On Monday, the work group considered a draft proposal that evaluated best practices for electronic reporting of glitches. The practices are expected to be incorporated into the second phase of “meaningful use” criteria for EHR systems in fiscal year 2013.

Members of the panel said the goal is to generate a “patient-centered” approach to health IT safety, which includes:

• Confidential reporting;
• Liability protections;
• Whistle-blower protections;
• Patient engagement; and
• Transparency.

Vendor Recommendations

The work group recommended that vendors include feedback buttons in EHRs that allow simple reporting of data problems. In addition, the panel said vendors should keep records of all patient safety concerns reported by customers, provide safety alerts to those customers and build patients safety tests into their products.

Patient Participation

According to the panel, patients should be encouraged to find errors and mistakes in their EHRs and report them by way of feedback buttons.

Formal Study

The panel also recommended that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT commission a formal study on health IT patient safety concerns and on the possibility of audit trails for health data exchange activities (Lipowicz, Federal Computer Week, 3/29).

Above article publish on http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2010/3/30/hhs-panel-providers-should-be-required-to-report-ehr-glitches.aspx?topic=patient%20safety

CCHIT made its announcement during the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s 2010 conference in Atlanta (Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek, 3/2).

The American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists will collaborate with CCHIT in creating the criteria for the certification program.

CCHIT said it will begin recruiting voluntary work group members through its Web site from March 16 through April 16. The commission will announce the work group members in June (Goedert, Health Data Management, 3/1).

The women’s health and oncology certification tracks are among several of CCHIT’s programs that target medical specialties (InformationWeek, 3/2).

Above article publish on http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2010/3/2/cchit-to-certify-ehr-systems-for-womens-health-oncology-care.aspx

CHW’s board of directors originally allocated $590 million to implement acute-care and ambulatory information systems at all of its 41 hospitals over the next seven years.

However, after successfully implementing EHR systems at eight California locations, CHW decided to increase spending by $419 million to expand the initiative to hospital-based and community physicians (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 2/24).

The EHRs will include new patient tools and safety applications, including medication bar coding systems (Reiter, Merced Sun-Star, 2/25).

CHW Chief Information Officer Ben Williams said the health care system will pay less per hospital to implement the EHR system because it gained installation experience during the pilot phase of the program (Robertson, Sacramento Business Journal, 2/24).

Above article publish on http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2010/2/25/catholic-healthcare-west-boosts-electronic-health-record-budget-to-1b.aspx

Health Level Seven has published the health IT industry’s first ANSI-approved standard for using EHR information in clinical research. The standard–known as Electronic Health Record Clinical Research Functional Profile and based on the HL7 EHR System Functional Model Release 1–is a roadmap for integrating data to support both patient care and clinical research processes, the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based standards organization says.

The standard is the result of two years of work by representatives of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, health IT, clinical research IT and regulatory community in the U.S. and Europe. “This profile is an excellent demonstration of how important functional requirements for secondary data use, such as clinical research, can be integrated into the patient care work flow and documented in EHR systems,” says Donald Mon, vice president of practice leadership at the American Health Information Management Association and co-chair of the HL7 EHR Work Group.

HL7 says the standard is intended to complement the EHR-Clinical Research specification that the Health Information Technology Standards Panel is developing. It also will serve as a resource for the Clinical Research Work Group of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, which is working to include clinical research criteria in CCHIT’s EHR certification program.

Above article published http://www.fierceemr.com/story/hl7-finalizes-standard-ehrs-clinical-research/2009-11-12

In 2004, the trade group Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society helped found CCHIT. For several years, the commission served as the sole certifying entity for EHR systems.

CCHIT’s affiliation with HIMSS has led some observers to express concern that the commission is too closely aligned with the health IT industry.

In response to such concerns, federal committees recently approved a plan that would allow multiple entities to certify EHR systems. The plan would require all interested parties, including CCHIT, to apply for designation as an official EHR certifier.

Although the government has yet to appoint official certifying bodies, CCHIT is continuing to offer its EHR certification programs. The group also recently launched a new “Preliminary ARRA Certification” program that aims to help vendors comply with the forthcoming meaningful use rules (Blankenhorn, ZDNet Healthcare, 11/11).

Above article published http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2009/11/12/cchit-continuing-role-as-major-ehr-certifier-amid-hitech-talks.aspx

Healthcare providers will have the option to use electronic health record systems to report Medicare quality and electronic prescribing measures to CMS in some of its pay-for-performance programs next year, according to an announcement by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The revisions are designed “to promote adoption and use of electronic health records and to provide both eligible professionals and CMS with experience on EHR-based reporting,” CMS said in the Oct. 30 announcement.

They run parallel to efforts by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to set up additional incentives for providers to measure and submit data measuring the quality of their treatments.

According to CMS, providers could use EHRs to submit information for the CMS’s Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) program, which pays an incentive to eligible physicians and other healthcare professionals who report on specific quality measures for care for Medicare patients.

