Under the 2009 economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHRs can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.

For the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, researchers surveyed more than 10,300 physicians by mail and telephone from April through July of this year (United Press International, 12/9).

Key Results

For the survey, an EHR system was defined as being all or partially electronic (CDC report, December 2010).

The survey found that 50.7% of physicians reported using all or partial EHR systems for patient files in their practices. That figure is up from 48.3% in 2009.

This year, nearly 25% of survey respondents said their systems met criteria for a “basic” system, while 10.1% said their systems met criteria of a “fully functional” system. Both of these rates are higher than last year’s 21.8% and 6.9%, respectively, according to the survey (United Press International, 12/9).

System Features

A basic EHR system was defined as having the ability to:

• View imaging and lab results;
• View medication lists; and
• Perform other duties (McKinney, Modern Healthcare, 12/10).

A fully functional EHR system was defined as having the ability to:

• Electronically order tests;
• Provide drug interaction warnings; and
• Perform other duties (CDC report, December 2010).

Variations Across U.S.

The survey found widespread variation for EHR adoption among states. The percentage of physicians by state reporting use of a basic EHR system ranged from 12.5% to 51.5%, according to the survey (United Press International, 12/9).

Source  :  http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2010/12/10/cdc-survey-finds-physician-use-of-ehrs-up-slightly-from-2009.aspx

January 5, 2011 – Integrated Systems Management Inc announced today that OmniMD™ EHR, Version 11.0 is 2011/2012 compliant and was certified as a Complete EHR on January 4, 2011 by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®), an ONC-ATCB, in accordance with the applicable (eligible provider) certification criteria adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The 2011/2012 criteria support the Stage 1 meaningful use measures required to qualify eligible providers and hospitals for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

According to Divan Dave, CEO, of OmniMD™ “This certification is another step in our commitment to provide providers with intuitive, easy-to-use, affordable technologies that help them improve patient care, reduce their costs and qualify for government incentives”.

The ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certification program tests and certifies that Complete EHRs meet all of the 2011/2012 criteria and EHR Modules meet one or more – but not all – of the criteria approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) for either eligible provider or hospital technology.

“CCHIT is pleased to be testing and certifying products so that companies are now able to offer these products to providers who wish to purchase and implement certified EHR technology and achieve meaningful use in time for the 2011-2012 incentives,” said Karen M. Bell, M.D., M.S.S., Chair, CCHIT.

OmniMD™ EHR, Version 11.0 certification number is CC-1112-484340-1. ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certification conferred by CCHIT does not represent an endorsement of the certified EHR technology by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services nor does it guarantee the receipt of incentive payments.

The clinical quality measures to which OmniMD™ has been certified include:

NQF 0421 – Adult Weight Screening & Follow-Up
NQF 0013 – Hypertension: Blood Pressure Measurement
NQF 0028 – Tobacco Use Assessment and Cessation
NQF 0041 – Influenza Immunization
NQF 0024 – Weight Assessment and Counseling
NQF 0038 – Childhood Immunization Status
NQF 0034 – Colorectal Cancer Screening
NQF 0043 – Pneumonia Vaccination Status
NQF 0067 – CAD: Oral Antiplatelet Therapy
NQF 0084 – Heart Failure: Warfarin Therapy

OmniMD™ EHR Version 11.0 is also certified in CCHIT’s separate and independently developed certification program. OmniMD™ Version 11.0 is a pre-market CCHIT Certified® 2011, Ambulatory EHR. Integrated Systems Management Inc. has certified its EHR technology in both programs to provide greater assurance to its customers.

