Two new transparency requirements for 2014 edition EHR certificationHealth IT Buzz. February 11, 2014, 9:51 am / Steven Posnack / Director Federal Policy Division, ONC ONC’s 2014 Edition EHR Certification Criteria define the requirements that EHR technology must meet in order to be used by eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals (EHs), and critical access hospitals (CAHs) participating in the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs. In addition to these criteria, ONC made some policy changes to the HIT Certification Program. Starting with the 2011 Edition certification, EHR technology developers were required to disclose certain information about their certified products. See the grids for 2014 Edition Certification criteria mapped to meaningful use Stage 2 objectives [DOCX - 124 KB] and mapped to meaningful use Stage 1 objectives [DOCX - 107 KB].
In the 2014 Edition Final Rule, we added two new transparency requirements in response to stakeholder feedback. Publicly Accessible Certification Test Results Price Transparency. Docs Will Push Interoperability Ahead of Feds, Experts Say. WASHINGTON -- Providers are demanding interoperability of electronic health records long before they are required to have it under the government's "meaningful use" program, different health IT experts here said. That's because providers need to be able to exchange patient information with other providers as health reform efforts -- such as accountable care organizations and penalties for hospital readmissions -- proliferate.
That ability to trade information between various computer systems is called interoperability. Because financial penalties now ensue from not knowing patients' medical whereabouts and health status, doctors and hospitals are "clamoring" for the data other systems may have about their patients, said Arien Malec, vice president at RelayHealth, a health information exchange solutions company in Atlanta. "We've had, frankly, the government pushing people," Malec said Thursday at the annual meeting of the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT.
False. Meaningful use Stage 2 formula for success. Here’s a tip. If you want to succeed at meaningful use Stage 2, think beyond it. Rather than measuring yourself against the specifics of MU2 minimums, seek out processes and technologies that help you exceed current requirements, that continually accelerate your practice’s progress toward the overall goals of meaningful use — and that move toward a more modern, connected form of healthcare. Patients will appreciate the increased access and convenience, and you’ll be able to simplify and streamline your operations.
Let’s consider a couple MU2 measures to see what this shift in thinking means in real life. * For eligible professionals (EPs), one of the 17 core measures requires you to provide more than 50 percent of your patients with access to their health information within four business days of it being made available to you. * More than 5 percent of your patients must view, download or transmit their health information to a third party.
DoD begins procurement process for new EHR system. The U.S. Department of Defense has kicked off procurement for its new EHR system by releasing a draft request for proposals. The new system will rely on off-the-shelf technologies and industry standards supported by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT, the agency set up to ensure compatibility with the system used by Veterans Affairs. Navy Capt. John H. Windom, program manager for the Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization (DHMSM) project, said the draft is intended to involve the private sector early in the process. Sign up for our FREE newsletter for more news like this sent to your inbox! "This process will help us as we write requirements and [private industry] as they align their solutions," Windom told American Forces Press Service.
"We don't want to set a requirement that is technologically unachievable by industry or [that] we can't afford," he said. The new EHR is due to debut in late 2016, with Ft. The U.S. Docs making strides on data exchange. A new ONC study shows that a majority of office-based physicians are able to view lab results and send medication data electronically.
The researchers used data from a 2011 survey of physicians. "The results of this study are encouraging because they show that a majority of physicians who use electronic health records can electronically exchange test results, medication data and clinical care summaries with patients, all of which are integral to better care coordination and ultimately necessary for universal interoperability," said Vaishali Patel, an ONC senior advisor and lead author of the study, in a news release. "As Stage 2 of meaningful use moves forward, it will be important to continue monitoring physicians’ exchange capabilities and actual exchange activity to ensure that health information follows the patient wherever they go. " [See also: Physician approaches to HIE vary widely.] Key findings are: [See also: Physicians point to business case for HIE.] EHR Implementation Steps: Is Your Practice Ready? | Providers & Professionals.
View tools for Step 1 Why Implement EHRs? More importantly, the assessment phase should address the following question: “WHY” implement EHRs? This EHR implementation step should help practice leadership evaluate their current state to determine what is working well and what can be improved. Some of the questions providers ask themselves during this phase include: “Am I accomplishing what I thought I would be doing when I decided to go to medical school?” At this stage, practice leadership and staff should consider the practice’s clinical goals, needs, financial and technical readiness as they transition.
Assess Your Current Practice The assessment should look at the current state of the practice: Are administrative processes organized, efficient, and well documented? Through the Regional Extension Centers (RECs), we’ve learned that these questions and assessment tools provide a good understanding of the current state of the practice and can help identify key goals for improvement. Set Goals. Survey Says: EHR Incentive Program Is on Track. By Karen DeSalvo, MD We continue to see progress in improving the nation’s health care system, and a key tool to helping achieve that goal is the increased use of electronic health records by the nation’s doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers. These electronic tools serve as the infrastructure to implementing reforms that improve care – many of which are part of the Affordable Care Act.
