Edition Forty-Three (4/27/10)

HHS Advisory Panel Considers Patient Consent Framework
Federal Computer Week, 4/23/10
An advisory group to HHS began considering a draft Basic Patient Privacy Consent technical framework which describes how health organizations should incorporate patients' consents and consent policies into their enterprises.

ACP: Quality Measures Key to Meaningful Use
Healthcare IT News, 4/23/10
Increasing the use of quality measurement as part of EHRs is critical to achieving Meaningful Use, the American College of Physicians reported. They assert using EHRs as the basis for quality measurement systems would allow for a more complete reflection of care processes and patient outcomes.

Leaders Discuss Future of Health I.T.
Modern Healthcare, subscription required 4/23/10
A discussion at the HIT Policy Committee meeting focused on a pair of touchstone topics in health care: consumer choice and its corollary, making the health care system more patient-centered. And yet, the health care leaders assembled—whose role is to advise the federal government on how to best build the interoperable health care I.T. system of the future—still aren't ready to recommend patients be put in full control over the flow of their own health care information.

I.T. Policy Group Proposes Patient Safety Monitor
Modern Healthcare, subscription required 4/22/10
The HIT Policy Committee has called for the creation of a national monitoring program for patient safety problems stemming from the use of a broad range of health care I.T. systems. The committee proposed to create a national transparent oversight process and information system, similar to a patient safety organization, which could receive reports from various sources about patient safety issues linked to the use of health care I.T. systems.

Hash Out HIE Issues in One Day
Health Data Management, 4/21/10
Industry consortium eHealth Initiative will host a forum on HIE issues on July 22 in Washington. Registration is free for members of developing or operational regional or state HIEs.

Top 10 Stage 1 Challenges for Eligible Professionals
Healthcare IT News, 4/21/10
A new report names the top ten challenges eligible professional practices must address to meet Stage 1 Meaningful Use criteria, saying the major impacts Meaningful Use is having are incentives and the ongoing commitment required from practices over the next five years to continue to meet all stages.

Patient Access to e-Record Urgent, HHS Panel Told
Government Health IT, 4/21/10
The HIT Policy Committee is exploring various ways, such as incentives and technologies, to engage patients and their families in the use of health I.T. ONC plans a communications campaign to inform the public about the value of EHRs, including patient access to data. As part of their technical assistance to help providers meet Meaningful Use requirements, regional health I.T. extension centers will also help health care providers understand the details of sharing data with their patients.

How to Succeed at Electronic Medical Records
InformationWeek, 4/20/10
Implementing EMR systems often requires changes to a health care provider's management culture, according to a recent survey of hospitals far along in their EMR efforts. Other best practices cited in the report include effective communication, hands-on I.T. training, and flexibility in financing costs associated with digitizing medical records.

Achieving CPOE by 2011 (or at Least by 2012)
H&HN, 4/20/10
The HITECH timeframe for demonstrating Meaningful Use is very tight, especially in the approximately 86 percent of hospitals in which CPOE is not yet in use. Reaching Stage 1 requires 10 percent of orders for hospitalized patients be entered directly by the authorizing providers. Hospitals need to implement the next increments of Meaningful Use of the inpatient EMR in Stages 2 and 3 in order to avoid the financial penalties which kick in 2016.

Winners and Losers Under the NHIN Direct Project
Federal Computer Week, 4/20/10
Although the HHS' new “NHIN Direct” project might kill a possible revenue stream for some state HIEs, those exchanges should be able to make up the revenue in other ways.

I.T. Leaders Applaud Choice of Berwick to Head CMS
Healthcare IT News, 4/20/10
Health care I.T. leaders are hailing Obama's nomination of Donald Berwick, MD, to lead CMS as a signal of the administration's commitment to quality.

More Doctors Are Prescribing Medicines On-line
Wall Street Journal, 4/20/10
About 25% of all office-based doctors currently have the technology to e-Prescribe, more than twice as many as at the end of 2008. Industry officials expect the growth in e-Prescribing to continue, helped in part by a regulatory ruling which will soon allow doctors to start prescribing controlled medications such as narcotics and anti-depressants electronically.

EHRs Can Improve Patient Care through Electronic Documentation
HealthLeaders, 4/19/10
EHR documentation can be dictated by billing rules and legal requirements, or by the need to describe patients and provide quality care, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Bill Gives EHR Incentives to Mental Health Practices
Government Health IT, 4/19/10
Newly introduced legislation would make behavioral and mental health professionals eligible to receive incentive payments for the Meaningful Use of EHRs.

Doc Pay Cut Delay Reverses Stimulus Law Perception
Modern Healthcare, subscription required, 4/19/10
New legislation reverses an interpretation of the stimulus law which made many hospital-based physicians ineligible for federal EHR subsidy payments. The new law attempts to clarify that Congress wants physicians who work in hospital and outpatient settings to be eligible for federal subsidies to computerize their offices.