About Integrated Systems Management, Inc

Founded in 2000, OmniMD™ integrated Electronic Health Records and Practice Management (PMS) products and services, offers unparalleled reliability, ease-of-use, efficiency and customizability. OmniMD™ Ambulatory EHR has also earned a designation as a pre-market CCHIT 2011 Certification with the highest 5 Star Usability Rating ensuring OmniMD™ commitment to have a comprehensive, secure, scalable, intuitive and interoperable EHR system. OmniMD™ Ambulatory EHR Version 11.0 is CCHIT 2011 Pre-Market Certified, web-enabled and support devices ranging from Tablet PCs to Smart phones. OmniMD™ offers a comprehensive set of services such as Health Transcriptions, Document Management, Patient Portal, Patient Reminder and Eligibility Verification as part of an integrated solution under one roof helping practices to effectively addressing their financial, administrative, clinical, and regulatory needs. OmniMD™ Ambulatory EHR Version 11.0 is built as a true Software as a Service solution.  It can be deployed as an Enterprise or a Subscription based Service as per the practice requirements.  OmniMD™ is designed to exceed the present and future needs of the healthcare industry. OmniMD™ is robust, scalable, interoperable, secure, intuitive and customizable with rapid deployment model. OmniMD™ EHR has also achieved Surescripts® Gold Solution Provider status, which allows for interoperability with the nation’s community pharmacies – improving the safety, efficiency and quality of the prescribing process. Gold Solution Provider status is granted to vendors whose software products have surpassed Surescripts’ baseline product certification, by demonstrating a higher level of commitment to e-prescribing, enhanced security, excellent customer support and service. OmniMD™ is a division of Integrated Systems Management, Inc. – ISM Inc. – (www.ismnet.com) a leader in Software Development and Information Technology Consulting since 1989.

About CCHIT

The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®) is an independent, 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with the public mission of accelerating the adoption of robust, interoperable health information technology.  The Commission has been certifying electronic health record technology since 2006 and is approved by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as an Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ONC-ATCB).  More information on CCHIT, CCHIT Certified® products and ONC-ATCB certified electronic health record technology is available at http://cchit.org.

About ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certification

The ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certification program tests and certifies that EHR technology is capable of meeting the 2011/2012 criteria approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). The certifications include Complete EHRs, which meet all of the 2011/2012 criteria for either eligible provider or hospital technology and EHR Modules, which meet one or more – but not all – of the criteria. ONC-ATCB certification aligns with Health Information Technology: Initial Set of Standards, Implementation Specifications, and Certification Criteria for Electronic Health Record Technology published in the Federal Register in July 2010 and strictly adheres to the test procedures published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at the time of testing.   ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certification conferred by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®) does not represent an endorsement of the certified EHR technology by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services nor does it guarantee the receipt of incentive payments.

“CCHIT®” and “CCHIT Certified®” are registered trademarks of the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology.

CCHIT will introduce the program at a Town Call webcast and teleconference Dec. 1 at 1 p.m. Eastern Time.

CCHIT’s EHR Alternative Certification for Hospitals, or EACH program, an ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certification for installed hospital EHR technology, is designed to meet the needs of hospitals that have uncertified legacy software, customized commercial products, or have developed their own EHR systems.

“Until now, CCHIT’s ONC-ATCB certification was available only for health IT vendor developed products,” said Alisa Ray, executive director, CCHIT. “Our new certification program is an alternative for hospitals that have developed their systems with products that are not individually certified or are a mix of certified and uncertified products. These hospital EHR systems are often very sophisticated and may have been developed over many years. Yet, they must be certified for hospitals to qualify for financial incentives through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and avoid Medicare penalties.”

“Hospitals certifying products in this new program can be assured that they meet a critical first step in qualifying for ARRA incentive payments and that their EHR technology is prepared to support the achievement of meaningful use by its clinicians,” Ray added.

Alternative certification is not needed if a hospital has adopted an EHR with complete certification, or a combination of certified EHR modules that meet all of the 2011/2012 certification criteria.

CCHIT has been certifying EHR technology since 2006 and was approved by the HHS Office of the. National Coordinator for HIT (ONC) as an Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ONC-ATCB) on Sept. 3, 2010. To date, CCHIT has certified 66 products offered by health IT companies.