Doctors and hospitals are using these tools to reduce mistakes and hospital readmissions, provide patients with more information that enable them to stay healthy, and allow for rewarding health care providers for delivering quality, not quantity, of care. The adoption of those tools is reflected today in a release from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics which provides a view of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program and indicates the program is healthy and growing steadily.
Figure 1. Hospitals, doctors have more time to show better outcomes through electronic health records. Getty Images/iStockphoto The idea behind using electronic health records is to maintain more complete patient histories, which can travel with the patient to new doctors and help physicians provide better care. Hospitals have an extra year before they have to prove that they can use electronic health records to improve patient outcomes, part of the meaningful-use requirements for receiving incentive payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The federal agency pushed back the deadline for Stage 2 of what’s known as “meaningful use” to 2016, and Stage 3 was bumped a year to 2017. “Whether the delay is good or bad news really depends on how far along you are,” said Mary Kay Clunies-Ross, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Hospital Association.
“For providers who aren’t ready to meet the Stage 3 requirements, it’s good news. For those who have already made the investments, the delay of the incentive payments is tough.” How are preparations for Stage 2 Meaningful Use progressing. As far as eligible hospitals are concerned, Stage 2 Meaningful Use is in its fourth month. Early signs point to these providers facing numerous of challenges that go beyond their own responsibilities (e.g., vendor certification) and even the EHR Incentive Programs themselves (e.g., ICD-10). In this first of a two-part interview, Director of HIM Practice Excellence at the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), Diana Warner, MS, RHIA, CHPS, FAHIMA, reveals how eligible providers are currently coping with Stage 2 Meaningful Use preparations as well as highlights ways providers can start their work on this next phase of meaningful use while they wait to implement their certified EHR system.
Editor’s note: Read part two of this interview here. What feedback about Stage 2 Meaningful Use are you hearing right now? On the hospital side, many of them are prepping. In light of the new quarterly reporting periods, when do eligible providers plan to attest? Related White Papers: How does patient engagement transform into useful EHR data. From Stage 2 Meaningful Use to patient-centered medical homes, patient engagement represents the next aim of healthcare reform through the adoption of health IT systems and services.
The most recent wave of top-down support for patient engagement came from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), which awarded $93.5 million for the creation of 29 clinical research data networks that will combine to form its National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet). According to one of the awardees, Kaiser Permanente, a major aim of establishing these networks is to enable the patient population to play an active role in how their care is delivered. “While we appreciate that more traditional biometric information may be important,” she continues, “there are a number of other things that any of us who have had to make decisions about whether or not to have a surgical procedure or take a particular drug would like to know beyond some of that information.”
Usability of EHRs remains a priority for ONC | Health IT BuzzHealth IT Buzz. January 6, 2014, 2:00 pm / Jacob Reider, MD / Principal Deputy National Coordinator for Health IT The New Year is a time of reflection and anticipation. We reflect on what went well in the past (and perhaps what didn’t go so well); we anticipate future challenges and accomplishments. As I reflect on the past, I can see that we’ve accomplished incredible things together. The majority of care provided in United States hospitals and medical offices is conducted with the assistance of information technology. But as a physician who has used an EHR in my clinical life since 2001, I worry that some of the usability challenges that we early adopters tolerated “for now” (a decade ago) remain unresolved. This is a problem. remembers, the promise of an innovative solution isn’t always realized and will/should fail in the marketplace.
A) The user isn’t always the buyer. B) Multi-year contracts and technical “lock-in” cause portability to be a true challenge. Do “I know it when I see it? What’s next? Study shows EHRs help docs boost care. A new study in the journal Health Services Research finds nearly three-quarters of physicians using electronic health records in 2011 said there were clinical benefits when patients' medical histories were kept in digital files. The study focused on doctors' perceptions of clinical benefits to patient care when EHRs were in place. Jennifer King, chief of research and evaluation at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and lead author of the study, explained in the article that physicians with longer experience using EHRs were more likely to report clinical benefits. Researchers looked at the responses from 3,180 physicians to the Physician Workflow Survey questionnaire about their experiences with EHRs. "A majority of physicians said they were alerted to a potential medication error or critical lab value, and about one-third reported that EHRs helped them identify needed lab tests or facilitated direct communication with patients," said King.
Health Care’s Big Data Mandate. Electronic Medical Records and You. That’s the obvious question people have about electronic health records and e-mailing with their doctor. So it’s reassuring that patient portals use firewalls, encryption software, antivirus software, and log-on requirements such as passwords to keep the system secure. That doesn’t mean they are impenetrable. Data breaches have been reported (though most have involved financial information, not medical records).
And as with paper records, the office staff, as well as your doctor, may have access to your information and the e-mail you send through the portal. Ask your doctor or his staff to explain how the portal works in his office. If you’re not comfortable with the system, don’t use it. If you do use it, take steps to protect your information by safeguarding the computers and other electronic devices that you’ll use to access it.