HHS Awards $10 Million to Spur Outreach, Enrollment
Modern Healthcare, subscription required, 4/18/10
HHS awarded grants totaling $10 million to 41 health programs operated by the Indian Health Service and various tribal organizations to help enroll children in public health programs.

EHRs: Help or Hindrance in Physician Communication Efforts?
AAFP, 4/16/10
Results of a study conducted by the Center for Studying Health System Change indicate EHRs can hamper communication efforts in the health care setting. Study findings suggest EHR vendors and the practices which use EHRs need to do more to reduce the potential for distraction during patient visits. For vendors, this means incorporating product design changes, while physicians might consider additional staff training.

Technology Fears, Privacy Breaches Remain Barriers for EHR Use
HealthLeaders, 4/16/10
Even as health care providers and the federal government shell out billions to install HIT systems, many Americans have no idea what they are or how such computerization can benefit their care, according to a survey by Lake Research Partners for the California Healthcare Foundation.

Experienced CIOs, Share Your EMR Knowledge
InformationWeek, 4/16/10
Meeting the HITECH legislation's Stage 1 requirements for the Meaningful Use of EHRs is going to be tough on all health care providers, but there's no doubt it will be harder for some than others. Perhaps it's time for industry groups like CHIME and HIMSS to launch an "Adopt A Hospital" program. Experienced CIOs with clinical system implementation bona fides would volunteer to mentor I.T. directors at smaller facilities.

I.T. Extension Centers Will Help Primary Care, ONC Says
Modern Healthcare, subscription required 4/9/10
HHS' $267 million in funding for regional extension centers, or RECs, will mean an easier road to Meaningful Use for primary-care providers.

Long-Awaited DEA Rule on Controlled Substances Could Boost e-Rx Rates
iHealthBeat, 4/8/10
The DEA took a major step in alleviating what many see as a significant barrier to e-Prescribing adoption with its long-awaited Interim Final Rule which would allow the electronic prescribing of controlled substances.

CHIME: Time is Top Certification Concern
HealthSystemCIO, 4/8/10
CHIME is concerned the introduction of a two-stage approach for certification will prolong the current instability in the health I.T. marketplace, according to the organization in its comment letter to ONC.

Friedman Sees Big Potential in SHARP Research
Modern Healthcare, subscription required 4/8/10
In just a couple of years, ONC will be looking for tangible results from the $60 million investment in the Strategic Health I.T. Advanced Research Projects. Charles Friedman, chief scientific officer at the ONC, believes the coalitions which are being formed through SHARP will yield these benefits beyond even the work being funded. The SHARP grant funds will go to four lead recipients whose work will address four different research objectives targeting key challenges.

AHRQ Awards $40M to Set Up HIT Research Center
Government Health IT, 4/8/10
AHRQ awarded almost $40 million in contracts to help equip and stand up the Health I.T. Research Center, a national organization designed to support the recently funded health I.T. regional extension centers.

Advisors Comment on Certification Rule
Health Data Management, 4/7/10
The HIT Policy Committee has sent two letters with a series of recommendations on the proposed rule to establish temporary and permanent programs to test and certify EHRs. One of their concerns include a label that indicates which specific Meaningful Use stage the EHR product is certified as supporting.

Carefully Examine EHR Implementation: Study
Modern Healthcare, subscription required, 4/7/10 
While the use of EHRs has been shown to improve quality of care and patient safety, the reality for most adopters has not been nearly as promising, according to a study. Researchers determined EHR adoption, in most cases, did not lead to statistically significant changes in commonly used measures of quality and efficiency.

Current EHRs Have Limited Quality, Efficiency Effect: Study
Modern Healthcare, subscription required 4/6/10
In spite of the ever-increasing push to implement EHRs, the link between EHR adoption and subsequent improvements in quality of care and efficiency is weak, according to a study. In addition, EHR adoption did not significantly reduce length of patient stay, readmission rates, or total inpatient costs. The availability of CPOE systems for medication ordering and clinical decision support did, however, lead to marginally better outcomes.

HIT Panel Wants Certification Labeling for EHRs
Government Health IT, 4/6/10
The federal Health I.T. Policy Committee recommended health I.T. vendors use labels to clarify their products are certified to satisfy first-stage requirements for Meaningful Use in order to ward off potential confusion.

ONC Goes to Work on a 'Lighter' Network
Modern Healthcare, subscription required 4/6/10
NHIN Direct is a lighter-weight version of the proposed national health information network, which has been the focus of a six-year federal effort to promote a “network of networks” to facilitate interoperability between EHRs.