Source   :    http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/cchit-launch-custom-ehr-certification-hospitals

While many are still talking to the EHR vendors at the exhibit halls at the HIMSS 2010, The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) released yesterday the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for the two certification programs. This proposed program has two proposals in it. One that will be temporary and the other would be permanent.The proposed program outlines the following:

The first proposal would create a temporary certification program that would be issue temporary certifications through the authorized testing and certification bodies (ONC-ATCB) to test and certify complete EHRs/or EHR Modules. During this first proposal the ONC would assume most of the responsibilities during the temporary certification program. This means that no other organization (private ones) would serve as an accreditation body.

The second proposal would create a permanent certification program that would replace the first temporary proposal. This would also mean that the ONC is intended in allowing approved private sector accreditor to fulfill the responsibility of the accreditation body.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has been working with the ONC to develop the test method and infrastructure that will be used by many of the testing laboratories in the testing stage for both proposed certification programs. This entity (NVLAP) would include specific calibration and or test standards related methods and protocols that would satisfy the needs and requirements of an “Certified EHR”.

The details of what would be the methodology used in the certification test is defined as “The same basic methodology used in third-party conformance assessment”.

Above article Publish on http://www.healthcareitinsider.com/emr/the-much-anticipated-proposal-for-certification-or-certified-ehr/

“The ARRA incentives have the potential to significantly accelerate adoption of EHR technology by office-based physicians, other eligible providers and hospitals,” said Alisa Ray, the Commission’s executive director.  “These first four health IT companies, demonstrating their compliance with the proposed Federal standards, are now able to offer certified products to providers who wish to purchase and implement EHR technology and achieve meaningful use in time for the 2011-2012 incentives.  We’ve had about 25 applications in our 2011 programs and inspections are continuing.  Look for additional announcements from these early applicants in the upcoming days and weeks.”

Both certification programs are represented among the four products. The CCHIT Certified 2011 Comprehensive program differs from the Preliminary ARRA certification program by providing a more rigorous inspection of integrated EHR functionality, interoperability, and security in addition to full compliance with Federal standards.  As part of the Comprehensive inspection process, key aspects of successful use are verified at live sites, and usability is rated.  The CCHIT Certified Comprehensive program is intended to serve health care providers looking for maximal assurance that a product will meet their complex needs, as well as support their achievement of meaningful use to qualify for the ARRA financial incentives.

The product certified in the CCHIT Certified 2011 Comprehensive program is ABELMed EHR-EMR/PM, Version 11, by ABEL Medical Software Inc.

The Preliminary ARRA 2011 program is a modular, limited certification and inspects technology only against the Federal standards. It offers maximal flexibility for health IT companies, developers and providers in meeting ARRA 2011-2012 certification requirements. The products certified in the Preliminary ARRA 2011 program are:

• eHealth Made EASY, Version 3, by eHealth Made EASY, LLC, supporting 2 of 27 meaningful use objectives  for eligible providers
• eHealth Made EASY – PQRI Made Easy, Version 3, by eHealth Made EASY, LLC, supporting 2 of 24 meaningful use objectives  for hospitals
• KIS Track, Version 5.1, by Kaulkin Information Systems, supporting 2 of 27 objectives for eligible providers
• Medios, Version 4.5, by IOS Health Systems, supporting 27 of 27 objectives for eligible providers

The Certification FactsTM label displayed with every product listing describes all certifications granted and lists which meaningful use objectives are supported by the technology. The ARRA certification component of both programs is considered preliminary because the definitions of meaningful use, criteria and standards have been proposed but not yet finalized by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  Health IT companies testing against the proposed standards now will be provided the opportunity to quickly close any gaps after the final rules are published in the Federal Register in spring 2010.

Above article published http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/press-releases/commission-announces-first-2011-certified-electronic-health-records#ixzz0ZGreIpcy

“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.”

