Electronic Medical Records Use Over Majority

Posted by AMS at 14 DEC 7:09 am

Government survey finds that a slim majority of physicians are now using electronic health records or electronic medical records systems.

The Landscape of Pharma Information & EMR

Posted by AMS at 15 NOV 8:01 am

The Changing Landscape of Pharmaceutical Information & EMR – Changes in the next 10 years.

While recently attending a biotechnology forum, I found myself considering the pharmaceutical landscape and some of the ways it may be changing. The event was Boston’s War on Cancer, organized by Xconomy, during which a number of corporate presentations and discussion sections examined the state and direction of research into effective cancer therapeutics. The pharmaceutical industry is a regulated one, as it should be in my opinion, but the framework imposed by the regulatory process can often make innovative business models and development paradigms difficult to explore.

In the development of cancer therapeutics, companion diagnostic tests that assist in directing preferred treatments are taking on an ever more important role. Even here, regulatory uncertainty has likely hindered development. These tests are often developed by agents outside the pharmaceutical company, though they are often synergistically partnered. In 2004, the FDA identified companion diagnostics as an area of interest as part of its Critical Path Initiative. It followed up in 2005 by offering a concept paper for industry discussion, but actual draft guidance is still not expected until the end of this year at the earliest. I don’t envy the agency and its difficult responsibility of both insuring scientific vigor and maintaining a level of flexibility.

Entering the 21st century
Social media is another arena in which the pharmaceutical companies have been hesitant to venture due to unclear regulatory guidance. Concerns over how pharmaceutical products may be marketed over such venues concerns the FDA, which has yet to issue guidance despite the demand.

Unwilling to wait, pharmaceutical firm Roche has issued its own set of guidelines on how it plans on using the new media. Outside the pharmaceutical companies, there is no restriction. During a socializing break at the Xconomy forum, I learned of Sermo, a social group established and restricted to practicing physicians. Here, doctors can confer with their peers on patient specific topics and treatment options. Social support groups for patients are available and only passively supported by pharmaceutical firms.

What seems to be occurring is a change in the direction of information flow. Companies in the past have had a degree of control over how information on their drug products was distributed, largely through their sales force armies. Now these firms are being forced to become observers as information related to their products, often anecdotal, is distributed and discussed by outside agents that they don’t control.

The advent of widespread electronic medical records is going to accelerate the flow reversal of drug information. A recent study serves as a key example here. In late 2009, the label for the Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) and Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: SNY) drug Plavix (clopidogrel) was changed based on concerns that co-use of proton pump inhibitors could affect drug metabolism and efficacy. The study was based on claims data gathered by insurance companies Aetna (NYSE: AET) and Medco Health (NYSE: MHS).

Claims records may be mined, but the process will be far easier once the systems are fully electronic. In 10 years, a good deal of the medical literature may be published by insurers and based on data mining of real patient records. The result will be some real-world comparisons to drug efficacies seen in more controlled clinical settings. The result may indicate efficacy in treating conditions (off-label use), better information on how pharmaceuticals help save over more expensive forms of care (such as repeat hospitalization), but there will also likely be an increase observance of low-level adverse events, resulting in more situations of post market withdrawals, perhaps analogous to what happened to Merck’s (NYSE: MRK) Vioxx (rofecoxib).

As an investor, I want to consider what these possible changes in information sources may mean to industry players. I think it will continue to make pharmaceutical development and marketing a challenge, and perhaps continue to keep pharmaceutical firms relatively cheap in comparison to their historical norms. The loss of control over the pharmaceutical data will make drug marketing more difficult, though I am not sure it will make it more clear to consumers, who are increasingly involved in the decision process themselves.

I’m still content to own a few pharmaceutical firms, because of their enticing valuations and generally good dividend yields, but I prefer the more diversified companies. I also believe that insurers should find themselves gaining a valuable new asset that can be used for the more effective delivery of care services. I’m inclined to be bullish on insurers, but also inclined to continue to wait until there is more visibility resulting from the health-care reform legislation.

