Another Client Joins the AMS Community

Posted by AMS at 6 APR 8:00 am

American Medical Software is pleased to announce the addition of Nittor Jayaram, MD from Tinley Park, IL to the AMS client community.

Dr. Jayaram contacted AMS and sat through one of our personalized web demonstrations of the entire AMS system with a sales representative. He found the customization of the system and encounter notes in the electronic medical records system would be quite beneficial to his practice. He was also impressed with the ability to populate an encounter note with a patient’s supplemental information without the need to reenter the information. In the end, Dr. Jayaram decided AMS was the best choice for his practice’s medical software needs.

Welcome Dr. Nittor Jayaram from all of the staff at American Medical Software.

HHS Announces Intent to Delay ICD-10 Compliance Date

Posted by AMS at 28 FEB 8:07 am

February 16, 2012: As part of President Obama’s commitment to reducing regulatory burden, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen G. Sebelius today announced that HHS will initiate a process to postpone the date by which certain health care entities have to comply with International Classification of Diseases, 10^th Edition diagnosis and procedure codes (ICD-10).

The final rule adopting ICD-10 as a standard was published in January 2009 and set a compliance date of October 1, 2013 – a delay of two years from the compliance date initially specified in the 2008 proposed rule.  HHS will announce a new compliance date moving forward.

“ICD-10 codes are important to many positive improvements in our health care system,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  “We have heard from many in the provider community who have concerns about the administrative burdens they face in the years ahead.  We are committing to work with the provider community to reexamine the pace at which HHS and the nation implement these important improvements to our health care system.”

ICD-10 codes provide more robust and specific data that will help improve patient care and enable the exchange of our health care data with that of the rest of the world that has long been using ICD-10.  Entities covered under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) will be required to use the ICD-10 diagnostic and procedure codes.

Source: www.hhs.gov; February 16, 2012

Electronic Health Record Use In US Hospitals Has Doubled In Last Two Years

Posted by AMS at 21 FEB 8:10 am

The percentage of US hospitals using health information technology such as Electronic Health Records has more than doubled in the last two years, according to an announcement by the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as she visited a Health Science Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, on Friday.

Sebelius made the announcement during a speech. She was in Kansas to discuss the growth of professional jobs in the field of health IT.

Sebelius said there has been major progress in use of health information technology (health IT) by doctors and hospitals, and that new data shows nearly 2,000 hospitals and more than 41,000 doctors have now received over $3 billion in incentive payments to use health IT in a meaningful way, particularly Electronic Health Records (EHRs).

“Health IT is the foundation for a truly 21st century health system where we pay for the right care, not just more care,” said Sebelius.

“Health care professionals and hospitals are taking advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to begin using smarter, new technology that improves care and creates the jobs we need for an economy built to last,” she added.

Sebelius quoted figures from a new survey by the American Hospital Association and reported by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. This found that the proportion of US hospitals that now use EHRs went up from 16% in 2009 to 35% in 2011.

Plus, 85% of hospitals say they intend to take up the incentive payments by 2015. These are available through Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs.

New figures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) show that physicians, hospitals, and other health care providers have received $3.12 billion in incentive payments to use EHRs to improve quality of patient care.

In just one month, in January, CMS handed out $519 million to eligible providers. Incentive payments to encourage use of EHRs in meaningful ways can be up to $44,000 under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program and up to $63,750 under the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program.

This trend parallels an anticipated fast growth in the labour market for health IT jobs throughout the US.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, such jobs are expected to rise by 20% between 2008 and 2018, much faster than the average across all occupations in the same period.

The Obama Administration has launched four training programs to grow the workforce with the skills and qualifications required to meet the demands that will be made by the health IT sector.

Training will be offered through 82 communitiy colleges and 9 universities across the country.

So far, up to January 2012, community colleges have trained over 9,000 students for health IT jobs, and over 8,700 have enrolled.

And up to February 2012, over 1,200 students have enrolled at participating universities, where nearly 600 post-graduate and masters-level IT professionals have graduated. The total number of graduates is expected to grow to 1,700 and more by the summer of 2013.

Other workforce training programs are also having an effect: for instance the health IT workforce curriculum, which offers colleges and universities health IT teaching materials at no cost to instructors. Another is the HIT Pro Exam, which has been taken by over 2,000 people since its launch in May 2011. Passing the exam shows employers that the successful candidate has the knowledge and skills required to work in health IT.

Health IT is an umbrella terms for the computerized, secure, management and sharing of health information among various users, including patients, doctors, hospitals, government, insurers, and quality inspectors.

There is great hope that it will improve the quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare delivery. For example, a consistent use of such technology across the board is expected to reduce medical errors, health care costs, and paperwork.

It is also expected not only to benefit individuals by improving patient care and increase access to affordable healthcare, but also to benefit public health and society at large, for instance by helping to detect disease outbreaks earlier, improve surveillance, and allow value and quality comparisons across systems of provision.

However, there are those who warn adopters not to get carried away by the hype that suggests the benefits of health IT will be quick and automatic.

Take for example the benefits expected to accrue from widespread data sharing. Peter Gabriel, director of informatics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine’s Department of Radiation Oncology, was quoted recently in a special Computerworld report on Healthcare IT.

Gabriel said it could be 10 or 15 years before data sharing in health IT is widespread, because it’s “a lot harder to achieve than most people appreciate”.

“Simply implementing computer systems won’t dramatically improve quality overnight,” said Gabriel.

“Very careful system design and configuration, along with a lot of thoughtful human process improvement, are necessary in order to make the technology truly helpful,” he warned.