All’s Well That Ends Well (II, i, 145-147)

2009 began with a bang for legacy Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors, promising strong sales and windfall profits on the heels of stimulus package incentive bonuses initially worth more than $19 billion to doctors and hospitals. But things changed dramatically along the way.

Here are some surprises and notable events that have impacted the EHR market:

Payment for Meaningful Use of EHR technology, not for the software and hardware itself.

The idea that using EHR technologies ought to produce improvements in quality of care, better communication with patients, enhanced safety, and better public health reporting — and that these outcomes ought to be monitored and providers held accountable for their achievement — was itself a surprising innovation in 2009.  It has to be counted among the best 10 health care ideas to come out of government in the past generation.

For several years many EHR technology vendors had expected federal money to enhance IT adoption flowing straight to them and their investors.  But the interpretation of “meaningful use” by David Blumenthal, MD and his staff and advisors at the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) proved that they want EHR adoption tightly linked with health reform and capable of supporting accountable care payment schemes, such as bundled payment, pay-for-performance, and accountable care organizations. The burden of proof that EHRs are being used appropriately lies squarely on the physicians and hospitals that purchase them.

It’s become PC to ask tough questions about EHRs, quality, and health care costs

For several years it seemed that any criticism of EHRs, any questioning of the relationship between the use of health IT and the attendant quality of care or its cost, was off limits in policy discussions. EHRs were all good, all the time. But in 2009 we’ve seen a trickle become a torrent of  serious challenges to the conventional wisdom about EHR value. It’s come from diverse sources including distinguished federal science panels, academic studies, testimony before ONC and the National Committee of Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS), and from a chorus of individual users with personal experiences to relate on listservs and blogs. While generally extolling the virtues of health care computerization, these voices of dissent have drawn attention to the large gaps in performance, ease-of-use, and standardization that plague the current crop of EHR products and services.

Perhaps more importantly, in the process they have unburdened the physicians and hospitals who have sat on the sidelines from being labeled “slow adopters,” anti-technology, cheapskates, and even worse.  As it turns out, these folks may have simply not seen the value in current EHR products that offer mediocre performance at best, and which have, so far, mostly demanded a king’s ransom to purchase, implement, and sustain. We expect to see continued critical examination of the uses of EHR technologies, and new reporting that links health IT with documented enhancements in safety of care, quality improvement, and cost efficiencies.

CCHIT’s loss of invulnerability and the displacement of its monopoly on EHR certification

2009 didn’t go as well as the Certification Commission on Health IT, or CCHIT (pronounced sea-chit) might have liked. The HIT Policy Committee advised ONC to replace the vendor-sponsored methodologies for both selecting certification criteria and then carrying out the “certification.”  Instead, the criteria for “certifiied EHR technologies” would be set through an HHS Certification process, and then an international standards-based process used certification and for selecting accredited certifying entities on the basis of competitive bid contracting.

This was a stunning reversal for the industry-leading companies involved with CCHIT. Many external to the process had criticized CCHIT as a “foxes guarding the henhouse” scheme, with apparent conflicts of interest that would never be tolerated in other industries. But CCHIT’s real sins were a Byzantine certification process that failed to increase EHR adoption among physicians and hospitals, and the glaring fact that, despite an interoperability certification process, it failed to promote health data exchange among EHR applications.  Among the most dramatic and damning testimonies at the HIT Policy Committee hearings in July was that of the CIO of East Texas Health System, who testified that her organization had jettisoned a multi-million dollar CCHIT certified (for interoperability) HIT system because it couldn’t exchange information with another CCHIT certified system.

Then, recently, CCHIT’s embattled CEO Mark Leavitt, MD announced his resignation from the organization. Although still retaining a primum inter pares status as an EHR-certifying entity due to its contractual ties to ONC, it seems likely that several other testing labs will compete with CCHIT for the contracts to certify EHRs under the ARRA/HITECH program. In fact, one company, Drummond Group, announced on November 2, 2009, that it would submit to become a certifying body upon the release of the requirements, expected in late December. The hope is that competition and oversight will create a more level playing field by keeping certification costs down and reducing the barriers to market entry.

