Takoma Hospital Implements Electronic Medical Records

Posted by AMS at 10 JAN 8:37 am

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. — We live in a world surrounded by technology, where we can access most everything from a computer or smartphone, but the medical field is still catching up.  One local hospital is leading the way in Tennessee by implementing electronic medical records.

“It’s just not feasible to keep it all on paper anymore,” said Congressman Dr. Phil Roe (R-TN).

That’s why Takoma Hospital says they are already ahead of the curve when it comes to implementing electronic medical records.

“Our organization began that journey in 2007 when we first implemented an electronic system for nursing notes and lab orders and x-ray results, and those kind of things,” said Takoma president and CEO Daniel Wolcott.

The federal government rewarded Takoma with a $1.3 million reimbursement check today, for a program that is helping cut costs, while improving efficiency and patient safety.

“Faster care for the patient, reduces the amount of time it takes to take care of patients, and enables us to be confident that we’re prescribing and giving the patient the right medications,” said Wolcott.  “We reduce medication errors by 80 to 85 percent when we implement this electronic records system.”

So with all the technology around today, why is it taking this long to implement electronic medical records everywhere?

Congressman Roe says it’s getting computer programmers to understand the medical side of things.

“They don’t know what to put in and what not to, so you end with a lot of superfluous information, and until we get that figured out about what you really need in a record, that’s what’s made it hard, because medicine is very, very complex,” said Roe.

Source: www2.tricities.com; David McAvoy; January 5, 2012

EMR Adoption Climbing and Expected to be Strong over the next Five Years

Posted by AMS at 3 JAN 7:55 am

The deadline for the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act has many scrambling to adopt EMR systems before that deadline in order to qualify for the funding.  Incentive funding via HITECH to hospitals and physicians to adopt Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) will stop in 2014.  A pot of $19 billion of incentives is currently acting as a strong driver to encourage EMR adoption.  But many believe that once the number of EMR systems rolled out spikes in adoption rates in 2013, without further incentives, the market is likely to stagnate after that.

A report by Frost and Sullivan on the EMR market notes that “Providers of hospital IT infrastructure are showing great urgency in rolling out solutions, especially due to the rudimentary levels of the current IT infrastructure, and given the short implementation deadlines (roughly 2011 to 2015) set by the government.”

But just because HITECH incentives will be phased out may not necessarily mean that the market will stagnate.  A report by Toronto-based Millennium Research Group (MRG) expects there to be strong growth in the area of EMR implementations past 2012 through 2016.  The group estimates that EMR software will grow annually at a rate faster than 12 percent.  By 2016, EMR market revenues are expected to top $8.3 billion.  MRG thinks that despite the loss of incentive funding, new rules by Medicare which mandates electronic records will continue to prop up demand for the systems.

SK&A, A Cegedim Company and a leading provider of healthcare information solutions and research, in a recent survey found that the EMR adoption rate already has exceeded 40 percent.  Adoptions rates were higher for physicians in large practices compared to those in smaller ones.  Sole-practitioner offices had reached a 30 percent adoption rate while 75 percent of offices with 26 or more physicians are now using EMRs.  Offices with only a single examination room had achieved 28 percent adoption, while offices with more than eleven examination rooms had a 64 percent adoption.  Similarly offices seeing just 50 patients on a daily basis had 36 percent adoption, while those offices seeing more than 100 patients per day have 66 percent adoption.

Source: www.formtek.com; By Dick Weisinger; December 30th, 2011

Stage 2 of Meaningful Use Moved to 2014

Posted by AMS at 27 DEC 10:49 am

The Department of Health and Human Services has moved the start date for Stage 2 of the electronic health records meaningful use program from 2013 to 2014.

The initial HHS announcement did not make clear which providers were eligible to wait until 2014. The department clarified its position to Health Data Management.

Federal officials this summer had voiced support for a proposal to delay Stage 2 one year to 2014 for providers who attest to Stage 1 in 2011. The rationale was that Stage 1 pioneers who attest in 2011 should not be penalized by tight timeframes next summer for getting ready for Stage 2. Now, that proposal is adopted, and since providers who begin Stage 1 attestation in 2012 could wait until 2014 to start Stage 2, now everyone will start Stage 2 in 2014. Pioneer providers in 2011, however, can get three years of Stage 1 incentive payments. Following is a statement from HHS explaining the decision:

“Input from the vendor community and the provider community makes clear that the current schedule for compliance with stage 2 meaningful use objectives in 2013 poses a nearly insurmountable timing challenge for those who attest to meaningful use in 2011. With the anticipated release of the final rule for stage 2 in June, 2012, the current timetable would require EHR vendors to design, develop, and release new functionality, and for eligible hospitals to upgrade, implement and begin using the new functionality by the beginning of the reporting year in October of 2012.

