Facebook and Electronic Medical Records

Posted by AMS at 7 DEC 6:57 am

American Medical Software.com

Posted by AMS at 14 SEP 6:47 am

AMS is excited to have recently won their dispute over the domain name registration of americanmedicalsoftware.com. The international governing body, World Intellectual Property Organization, ruled in favor of AMS and has ordered the immediate transfer of the domain to AMS. While AMS is proud of their current domain americanmedical.com, both URL’s and domains will be used in the future. AMS is proud of their 26 years in business and being the leader in Electronic Medical Software solutions.

Digital Medical Records Get Five Year Deadline

Posted by AMS at 6 SEP 10:07 am

Next year, docs’ offices, hospitals can get federal money to help with cost.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Tuesday rolled out an ambitious five-year plan for moving doctors and hospitals to computerized medical records, promising greater safety for patients and lower costs.

Starting next year, doctors’ offices and hospitals can get federal money to help defray the costs of the systems, which can run to millions of dollars for hospitals. Providers who don’t comply by 2015 will face cuts in Medicare payments.

Federal incentive payments for doctors and hospitals to buy computerized systems could reach $27 billion over 10 years, and that’s only a fraction of what technology vendors stand to take in. It’s hoped the investment will streamline the delivery of medical care, yielding long-run savings.

Patients get the benefit of systems that can warn doctors before they make a mistake — prescribing a drug that could cause a severe reaction, for example. And there’s also the convenience of being able to access records online.

The move by the Health and Human Services Department came with the release of two regulations hundreds of pages long. The main one described how doctors and hospitals can qualify for federal money by acquiring systems that meet certain “meaningful use” standards. A companion rule outlined how the systems will be certified.

Initial reaction from key interest groups was guarded. As lawyers pored over the text of the regulations, the American Medical Association said it was withholding judgment.

Federal officials said they tried to address doctors’ concerns that the initial draft of the rule asked them to do too much, too quickly. More than half of family doctors practice in groups of four or fewer. A majority of small and medium offices have opted not to adopt electronic records because of costs and unresolved questions, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.

David Kibbe, an adviser to the group, said that may start to change. “This is pretty good news,” he said. “It will almost certainly translate into more physicians becoming participants in the electronic health records incentive program.”

Money for electronic records was included in the 2009 economic stimulus bill.

Administration officials said they lowered the number of initial, “core” capabilities that the systems have to demonstrate in order for providers to get federal money, and allowed a longer period of time to achieve others.

They also lowered several additional requirements. Only 40 percent of medications will have to be electronically prescribed, as opposed to 75 percent as the government initially proposed.

The result “strikes the balance that was needed,” said Steven Findlay, a policy expert with Consumers Union. “They give doctors the financial support to promote electronic records adoption without undue burdens. But they also hold doctors accountable for actually improving care and the health status of their patients.”

The top government official overseeing the transition program says that reflects what happened to him in a previous stage of his career, when as a middle-age primary care doctor he was forced to learn to use electronic medical records.

David Blumenthal, now national coordinator for electronic health records, said the computer once saved him from prescribing a drug to a patient who was allergic to the medication. On many other occasions, he was able to avoid ordering duplicative tests, because earlier results stored in the system told him what he needed to know.

“I watched it make my care better before my eyes,” said Blumenthal, formerly a prominent Boston area physician and Harvard professor.

Doctors’ offices can receive as much as $44,000 through Medicare and $63,750 through Medicaid for installing computer systems that meet federal standards. Hospitals can receive millions.

MSN – updated 7/13/2010 3:29:24 PM ET

Electronic Records for Rural Health Care – Missouri

Posted by AMS at 8 JUN 7:10 am

COLUMBIA – MU Medical system is opening an assistance center to help health care providers convert to electronic records.

The University of Missouri was awarded a $6.8 million cooperative federally funded grant to open the Missouri Health Information Technology Assistance Center or HIT. The center will mainly focus on health care providers in rural areas who do not have the resources and support system that larger facilities and systems have. HIT will help every step of the way for facilities to convert.

”[The assistance is] all the way from choosing the electronic health record, to implementing it, to redesigning the work flow in the office and actually getting to meaningful use,” said Dr. Karen Edison Center for Health Policy Director. 

”Meaningful use” is defined by the federal government.

If all government standards are met for “meaningful use,” the health center will receive incentives from the government through a stimulus fund.  But, the rural health community is not quite sure if this new program will do the job for individual rural physician offices. Spokesperson for Missouri Health and Senior Services, Brian Quinn, says this program will definitely help rural hospitals but they are still unsure about it reaching to smaller doctors’ offices in rural Missouri communities.