Innovation as a theme and goal going forward, backed by the White House

One of the most unexpected, but also most promising, twists in 2009 was Aneesh Chopra’s arrival into the fray, with support from the new Chief Technical Officer for HHS, Todd Park, the former co-founder of web-based practice management software company AthenaHealth. Aneesh holds the title of first Chief Technical Officer of the United States. A known innovator and proponent of off-the-shelf and open source software, Chopra was previously Virginia’s Secretary of Technology.

Chopra sits on the ONC advisory HIT Standards Committee, where late this year he formed an Implementations Workgroup. That effort breathed much needed fresh air into the smoky backrooms atmosphere of the HIT Standards Committee, which had effectively blocked entry of innovative and start-up firms into the EHR technology market by recommending a set of untested, complex, and large enterprise-centric standards.

Apparently recognizing that these were unimplementable, Chopra’s work group held a day of hearings that solicited advice on what does and doesn’t work with respect to standards from – imagine this! – experts with proven track records outside of the health care industry. We don’t yet know the results of this last minute counterbalance to the incumbent and legacy vendors’ influence on ONC. But even some of the most entrenched people on the HIT Standards Committee are now blogging on their ideas for the “Health Internet,” a term quietly replacing the older National Health Information Network. This is good news.

The Power Shift Away from Legacy HIT Firms

Physicians, particularly those whose practices are owned by hospitals, will continue to purchase legacy EHR systems. But there are now alternatives, supported by a grass roots movement towards modular, web-based, and much less expensive software for managing clinical work and information in medical practices.

We’ve called this emerging and disruptive innovation Clinical Groupware to differentiate it from the previous generation of EHR products. We’re happy to report that there is new trade association on the scene, the Clinical Groupware Collaborative, with a mission to educate, promote, and organize collaboration among its members. It’s existence is simply one indication that Web-based applications and software-as-a-service (SAAS) is finally arriving in health care.

This new health IT paradigm is being aided by the phenomenal success of Apple’s iPhone and apps store (2 billion downloads, more than 100,000 apps) and a chorus of technologists, politicians, and public commenters who are asking why a similar platform + modular apps approach hasn’t gained more acceptance in health care among physicians and hospitals.

Interest in HIT by Big Technology Companies

The convergence of the opportunities in health care and the race toward cloud computing isn’t lost on the largest Web firms. Organizations like Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Covisint, IBM, Intel, and Amazon not only are marshaling their forces to create new health care products, but have the resource bases and very deep IT infrastructures required to rapidly scale the kind of effort that will be required in a sector as vast and sophisticated as health care.

Their emergence in this space presents a non-traditional challenge to legacy firms, which have typically faced and easily out-gunned smaller, less resource-capable innovators. These new entrants are extremely sophisticated, established businesses with enormous capitalization and, often, more leading edge technologies.

These unexpected turns of events are profoundly important for a simple reason. The changes in health information technologies over the next few years could well be foundational, shaping how health care works globally for the next several decades. Which is why it is imperative that we not allow older paradigms that have outlived their utility to prevail, just because they were there first.  2009 has been a bright spot, in the sense that we’ve seen signs that the old guard could be dislodged. Against a backdrop of a health care reform effort that, as far as we can understand it, will not do much to improve the system, this progress in Health IT is proving a true bright spot.

Above article published on http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2009/12/2009-a-year-of-surprises-and-change-for-the-ehr-technology-market.html

The new Medicare Part B fee schedule for 2010 is encouraging doctors to adopt EHRs by, for the first time, allowing practices to use real clinical data from EHRs and e-prescribing systems to report quality measures for the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and e-prescribing incentive programs. The change, according to CMS, is “to promote adoption and use of electronic health records and to provide both eligible professionals and CMS with experience on EHR-based reporting,” Government Health IT reports.