FCC Wireless Plan Would Be Good for I.T.: Experts
Modern Healthcare, subscription required 4/5/10
An ambitious 10-year plan by the FCC to beef up the nation's broadband infrastructure and extend reliable, affordable wireless service into underserved communities could provide a huge boost to health care I.T. efforts.

Health I.T. Education Gets $144 Million
Health Data Management, 4/5/10
Multiple community colleges and four-year universities have received a total of $144 million in stimulus funding to support programs aimed at achieving widespread adoption and Meaningful Use of HIT.

Senate Dems: Make Meaningful Use Flexible
Health Data Management, 4/5/10
Thirty-seven Democratic members of the U.S. Senate have sent a letter to Kathleen Sebelius asking HHS to move from its "all or nothing" approach and give some flexibility to meeting Meaningful Use criteria. They also suggest changes to the definition of "hospital-based physician" to enable more to qualify for incentive payments. Further, they urge HHS to fix unintended consequences of using Medicare provider numbers to identify hospitals receiving incentive payments. 

Survey: Mixed Bag on Security Readiness
Health Data Management, 4/5/10
An updated biannual report from HIMSS shows health organizations take data security compliance seriously but may be missing the big picture. On one hand, health care organizations are demonstrating increased awareness of the state of patient data security as a result of heightened regulatory activity and increased compliance. On the other, organizations are so afraid of being labeled "noncompliant," they overlook the bigger elephant in the room, the still-present risk and escalating costs associated with a data breach.

Med Records: Ditching Paper, Federal Money to Aid Transition
Amarillo.com, 4/25/10
Four Texas organizations, three of them public medical schools, will receive $35.7 million from the federal government to screen and select EMR vendors for doctors seeking federal stimulus money to reimburse them for costs.

Program Will Help Doctors Use Electronic Records
Wisconsin State Journal, 4/23/10
The Wisconsin Health Information Technology Extension Center (WHITEC) is being funded by a four-year, $9.1 million grant from ARRA.

Grant to Help Doctors Adopt EHRs
Charleston Regional Business Journal, 4/23/10
Health Sciences South Carolina has been awarded a $5.6 million grant by ONC to help prepare primary care physicians to implement EHR systems. 

Health-e Connection Helping Docs Go Paperless
Phoenix Business Journal, 4/22/10
Arizona Health-e Connection is getting $10.8 million in stimulus funding to help primary-care doctors, small hospitals, and community health centers set up EHRs.

Multi-campus Hospitals Plead for More I.T. Subsidies
Modern Healthcare, subscription required 4/21/10
David Blumenthal met with New York hospital executives who pressed for changes to proposed Meaningful Use rules because hospitals with more than one campus are unfairly penalized.

Pennsylvania Changes HIE Strategy with ARRA Funds
Healthcare IT News, 4/16/10
The Pennsylvania Governor's Office of Health Care Reform released a request for proposal for an I.T. vendor to build its statewide HIE, and expects to make a selection in the fall.

State HIEs Weigh in on Meaningful Use Rule
Health Data Management, 4/8/10
A coalition of 13 state HIE initiatives is calling on federal officials to deem eligible providers as meeting HIE Meaningful Use criteria if they have a participation agreement in place with a qualified HIE network.

Rocky Hill Nonprofit Gets $5.7 Million to Become Electronic Medical Records Hub
Hartford Courant, 4/7/10
Nonprofit eHealth Connecticut, operating as Connecticut's go-to place for patients' EHRs, was awarded $5.7 million in federal grant money to establish an electronic medical records center.

Governor Signs Bill Requiring Insurance Companies to Cover Long-Distance Doctor Visits
Bristol Herald Courier, 4/5/10
Standing behind a podium at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, Gov. Bob McDonnell talked about the value of telemedicine before signing a bill into law which requires private insurance companies to cover its use.

Doc Calls EHR Copy and Paste Function a "Modern Medical Illness"
Healthcare IT News, 4/23/10
The copy and paste function of an EHR is "one of the most egregious dangers of electronic charting," according to a recent editorial in the American Journal of Medicine. Some of the problems with copying information from a prior note and pasting it into a new one, are it reduces the credibility of the recorded findings, clouds clinical thinking, limits proper coding, and robs the chart of its narrative flow and function.

Brandeis to Offer Master's Degree in Medical Informatics
Healthcare IT News, 4/22/10
Brandeis University will offer a new on-line master's degree in health and medical informatics—part of its effort to help create the 50,000 new I.T. jobs necessary to usher the health care system into the digital age.

CHCF: Smartphone Growth Heralds New Phase of Health I.T. Adoption
Fierce Mobile Healthcare, 4/20/10
Two-thirds of physicians were using smartphones in 2009, despite only 6 percent using fully functional EMR systems.

Archives