Providers also will be able to report e-prescribing usage through qualified EHR systems or registries, according to CMS. Currently, providers’ reports about e-prescribing are based on patient medical claims.

Under the fee schedule rule, providers for the first time will be able to count quality data submitted through electronic health record systems toward their eligibility for a PQRI incentive payment, CMS said.

Next year, those payments will be equal to 2 percent of their total estimated allowed charges for the reporting periods, CMS said. The final rule will appear in the Nov. 25 Federal Register.

The rule also streamlines reporting of e-prescribing and focuses on the actual use of e-prescribing by the provider. In 2010, providers will use one code for e-prescribing, but they “need to report this code at least 25 times during the reporting period to be considered a successful electronic prescriber,” CMS said.

The Medicare fee schedule puts into practice provisions of the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, which established a program for incentive payments for e-prescribing over five years. In 2012, CMS will impose penalties on providers who are not “successful e-prescribers.”

Once CMS publishes the rule, it said it will accept comments on designated provisions of the final rule until Dec. 29. The policies become effective Jan. 1, 2010.

Above article published on http://www.govhealthit.com/newsitem.aspx?nid=72313

As more healthcare providers move to implement electronic health records by 2011, the technologies for storing and managing these vast data sets will need to be regulated, an advisor to the federal government said at a conference here this week.

“There is some form of oversight necessary,” John Glaser, senior advisor of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, said at a colloquium on personalized medicine hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He acknowledged that a regulatory process would be necessary to handle the limitations of EHR systems and managing malfunction issues.

Glaser noted that ONC met with FDA this week to discuss regulation of EHR-related technologies. “Is it a formal device or not? I don’t know,” Glaser said, adding that he wasn’t sure whether regulation of EHR systems would necessarily fall under FDA oversight.

“However, to a large extent human aptitude plays a huge part in how well the software works,” said Glaser, who is also the chief information officer of Partners HealthCare System.

EHRs have been proposed as a key component of personalized healthcare, and Glaser noted at the meeting that they could be a powerful tool for picking up post-marketing drug risk information and relative risk data. At the meeting, other officials from government and academia outlined several efforts to use EHR systems to look for genes associated with disease predisposition and drug response

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, a private organization, conducts one-day testing of EHR systems. But currently no federal oversight of EHR systems exists.

Earlier this year, an article titled “Finding a Cure: The Case for Regulation and Oversight of Electronic Health Record Systems,” published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, advocated for federal oversight of EHR systems. Although the authors did not feel that oversight responsibilities should necessarily rest at the FDA, they recommended that EHR systems should be monitored for as long as they are operational so technical problems are detected and the system is continually improved.

The regulatory oversight for EHR systems is a looming question as hordes of healthcare providers will be moving to electronic record systems in the next five years, urged by the promise of federal funding. The stimulus package offers incentives to hospitals and physicians for the “meaningful” implementation of electronic health records. Glaser is helping the federal government implement its programs.

Physicians who accept Medicare and use EMRs can receive up to $44,000 over a five-year period between 2011 and 2016. Doctors who see more than 30 percent of patients receiving Medicaid benefits are eligible for up to $64,000 beginning in 2011 if they adopt the technology.

Furthermore, there are penalties proposed for non-adopters. Healthcare providers who have not shown “meaningful use” of a certified EHR system by 2014 can see a decrease of up to 1 percent in the Medicare fee schedule for 2015. The Medicare fee payment reductions will continue for every year of non-compliance. The deduction rate can go up to a maximum of 5 percent if total EHR adoption is under 75 percent of eligible providers by 2018.

In a recent study, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, and George Washington University found that less than 2 percent of hospitals had implemented comprehensive EHRs; and less than 8 percent had basic EHRs in place.

Above article published on http://www.genomeweb.com/dxpgx/electronic-health-record-systems-will-require-some-form-oversight-government-adv

Interoperability

Blumenthal said his office is undertaking efforts to help different EHR systems connect and share data. He said, ‘We’re gonna be helping states to create interoperability capability, capabilities to link records, to link institutions.”

In addition, Blumenthal said federal officials are developing nationwide standards and certification criteria that will support EHR interoperability. He added that the standards discussions “will all be a very open and transparent process.”

Privacy and Security

Blumenthal also addressed concerns about whether EHR systems would compromise the privacy and security of personal health data.

He said regulations are in place to ensure that any health data used for research purposes are stripped of all individually identifiable information.

Blumenthal also said his office plans to work with President Obama’s new cybersecurity initiative to ensure that EHR systems have advanced encryption capabilities and other data protections.

Above article published on http://www.ihealthbeat.org/Articles/2009/10/16/Blumenthal-Officials-Working-To-Boost-EHR-Connectivity-Security.aspx

However, it’s vital DCs do their homework before going paperless. All EHR systems use advanced computer technology to transform paper records into digital ones, so unless you’re an IT guru or computer geek, such systems will take time to learn and adapt to. Because of this, one of the most crucial things to look for when selecting an EHR provider is the level of training and support a company offers.