New Electronic Medical Records Software Could Improve Your Health

Posted by AMS at 14 OCT 8:03 am

Here is a simple read on how electronic medical software works in real life.

For most of my career as a family doctor, I kept track of my patients’ health histories by scribbling hand-written notes in a paper chart. For a healthy child, I’d include dates when vaccines were given; for an adult with, say, diabetes, I’d make sure to jot down a recommended schedule of blood and urine tests as well as foot and eye exams. A majority of primary care physicians, in fact, still use this kind of tracking system—despite research suggesting that these handwritten flowsheets aren’t just inefficient, but extremely vulnerable to errors. Some say the solution lies in simply switching to electronic medical records.

[6 Ways Electronic Medical Records Could Make Your Life Safer and Easier]

After all, paper charts don’t automatically update themselves when, say, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention makes a new vaccine recommendation. An electronic medical record system can do that and can also allow test results to be emailed or transferred automatically into a patient’s chart; paper charts rely on office administrators to input them by hand, which can lead to mistakes. I, myself, have occasionally forgotten to record that a vaccine was administered during the chaos of a busy work day. Nor did I have any systematic way of knowing how many of my patients were actually receiving the preventive and chronic care they needed.

[How to Create Your Own Personal Health Record]

But the latest research suggests that electronic health records don’t necessarily improve care unless they include interactive features: They should make it easier for doctors to implement proven guidelines for good care, providing the necessary shots and screenings, follow-up exams and treatments to help patients live longer with chronic diseases or to prevent these diseases altogether. Ideally, these records should include a software tool that periodically culls through patients’ records looking for gaps in care such as who is overdue for a cholesterol screening or flu vaccine. The system would then send out reminders to patients to come in for a test or appointment.

[Electronic Medical Records: Will Your Privacy Be Safe?

Kaiser Permanente added such a tool to their electronic medical record system several years ago and found that it works to improve care. A study published last month in the American Journal of Managed Care found that the support tool brought more diabetes and heart disease patients in for health screenings, vaccinations and medication adjustments. After three years, for patients with diabetes, the percentage of care recommendations met every month increased from 68 percent to 73 percent; for heart disease patients, the percentage rose from 64 percent to 71 percent. Another study found that tool helped more healthy patients get the recommended screening and exams for preventive care. Bottom line: This support tool lowers the rate of skipped appointments and gaps in care.

This is great news if you use Kaiser Permanente for medical care, but what if you don’t? Well, you can probably expect to see some significant changes at your doctor’s office over the next three to five years. Physicians who take advantage of government financial incentives to set up electronic medical record systems must prove they’re making “meaningful use” of the data from the health records, meaning that they’ve improved patient care as a result. But now is a good time to ask your doctor about how your records will be handled in the future. Will a fail-safe system be implemented to ensure that you don’t miss crucial office visits or screenings? If you see more than one doctor on a regular basis, find out if your primary care clinician—the one responsible for coordinating all of your care—uses a system that’s compatible with the systems your specialists use. This will make it far easier to transfer test results and updates to prescriptions back and forth between various offices. Otherwise, the responsibility for keeping your medical chart up to date will fall on your shoulders. If you’re not satisfied that your doctor is staying abreast of all these technological changes, you might want to consider switching to another practice.

By KENNY LIN
Posted: October 13, 2010

This story can be found:

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/healthcare-headaches/2010/10/13/new-electronic-medical-records-software-could-improve-your-health.html

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How EMR Records Can Be Helpful

Posted by AMS at 24 AUG 6:38 am

Electronic Medical Records (EMR for short) can improve your healthcare facility in a variety of ways. Anything that your organization can do to provide better healthcare to patients is essential, and with EMR you can provide more efficient healthcare, as well as reduce errors and increase the effectiveness of doctor collaboration efforts.

Of the many scientific and technological advances in the medical industry, many of them have improved healthcare, and many have not. EMR can really improve your healthcare facility in a variety of ways, because it makes life easier for physicians, nurses, and staff members, while at the same time providing better healthcare for patients.