Use a computer that only you can access. Install a good anti-malware program. Use passwords. Store health records in a secure way. EHR’s & Physician Productivity | Policy Prescriptions ® A majority of doctors are dissatisfied with EHRs citing productivity losses. But a new study debunks their feelings. The revolution in health information technology (HIT) holds the promise of improving patient care. Since the passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in 2009, the nation’s hospitals and medical practices have scrambled to upgrade their HIT infrastructure. From a provider standpoint, the most visible change has been the widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHR).
Yet, the impact on physician productivity during the transition from paper to electronic records remains unknown. In the article, the authors used EHR task-log data from 40 primary care physicians to characterize the relationship between physician productivity and the degree of EHR use and delegation of EHR tasks. Results showed that increased delegation and EHR use were both independently associated with greater productivity. Commentary by Andrew A. MMS: Error. EHR Accreditation Could Spur Doctors' Direct Messaging. DirectTrust is on track to accredit intermediaries used by nine EHR vendors that have the bulk of the EHR market. Healthcare Robotics: Patently Incredible Inventions (click image for larger view) Secure clinical messaging via the Direct Project protocol is about to get a big boost from the leading EHR vendors. Health information service providers (HISPs), which relay Direct messages between providers, are starting to seek accreditation from DirectTrust, a nonprofit trade association.
By the end of the year, DirectTrust will accredit HISPs owned by or partnered with nine EHR vendors that serve about 80% of the market, according to David Kibbe, MD, president and CEO of DirectTrust. Among these companies, he told InformationWeek Healthcare, are Allscripts, Athenahealth, Cerner, eClinicalWorks, Epic, Greenway, McKesson, NextGen, and Siemens. Until recently, HISPs were having difficulty exchanging messages because of the trust barrier. . [ Obamacare's rough launch invites hackers. More Insights. Electronic Health Records Can Measure Patient-Centered Care. Palomar's app links docs to EHR. Will meaningful use lead to reduced costs for hospitals. EHR cost data for docs? Big money saver. Does EHR Adoption Reduce Cost of Providing Patient Care?
Access to Medical Records Could Have Prolonged My Husband's Life | Providers & Professionals. 4 ways to make EHR data more personal. Electronic Health Records: Safer Than Paper? | Power Your Practice. The Future of Health Care: Electronic Health Records. 6 tactics for boosting EHR usability. Electronic Health Records Benefits: An ePatient Story | Health IT BuzzHealth IT Buzz. Babies were more likely to have wellness visits with online records. Why real-time data matters to successful practice management. ROI vs. EHR Implementation Costs -- Is It Really Worth It? EHR, informatics, health IT jobs 2.5% of all healthcare hiring.
Perspective: Boosting EHR Usability Key to Protecting Patient Safety. AHIMA: Six tips for reducing EHR risks, boosting quality. CMS Releases New Resource on Stage 2 EHR Incentive Program. Education. Survey: Many Confused, Concerned About Digitizing Health Records. Welcome to Forbes. Will EHRs Ever Help Small Practices? - Healthcare - Electronic. EHRs Are Not A 'Digital Menace' - Healthcare - Electronic Medical. What can pain management teach providers about EHR adoption. Enforcing HIPAA Omnibus: What to Expect. Shorten urls, share files and track visits - Owly. Data Exchange Growing through EHR Adoption. Removing The Red Tape From Patient Records. 7 golden rules to optimize EHR implementation. EHR adoption can, should shed light on patient experience. 5 nagging questions about meaningful use Stage 2. New FAQs Clarify More EHR Meaningful Use Measures. New Tool Uses EHR Data To Deliver Personalized Health Care.
Wildflower International Electronic Health Records. Report: EHR Adoption in Hospitals Has Spiked Since 2010. Doctors embrace the digital workplace. EHR usability takes precedence during product design: Q&A. How to Prepare For, Survive an EHR Meaningful Use Audit -- AAFP News Now -- AAFP. The Doctor Is In – Electronic Health Records and You Elsevier. U-M Researchers Call for More Robust Electronic Health Record Data Sharing Capabilities. Community College Program. Clipboard: Hospitals mine electronic health records for marketing data - Boston Medical News - White Coat Notes. Fact Sheets. Eyewitness News 4 Health Fair. Products - Data Briefs - Number 79 - November 2011. HiTech Solutions from Wildflower International, Ltd. Obama's Push to Digitize Health Care Boosts Startups. Epic Systems, Digitizing Health Records Before It Was Cool. Closing the Loop in Health Care Coordination.
Wildflower Electronic Health Records. HiTech Solutions. Demostrating Meaningful Use. Implementation/Project Management. Your Business Partner. Education. Assessment/Diagnosis. Financial Planning. Contact Us. Post EHR Implementation: Achieve Meaningful Use. PT - unlocking potential. 8.300.22 NMAC. EHR Incentive Payment Program.