“In response to significant input on this matter from multiple stakeholders, expert testimony, and countless hours of review, analysis and deliberation, HHS publicly announced its intention to delay the start of Stage 2 of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs for a period of one year for those first attesting to meaningful use in 2011. We intend to propose such a delay in the Stage 2 meaningful use Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which is scheduled to be published in February 2012. Not only do we believe that this will give vendors added time to develop certified EHR technologies for Stage 2, we also believe this delay will give providers additional time to implement new software and meet the new challenges of Stage 2. We also intend to propose maintaining the current expectation for those first attesting to meaningful use in 2012, so that all providers attesting to meaningful use in 2011 or 2012 will begin Stage 2 in 2014.

“Perhaps most importantly, we want to provide an added incentive for providers attesting to meaningful use in 2011. We encourage any providers who have been waiting until 2012 to attest to Stage 1 meaningful use now. Under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, providers who attest early receive greater incentives. And now those providers who first attest in 2011 can get three payment years for meeting the Stage 1 expectations, while those first attesting in 2012 can only get two payment years under Stage 1 criteria.”

American Hospital Association President Rich Umbdenstock applauded the HHS decision:

“America’s hospitals welcome today’s announcement that HHS intends to delay the start of Stage 2 meaningful use. Hospitals are committed to implementing electronic health records to support high quality patient care, but the rushed timelines and complex regulatory requirements of meaningful use have made the process difficult.  While the flow of meaningful use incentives to date has been slow, the delay will better align EHR adoption policy with market realities, such as limited vendor capacity to work with providers.  Giving hospitals another year to implement these changes before the bar is raised on the meaningful use requirements is good news, especially for small, rural and safety net facilities.”

Source: www.healthdatamanagement.com; Joseph Goedert; November 30, 2011

Patients Want More Access to, Control of Medical Records

Posted by AMS at 20 DEC 7:58 am

December 19, 2011 — Patients are more enthusiastic about reading what their physicians are writing about them than physicians are about allowing patients to access their electronic health records, according to a study published in the December 20 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. In addition, American military veterans are highly enthusiastic about sharing their medical information with family members, caregivers, or physicians outside the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), according to a second study published in the same issue.

“We believe that the direction is clear: Technology is a powerful tool that can improve transparency in health care,” Thomas W. Feeley, MD, from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, and Kenneth I. Shine, MD, from the University of Texas System, Austin, write in an accompanying editorial. “Electronic health records should be used to engage patients, their caregivers, and others in the health care delivery system.”

In the first study, researchers led by Jan Walker, RN, MBA, from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, surveyed patients and primary care physicians in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington. The 3 study populations included patients of BIDMC and associated clinics in the Boston area; patients of the mostly rural Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania; and adult patients and patients with HIV from the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. There were 114 participating primary care physicians, and 37,856 patients completed surveys.

The researchers surveyed physicians and patients before their joining a voluntary program that allowed patients access to physicians’ electronic notes. The researchers asked physicians and patients about their views on patient access to personal health records that included physicians’ notes about visits, which patients accessed through a Web portal. The records also contained such information as prescribed medicine lists, appointment schedules, and secure messages.

“The enthusiasm of patients exceeded our expectations; most of them were overwhelmingly positive about the prospect of reading visit notes, regardless of demographic or health characteristics,” Ms. Walker and colleagues write. Although they observed “striking differences” between physician and patient attitudes, the physicians who participated in the study “were more optimistic” that access would improve benefits than the researchers expected. Physicians who declined to participate in the voluntary electronic records program cited possible adverse effects such as patient confusion, which could lead to longer visits.

In the second study, researchers led by Donna M. Zulman, MD, from the Center for Health Care Evaluation, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Menlo Park, California, surveyed 18,471 patients who use the VHA’s “MyHealtheVet” Web portal to access information such as laboratory test results and provider notes. Using MyHealtheVet, patients can create their own personal health record and track self-entered health information and medications, and they also can communicate with their physicians through the portal. To track the system’s effectiveness, the VHA uses the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey. The researchers added custom questions to that survey from July 7 through October 4, 2010.

Almost 80% of the survey respondents would share their health information with designated individuals outside of the VHA, including relatives, caregivers, and other physicians. The most interest was in medication lists, laboratory test results, and appointment information, and many would name a person who could authorize refilling of prescriptions.

“Privacy concerns and compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 seemed to surface in all such discussions,” the editorial authors write. “However, patients have the right to view their own medical record and should be allowed to control who sees it.”

Source: www.medscape.com; Larry Hand; December 19, 2011

Another Client Joins the AMS Community

Posted by AMS at 16 DEC 8:00 am

American Medical Software is pleased to announce the addition of Audubon Pediatrics from Houma, LA to the AMS client community.

Audubon Pediatrics was extremely thorough in their search for medical software. After gathering information on several electronic medical records systems on the market, they decided to contact AMS and schedule an online, personal web demonstration. Multiple providers and staff sat through the demonstration watching our trained professional demonstrate the software from patient check-in to check-out. The providers at Audubon felt that the AMS software was very user friendly with quick access to each area of the system. They were also excited about the possibilities with the customizable macros and templates for the encounter notes. In the end, Audubon Pediatrics knew that AMS was the most affordable software on the market and would fit all of their practice’s needs.

Welcome to Audubon Pediatrics from all of the staff at American Medical Software.