July 5, 2012 David Raths
article
Stage 3 of meaningful use may seem a long way off. After all, the Stage 2 final rule has yet to be released. Yet for members of the Meaningful Use Work Group of the federal Health IT Policy Committee, deadlines are fast approaching. They are working to make initial Stage 3 recommendations by Aug. 1, so that a Request for Comment can by issued in November and final recommendations can be published by May 2013.
June 29, 2012
news
The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) Regional Extension Center (REC) has become the first regional extension center (REC) in the nation to certify over 1,000 providers for the federally defined meaningful use, the organization stated recently.
June 27, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
article
May was a good month for the Medicare & Medicaid EHR Incentive Payment programs. As of June 1, more than 110,000 eligible professionals and 2,400 hospitals had received a total of $5.7 billion in meaningful use incentive payments, according to a monthly report released Tuesday from the Department of Health and Human Services.
June 27, 2012 David Raths
blog
provider organizations, to understand not only the basis for their general support of the meaningful use effort but also the areas Many healthcare providers state their support for the concepts, but add that their EHR vendors won’t be able to implement them in the timeline suggested.
June 26, 2012
blog
We are continuously piling new requirements on existing systems, often in conceptual isolation. It has occurred to everyone working in our industry that Medication Reconciliation overlaps CPOE, which overlaps maintaining up-to-date problem lists, which in turn overlap exchanging interoperable documents to facilitate safe hand-offs. These things are explicitly essential to reduce unnecessary readmissions, provide care in coordinated medical facilities and pharmacies, and promote self-care. What worries us all...
June 26, 2012 Joe Marion
blog
In February the CMS published the proposed rules for Stage 2 of the ARRA/Meaningful Use act. The proposed rules include the possible inclusion of imaging, specifically image sharing as a criterion. The comments period closed in May, and now it will now be up to the government to see if imaging survives as part of Stage 2. I have heard some rumblings that advocate the removal of imaging, as “the technology is not mature enough.” I, for one, cannot support this viewpoint.
June 12, 2012 Pamela Dixon. Survey conducted by Roberta Rochman
article
Achieving meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs) as part of the mission to improve outcomes has become one of the top strategic missions of most health systems. The increasing importance of healthcare technology in the strategic landscape is changing the manner in which hospitals operate. It also has accelerated the demand for a clinical IT skill set and physician IT leadership. Physicians are stepping into the role, often referred to as the chief medical information officer (CMIO), and moving these initiatives ahead without the benefit of a playbook or roadmap. As the role grows in importance, we see it evolving.
June 3, 2012 Joe Marion
blog
Cardiology is much more complicated compared to radiology, as there are many more data types involved. In radiology, since images are the primary form of data, the Digital Imaging and Communications (DICOM) standard has been immensely successful in creating an interoperable environment. Unfortunately, in the case of cardiology, besides images, physicians interact with wave forms, pressure measurements and documentation as part of a procedure.
May 29, 2012 Mark Hagland
article
Joe Kuehn, a partner in KPMG Healthcare, a division of the New York-based KPMG, shares his perspectives on the results of a recent KPMG survey of hospital and health system executives regarding their progress in implementing clinical information systems and fulfilling the requirements of meaningful use.
May 24, 2012 David Raths
article
On May 15 the Office of the National Coordinator published a Request for Information (RFI) on governance of the nationwide health information network (NwHIN). At their May 24 meeting, Health IT Standards Committee members debated some of the fine points involved in setting up another accreditation and validation system to make trusted exchange of health data easier. If ONC’s basic framework is adopted, CIOs may have to add at least two new acronyms to their vocabulary: CTE (Conditions for Trusted Exchange) and NVE (NwHIN-Validated Entity).
May 23, 2012 Tom Waddell
article
A hospital-based outpatient network needed to significantly update its EHR system—and fast. Government incentives beckoned early adopters of EHRs that met meaningful-use requirements. The payout? About $45,000 per eligible provider who saw patients on Medicare, and $65,000 per doctor who accepted Medicaid patients. With more than 160 physicians across the outpatient network, that added up to a sizeable sum. With the clock ticking, the hospital’s administration set a firm six-month deadline to complete the electronic health record (EHR) revision.
May 20, 2012
blog
I was trained to think of coding as a downstream process to care that is of little clinical significance. But, as I learned during the course of the week; I was dead wrong. Rather than simply polishing the chart, those downstream processes are intended to strengthen it. And, with the rapid evolution of MU and value care, the focus on clinical documentation integrity is moving upstream, directly to the provider.
I also found that getting the diagnosis correct, whether for coding, clinical care, quality improvement, or value-based payment is straight-forward but not at all simple.
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