Whether the incentive payments are large enough to spur many practices to switch to EHRs ahead of the 2011 debut of the federal stimulus program is uncertain, however. PQRI participants can earn 2 percent on top of their total Medicare Part B fees for reporting quality data in 2010, and another 2 percent for writing electronic prescriptions. The e-prescribing bonus drops to 1 percent in 2011 and penalties for not e-prescribing begin in 2012. CMS is trying to simplify reporting of e-prescribing by requiring a single code to be eligible for the bonus next year.

Above article published on http://www.fierceemr.com/story/cms-allow-ehr-reporting-pqri-e-prescribing-bonuses-2010/2009-11-05#ixzz0W4sPa8Kn

Unless you have done your homework on what makes a top-notch EHR system, you’re liable to have a hard time choosing which company to go with. Because of this, you’ll be more susceptible to a software company’s fancy sales pitches on why their software is the greatest ever, even though it’s actually quite dismal.

To aid you in your search for the top EHR companies, there are a few key factors you need to look for before making your investment. Some companies may satisfy one or two of these factors, but the best vendors will satisfy all of them. This is the second in a series of two articles that will cover five important factors to look for in EHR software.

In the first article of the series, we discussed two of the five factors to look for in high-quality electronic health records—1) buying true EHR software and 2) buying integrated EHR software—and this time we’ll address the last three factors. After reading both articles in the series, you’ll have a solid base of knowledge for making what can be one of the most important investments for your chiropractic practice.

5 Factors that Make for Top-Quality EHR Software

3. Fulfilling third-party payer requirements: It’s not enough that EHR software digitize all of your paper records and documents—the system should also meet or exceed all of the requirements demanded by Medicare and other third-party payers. While it’s important that the company you go with has the technological know-how to build a highly advanced software system, it’s equally vital that your EHR company have a complete and thorough knowledge of all of the rules and regulations regarding third-party payers

and has designed their software around this knowledge. Moroever, the software should also be regularly updated to ensure you’ll continue to meet third-party payer standards as they evolve and change in the future.

4. Customizable: Depending on the size of your practice and the way in which your work, a software system that’s excellent for one of your fellow DCs might not be the best fit for your office. For this reason, you should go with EHR companies that allow you to customize your software to get the features and components you really need and not have to buy those you have no use for. Such systems are often modular in design, so you can buy the features you need—or can afford—now and then add on others down the road. Furthermore, the software’s documentation features should also be customizable, so the system will fit efficiently with your practice’s workflow. You shouldn’t have to change the entire way in which you work when switching to EHR; instead, the system should be built in a way that both accommodates and maximizes your own documentation style.

5. Designed for chiropractors: Today, the entire healthcare industry is rapidly moving toward digital health records. Because of this, many EHR companies have sprung up to help everyone make the switch to a paperless practice. As a chiropractor, however, you should only go with a company that designs their software specifically for DCs. Some companies may claim their systems will work for all types of healthcare practices, but in reality, chiropractic clinics have many unique needs that can’t be met with a generic EHR system. Make sure the company you select has designed their software to work specifically with the procedures, workflow, and language used by chiropractors.

Above article published on http://www.chiroeco.com/chiropractic/news/8704/1100/5-factors-to-look-for-when-investing-in-EHR-software:-Part-II-of-II/

The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology next year plans to develop a “site certification” program for hospitals and physician groups that use self-developed EHRs or a mix of commercial and proprietary applications, says Mark Leavitt, M.D., chair of the Chicago-based organization. The effort also will offer certification for those organizations that use an older, commercial clinical system that’s been heavily customized, he notes.

Although it has not yet been officially designated as an official EHR certifying body under the incentive program called for in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, CCHIT already is developing a new certification program designed to measure whether software is compliant with the yet-to-be-finalized federal “meaningful use” EHR standards. The site certification component will feature sliding-scale pricing to make it affordable to providers of various sizes, Leavitt says.