Dr. Edison says that electronic records are the future and that rural health care will have to convert soon or later and they are there to make it happen.

“It’s truly transformative. It’s really going to change the way health care is delivered in this country. And we would like to make sure it is done in a meaningful way that is helpful and not just disruptive. Because it is a big deal to adopt electronic health records, it’s really changing the way business is done,” said Dr. Edison.

Edison says many in the medical business think that electronic records will save money in the long run, and not just because they are saving paper.

“Too often we end up re-ordering tests on patients because we need to know the information but if it was easily accessible people would use that. Many people think that in some ways that will drive down the cost of health care. We will have less redundancy, less fragmentation,” said Edison.

Electronic records will also help the Medicare and Medicaid systems.

“It is particularly important for elderly patients and those with health illiteracy, who may not know what medications they are on or may not be able to tell us about their medical history. Having that information is power for those patients. It empowers them to get better health care,” said Edison.

HIT is hoping to empower those in health care in Missouri and its rural areas to convert to electronic records for their patients and the efficiency of the health care system.
Reported by: Teryn Schaefer

Using Personal Health Records when Doctors Reccommend

Posted by AMS at 27 APR 6:00 am

A practical look at information technology issues and usage

The number of people using personal health records has doubled in the past year. But those users still account for only 7% of the American patient population, according to one recent survey.

That survey also found that if patients are going to be pushed toward greater PHR adoption by anyone, it’s going to be by the health care system representatives they trust the most — their physicians.

The California HealthCare Foundation commissioned a study in which researchers talked to people who use PHRs as well as people who don’t. Nonusers made up 89% of the 1,864 respondents (the rest didn’t know or refused to answer). The report, “Consumers and Health Information Technology: A National Survey,” found that the biggest barrier to PHR use is privacy concerns, cited by 75% of non-PHR users. Many respondents expressed fears that their medical information could be used against them by insurers or employers, both of which are pushing for PHR adoption.

Although people may not completely understand the concept of PHRs, they generally understand that employers and insurers expect to improve their bottom lines by offering them. But nonusers said employers were not likely to interest them in PHRs. Only 25% said they might use a PHR that came from an employer. (The same percentage gave that level of interest to PHRs offered by Google and Microsoft.)

Meanwhile, 58% said they might be interested in a PHR from a hospital or physician with whom they already have a relationship. Fifty-two percent said they might be persuaded to use a PHR if a doctor said it was safe, while 50% said they would use a PHR if a friend or family member said it was safe.

Kate Christensen, MD, an internist with Kaiser Permanente and medical director for Kaiser’s patient portal and PHR system, said the survey’s findings have confirmed what Kaiser has seen in the use of its own PHR system.

“What I didn’t find surprising at all was that patients trust PHRs that come from their providers, their doctors, their health plans, because that’s what we have found,” Dr. Christensen said. Fifty percent of survey respondents expressed a relatively high level of interest in using a PHR sponsored by their health plans.
Patient portals

Although PHRs have been defined as electronic filing cabinets to store personal health information, they are evolving into larger patient portals tethered to a physician’s electronic medical record system and offering benefits beyond data storage. Integrated PHRs allow patients to look up lab and test results, communicate with physicians electronically and request prescription refills online, and offer other convenience features that patients increasingly are demanding.

Sam Karp, vice president of programs for the CHCF, said one way physicians can drive PHR use is by taking advantage of the federal incentive program for EMRs. Most newer EMR systems include a patient portal with a PHR component. These systems not only will help physicians qualify for Medicare or Medicaid incentive pay, he said, but they also can help physicians tap into a new revenue source — e-visits.

Of respondents who use PHRs, 26% said they were using one offered by a physician. Another 51% said they were using one owned by their health plan. Only 4% used an employer-issued PHR.

Colin Evans, CEO of Dossia, a PHR offered by a large employer consortium whose members include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said he was not surprised that employer-sponsored PHRs were at the bottom of the list. “I think the question that tends to lead in people’s minds is who do they trust with their data,” he said.

Evans theorized that because hospitals and physicians have the health data anyway, patients don’t see anything negative about sharing additional data with them. But the challenge for employer-sponsored PHRs is getting people to realize that the data employers have access to already is aggregated from several different sources, and that any PHRs employers offer usually are run by independent third parties.

People also are skeptical of employers’ pushes to use PHRs. Reducing health care costs through PHR use clearly benefits employers, although employees might not see it as much of an incentive. But, Evans said, people should realize that if employers have to spend more on health care, they may not be able to afford to offer that benefit at all — or that more money will be taken out of employee paychecks.

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING – By Pamela Lewis Dolan, amednews staff. Posted April 26, 2010.