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com; Catharine Paddock PhD; February 20, 2012

“Meaningful Use” Rules Driving Healthcare Sales of Handheld Devices

Posted by AMS at 14 FEB 8:22 am

NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – Feb 13, 2012) – The total market for handheld devices in healthcare reached $11 billion globally in 2011, reflecting over 10% growth since 2007, according to Kalorama Information. There are a number of factors fueling growth, but the healthcare market research publisher sees the fastest growth in administrative devices — the kind of devices used by healthcare providers to enter patient data — as a sign that ‘meaningful use’ requirements for EMR systems are having an effect on this market.

The EMR incentive program, created by Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2009 to boost paperless medicine, was specifically designed not to reward mere purchases of software. To qualify for federal government incentives, hospital and physician groups are required to show that they have entered patient visits and transactions electronically.

“To qualify you have to show that your healthcare providers are actually using the EMR — entering patient data and ordering prescriptions electronically,” Kalorama Information publisher Bruce Carlson said. “We think that realistically it means handheld devices. Meaningful use of EMR means meaningful use of handhelds, as the patient-centered nature of healthcare work doesn’t permit a lot of desk time.”

Kalorama Information divides the market for handheld devices between patient monitoring and administrative use. Patient monitoring devices such as ultrasound and ECG systems have historically accounted for the largest share of sales in the handheld market, largely due to the range of product availability. However, this is changing with the growing applications and capabilities of tablet PCs, and the need to enter patient data electronically. Administrative device usage has exploded over the last five years with the growing use of PDAs, smartphones, and tablet PCs taking hold in the healthcare industry. Tablet PCs are being used for a variety of uses in the health field, including access to patient records at the point of care, improved viewing capabilities for medical images, and easy offsite patient monitoring.

EMR is not the only driver of handheld devices in healthcare. Several factors are driving the growth of this market, including cost restraints, medical error reduction measures, government incentives, expanding capabilities of devices, off-site medical care and more, according to Kalorama Information.

“The use of handheld devices in healthcare was growing before the first EMR payments were wired,” said Carlson. “Better patient outcomes and the ability of providers to always have a patient record in front of them; these factors have driven purchases even more.”

Source: www.marketwire.com; Kalorama Information; February 13, 2012

ICD-10 Conversion: Do Or Die

Posted by AMS at 7 FEB 9:46 am

Failure to meet upcoming deadlines could mean major disruptions in claims payments for healthcare organizations.

While most providers are busy deploying financial, technology, and people resources to meet the Meaningful Use program requirements in the hope of obtaining large government bonuses, these payments–between $44,000 and $63,000 per eligible professional–are a drop in the bucket compared to the revenue your organization could lose if you miss the ICD-10 conversion deadlines. To put it bluntly, ignoring the Oct. 1, 2013 deadline could mean zero payments coming in for patient care

The transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 involves expanding medical diagnosis codes from the current 14,000 to more than 67,000, and procedure codes from 13,000 to 85,000. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hopes the move will help the industry identify more billing fraud, allow more thorough quality reporting by healthcare providers, and enable refinements in reimbursement models through more detailed diagnostic and procedure data. HHS also expects the conversion will improve patient care and outcomes through new insights that may be uncovered in analysis of the more detailed clinical data.

But the road to ICD-10 will be a rocky one. The conversion “has an impact similar to Y2K several years back. It was a cumbersome process,” said Pradep Nair, senior VP of healthcare for IT services firm HCL in an interview with InformationWeek Healthcare. On a more positive note, as busy as healthcare organizations are with other mandates, these projects are “making some CIOs step back and reevaluate the IT landscape, helping them clean up their systems,” Nair said.

This kind of IT housecleaning includes not only consolidating software platforms that have multiple systems for billing, administrative, and patient care activities, but also improving processes as the new mandates for Meaningful Use are being worked on from a technology perspective.

Still, from the provider’s perspective, much of the work needed to reach ICD-10 compliance is people- and process-oriented, rather than technology-heavy, according to Beth Mahan, principal at Booz Allen Hamilton’s healthcare division.

Indeed, payers–not providers–face the biggest ICD-10 burdens, said Nair. That’s because most providers are relying on practice management, billing, and other software vendors to do much of the code conversion work. “The onus is on the vendors,” Nair said. Nevertheless, if a provider uses an onsite practice management system, for instance, versus a cloud-based software offering–where upgrades are more or less automatic–the provider will have to get their own IT staff or outside help to deploy updated software that’s compliant with the ICD-10 code set.

Mahan agrees that providers who use third-party software for practice management, billing, and other processes can often rely on their vendors to take care of many technical aspects of software conversion. But provider organizations still need to focus on processes and people during ICD-10 conversion. “We don’t want technology waving the dog’s tail,” she said.

“This is a good opportunity to improve processes and practices, like documentation,” said Mahan. Accurate and thorough documentation by clinicians is critical not only to help smooth the transition to ICD-10 and related billing issues, but also to tap the care improvement and data analysis potential that the new, more elaborate coding presents.

“Better documentation and diagnosis and treatment coding can help with reminders and other triggers” for best care practices, said Mahan. For instance, documenting certain glucose levels could trigger recommendations for certain treatments or testing. “These codes go into specifics. If we can get specific information about diagnoses and care of diabetic patients, it can give us an idea of what the disease looks like nationally and internationally,” she said. Eventually, the richer data about diagnoses and procedures might help shed light on the type of care that will improve outcomes for subsets of patients.

Source: www.informationweek.com; Marianne Kolbasuk McGee; February 6, 2012