they accomplish these goals? According to the Transitions of Care Survey Summary Report, recently released by The Health Care Improvement Foundation, hospitals participating in the 18-month Preventing Avoidable Episodes (PAVE) Project improved upon strategies that enhance transitions of care and prevent hospital readmissions. Those strategies could not have happened without electronic health records (EHRs) and related health information technology tools. Read More