“Site certification is designed to help the early adopters who were EHR pioneers,” Leavitt adds.

The site certification effort won’t start until the middle of next year once the final “meaningful use” rules are enacted. CCHIT, however, will begin accepting applications Oct. 7 for its “ARRA 2011 Certification” program for vendors’ EHRs. That program is based on the proposed rules the government expects to publish in December.

Government regulators are considering a proposal to authorize multiple EHR certification programs. Leavitt says he’s confident the government will designate CCHIT as an official certifier of meaningful use for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs. He also says it’s “not clear why others would want to launch” certification efforts. He points out that CCHIT is a not-for-profit group and contends that it would be difficult for others to start from scratch and cover their costs, much less make a profit.

CCHIT also is continuing with its longstanding effort to certify vendors’ EHRs for meeting a set of criteria much broader than the anticipated “meaningful use” standards. The criteria for the updated “CCHIT Certified 2011″ program will become “more rigorous,” Leavitt says. For example, vendors will need to prove that the application has been up and running at two sites for at least 45 days. Plus certifiers will, for the first time, assess the “usability” of EHR software for ambulatory care settings.

Above article published on

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/certification-39166-1.html?ET=healthdatamanagement:e1036:156215a:&st=email

In my coverage of the healthcare technology industry, I’ve noticed that many software and hardware vendors, clinicians, and even some analysts tend to use the terms EMR (electronic medical record) and EHR (electronic health record) interchangeably. However, according to the National Alliance for Health Information Technology (NAHIT), there is a distinct difference between the two.

The NAHIT defines EMR and EHR as follows:

EMR — The electronic record of health-related information of an individual that is created, gathered, managed, and consulted by licensed clinicians and staff from a single organization who are involved in the individual’s health and care.

EHR — The aggregate electronic record of health-related information of an individual that is created and gathered cumulatively across more than one healthcare organization and is managed and consulted by licensed clinicians and staff involved in the individual’s health and care.

In other words, an EMR is a somewhat siloed record of a single diagnosis or treatment, most likely used by a single practice or specialist. Meanwhile, an EHR is a more comprehensive record that is interoperable with and compiles information from multiple medical providers’ systems.

Don’t Judge A Software Package Based On Name Alone

Despite the NAHIT definitions, it’s obvious that the industry is still unclear on how to delineate EMRs from EHRs. For example, some software vendors brand their technologies as EHR platforms when, in reality, they don’t provide interoperability capabilities and would therefore be more accurately marketed as EMRs. At the same time, other vendors brand their products as EMR packages when they actually provide more comprehensive EHR frameworks. In fact, analysis of software packages currently on the market indicates that the latter is more likely to be the case, as most clinical records software vendors tend to brand their products as EMRs as opposed to EHRs. However, the term EHR does seem to be gaining popularity as it is the phrase used by President Obama in his healthcare stimulus talks and is the prominent terminology used in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

Knowing that the terms used to brand clinical records software aren’t always accurate, you must dig deeper to ensure a software platform you’re assessing is equipped to meet the needs of your facility and your patients. Criteria to consider when evaluating EMR/EHR software include:

• Interoperability with current certification standards (CCHIT [Certification Commission for Health Information Technology], HL7 [Health Level 7])
• An ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability)-compliant relational database for data protection and the ability to recover fully from failure (not just restore from backup)
• Both thin and fat client support (i.e. remote control and direct control) to accommodate for the lower bandwidth of satellite offices
• Ease-of-use at the point of care
• A workflow that matches your practice and specialty

If you purchase a system that matches your requirements, it should provide a speedy ROI regardless of whether or not it is “technically” branded correctly.

Above article published on

http://www.ecmconnection.com/article.mvc/EMR-Or-EHR-Whats-In-A-Name-0001?VNETCOOKIE=NO