Depending on the company, training and support can vary greatly in the quality and cost. Good training and support goes well beyond the initial purchase and installation. EHR systems, like other computer services, are constantly being updated and upgraded with new features and functions, so the best vendors will offer long-term maintenance plans covering such updates over time. And like most businesses, your practice is likely to experience some amount of staff turnover, so access to a continuing training program will be important as well.

When researching EHR vendors, here are a few key services to look for to ensure you’re getting the best possible training and support:

Updates:  With Obama in office, the country’s healthcare system is facing a major overhaul. But even if that never happens, new healthcare legislation, such as HIPPA, along with changes to third-party payment systems, means your EHR system will need to be continually updated to adapt and comply. However, you shouldn’t be forced to pay for each of these updates as they arise. Make sure your EHR vendor provides these updates for free, or they’re included as part of a regular maintenance plan. You don’t want to be forced  to pay hidden fees for every update that comes along.

Upgrades:  Just like healthcare rules and regulations, computer technology is constantly evolving. These days, a piece of computer hardware can go from being the most advanced on the market to obsolete within months, so your EHR vendor should offer regular system upgrades at no extra cost to ensure the technology is on the cutting edge and interfaces with the latest tech trends. As before, make sure your EHR vendor offers these upgrades as part of your regular maintenance agreement and doesn’t charge on a case-by-case basis. And be careful to avoid sneaky “tiered” systems for upgrades, where minor upgrades are covered, but you are forced to pay for more extensive changes to the system out of your own pocket.

Support: Regardless of the training provided, you’re likely to have some questions and need some help operating your EHR system, especially during the first few months after it’s installed, when you and your staff will be learning the system. However, such customer support should be free, so you’re not being charged for every help call you make. The best EHR vendors offer a year’s worth of free, unlimited customer support—don’t settle for anything less.

Training: Obviously, when selecting an EHR vendor, you should look for the most extensive training for you and your staff. But unless every member of your crew stays with your practice for life and you never expand your business by hiring additional staff, you’re going to need further training down the road for your new people. Make sure the EHR vendor you pick offers free, year-round training for any new staff, so you aren’t throwing your money away every time you hire or fire someone.

Above article published on http://www.chiroeco.com/chiropractic/news/8164/1100/Training-and-support-are-key-for-switching-to-EHRs/

The leading EHR systems are loaded with a wealth of features designed to not only create an efficient paperless practice, but also help with several other office applications, such as billing, scheduling, data security, office management, and even patient education. This article will focus on how EHR software can enhance a DC’s ability to educate patients on chiropractic care, thereby saving the practice even more time and money, while also generating added patient trust and revenue.

You want to do what with my spine?

Because the spine and its surrounding structures are a highly complex system with a wide array of functions, it’s often difficult and time consuming to explain the nature of chiropractic care to patients and potential patients. Lacking serious medical knowledge, patients can easily become confused when a DC attempts to detail their condition and treatment.

This not only takes up lots of time, but in many instances, a DC’s ability to clearly explain the nature of a particular musculoskeletal issue and how chiropractic treatment will improve this condition, can be a deciding factor in whether a patient decides to undergo treatment or look elsewhere. This can be especially true for some patients, who may be skeptical of chiropractic’s validity.

Education made easy

However, the top EHR software systems offer special patient-education features that can solve these problems and win over even the most stubborn patients. The education features offer a comprehensive collection of tools and resources, such as high-definition videos covering hundreds of chiropractic conditions and exercises, dozens of anatomical illustrations and posters, personalized treatment reports, and several other high-tech applications. All of the features work together to facilitate a patient’s understanding of what chiropractic care will involve and how it will help their specific condition.

Moreover, the top EHR patient-education modules integrate their education features with all of the practice’s other EHR components, allowing the DC to add videos to documentation notes, print out personalized handouts for patients to take home, and customize the education system with additional data and video from a DC’s own personal collection. Such progressive technology will impress patients and make them feel like they’re receiving the most advanced level of care, while also encouraging them to remain compliant with their care plan.

Convincing evidence

Such technology makes your diagnosis easier to understand and also highly objective, so it doesn’t appear you’re trying to “oversell” unnecessary treatments. To this end, the EHR education features provide “hard evidence” supporting your diagnosis and proposed treatment, so you’ll have high-tech documentation backing your treatment options.

In this way, the visual and printed resources provided by EHR education tools, not only stand to educate, but they can also increase patient trust in your diagnosis and treatment abilities. And with increased trust comes increased compliance, increased patient rolls—and ultimately increased revenue for your practice.

Above article published on

http://www.chiroeco.com/chiropractic/news/8349/1100/Go-paperless-and-win-over-patients-with-EHRs/