One of the crucial ways that EMR are helping healthcare organizations is efficiency. Often times office managers, assistants, nurses, and even doctors can spend countless hours sifting through traditional print and paper medical records looking for a particular file on a patient. No matter how organized a healthcare facility is, this problem occurs from time to time. EMR can help eliminate this problem, as having records easily accessible in electronic format improves organization as well as efficiency. This allows doctors to provide better healthcare, in a more organized manner.

Another benefit of EMR is error reduction. Errors are all too common on patient medical files, and the vast majority of the time these errors can be attributed to someone mis-transcribing information. EMR take a significant aspect of the “human error” out of the picture, which enables healthcare organizations to provide more accurate patients records. This can lead to better care for patients, as well as lessen the potential for medical malpractice lawsuits.

A third benefit of EMR is how they easily enable collaboration between doctors. The typical patient no longer has just one family doctor, but often times will see a variety of specialists for a variety of medical conditions. With EMR different doctors can easily see patient records without having to worry about the time-consuming process of locating physical files on this patient.

These are 3 benefits of using quality EMR software, and if your healthcare organization is not using EMR then I urge you to check out the possibilities that EMR can bring to your organization.

17.08.2010 | Author: JamieHanson | Posted in Business

EHR Meaningful Use Guidelines Clarified

Posted by AMS at 3 AUG 9:06 am

As VARs and health care companies look for answers, there’s no shortage of consternation over the real meaning of “meaningful use.” Now, an updated version of the definition has been released, providing a more detailed, simpler map for providers to follow.

Stage One of “Meaningful Use” Electronic Health Records (EHR) guidelines finally arrived from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and VARs wanting to snag a piece of the exploding EHR market need to understand it all inside and out.  Big players, such as HP and Sage, and distributors, such as Tech Data and Avnet, are making no bones about their desire to play a large role in the nationwide EHR move that will occur over the next few years, and they are providing channel partners and customers with educational and sales tools to make their solutions even more palatable to the marketplace.

For those new to the complex world of EHR, here is a quick recap: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed last year included monetary incentives for doctors and hospitals that completed the move to EHRs. These monetary incentives come in the form of larger payouts from Medicare and Medicaid, and total more than $25 billion. In order to begin receiving the first incentives in fiscal 2011—which begins in October 2010—hospitals and doctors need to demonstrate “meaningful use” of EHRs.

Just three weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services released an updated version of what constitutes “meaningful use.” The original draft rules, according to many, appeared to lack clear definition and had CIOs scrambling to understand and implement a solution, as “Channel Insider” recently reported. In response, the Department of Health and Human Services facilitated feedback from industry associations, professionals and others to retool and refine the rules. The results were released in mid-July.

The revamped guidelines require doctors and hospitals to meet 14 or 15 “core” requirements instead of the 23 or 25 original guidelines. These include items such as entering patient data such (i.e., smoker status, allergies, etc.) into the EHR system and sending reminders to patients when appointments are due. All of these guidelines are intended to cut a chunk out of the 70 percent of healthcare spend focused on treating preventable disease.

Since EHR and “meaningful use” were initially laid out in the ARRA, solutions providers of all sizes and technologies have been angling for a way to get a piece of the massive spend ready to explode over the next four years.  What’s more, channel-reliant companies are partnering up and arming their partners with the tools to ease the sales process and grease the revenue skids.

HP recently announced a new program called HP EHReady, providing financing for EHR and supporting technology purchases and support and lead referrals for its VAR partners. This builds on its other channel-focused healthcare program, Healthcare Express, which provides customizable marketing materials, presentations and other sales tools for HP VARs targeting the healthcare space.

IT distributor Tech Data is also getting into the act. The company unveiled its healthcare division last November, and then became one of the first distributors to land a deal with an EHR vendor, most of which were staying away from the channel for a number of reasons. Tech Data partnered with Sage North American Healthcare Division to provide its EHR solutions to healthcare VARs. And Sage is supporting its move into the channel, recently announcing it would offer free “e-consults” and Q&As with industry experts about navigating “meaningful use” for channel partners, as well as for hospitals and physicians end-users.