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Two new surveys downplay federal HIT stimulus money

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:33:43 +0000

Last week, we heard optimism from the likes of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the College of Health Information Management Executives about the prospects of healthcare organizations earning federal stimulus money for achieving meaningful use of EMRs. But, with more than 27,000 people and close to 900 vendors packed into the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta for HIMSS10, there were bound to be some differing opinions. Some even came from outside of Atlanta. The Medical Group Management Association on Friday released the results of a survey saying that more than two-thirds of practice executives believe that physician productivity would decrease because of the current proposed CMS criteria for meaningful use. Though 31 percent of respondents said productivity would increase by more than 10 percent, the MGMA still was critical of the proposal. "If the final rule mirrors those outlined in the current proposal, there is significant risk that the program will fail to meet the intent of the legislation, and that a historic opportunity to transform the nation's healthcare system will be missed," MGMA chief Dr. William F. Jessee said in a statement. (Jessee also announced last week that he would retire in the fall of 2011.) Meanwhile, Wolters Kluwer Health, which produces content for clinical decision support systems, announced the results of a survey of its own that found that only 3.8 percent of hospital clinical, IT and administrative executives viewed eligibility for stimulus funding as a key reason to adopt order sets. Leading the list was better quality of care, named by 54.9 percent of respondents, followed by advancing the practice of evidence-based medicine, at 52.8 percent. For further information:- take a look at this HealthLeaders Media story- see this Wolters Kluwer press release Related Articles:Survey: Hospitals will struggle to meet 'meaningful use'Blumenthal: Meaningful use will focus on goals of care, not technology

VA shuts access to DoD medical records after data errors

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:49:51 +0000

Health information interoperability efforts between the Veterans Health Administration and the Military Health System suffered another setback, as the Department of Veterans Affairs cut off access to the Defense Department's AHLTA EMR after VA officials found errors in medical records downloaded from AHLTA. No patients were injured as a result of the inaccurate data, according to the VA, but "the potential exists for decisions regarding patient care to be made using incorrect or incomplete data," the VA said in a patient-safety alert sent out last Wednesday. VA officials first discovered problems with the data exchange late last month when a VA clinician found a record in AHLTA indicating that a female patient had been prescribed a drug for erectile dysfunction. NextGov reports that the clinician's query actually had returned the record of another patient. "The VA clinician may see the patient's data during one session, but another session may not display the data previously seen," the VA alert explains. "This problem occurs intermittently and has been reported when querying DoD laboratory, pharmacy and radiology reports." For more on this computer glitch:- read this NextGov story- see the VA's safety alert (.pdf) Related Articles:VA, DoD will meet EMR interoperability deadlineSocial Security to join VA, DoD interoperability effort

SPOTLIGHT: Disclosure of medical errors

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:51:05 +0000

Physicians, surprise, are less likely than risk managers to admit the occurrence of a medical error, though doctors generally are quicker to apologize to patients after an error than are risk managers, according to a study in this month's Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. Both groups agree, however, that reporting mechanisms leave a lot to be desired. The story doesn't explicitly say so, but we'd be willing to venture that EMRs and IT in general could go a long way toward improving reporting of adverse events--and toward guarding against human error. News brief

HIMSS10: KLAS reports strong interest in ambulatory EMRs

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:36:48 +0000

"The vision for meaningful use is, I think, fantastic," said Adam Gale, president of research firm KLAS Enterprises. "But beyond the vision for meaningful use is some reality," added Gale, who spoke Sunday in Atlanta at a physician IT symposium before the start of the annual HIMSS conference. The apparent reality is that so many physicians are unprepared to meet the proposed standards when the federal IT incentive program starts in January 2011. But there is plenty of interest in clinical IT for physician offices. Visitors to the KLAS website are looking for information on ambulatory EMRs almost three-to-one compared to all other subjects combined, according to KLAS Director of Ambulatory Research Mark Wagner. And they are looking for data on the largest ambulatory EMR vendors: Allscripts, eClinicalWorks, NextGen Healthcare Information Systems and Greenway Medical Systems, though the fifth-most-popular search is for "other," a prospect Wagner calls "scary" because it suggests a cluttered marketplace. Wagner also cautioned would-be buyers about vendors that promise fast implementation. "Implementation in two weeks is not realistic," he said. It likely takes a minimum of six weeks to get an ambulatory EMR up and running, even for those who choose the software-as-a-service model. Plus, Wagner said, there is no proven ambulatory SaaS product from a name-brand company on the market yet, though vendors are "scrambling" to develop one. Related Articles:KLAS: Hospital EMR sales slowed in 2008, but now trending upVendor satisfaction falls across the board in 2009 'Best in KLAS'

HIMSS10: Majority of CIOs expect to earn full 'meaningful use' bonus

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:14:45 +0000

Nearly seven in 10 healthcare organizations expect to be eligible for federal incentives for "meaningful use" of health information technology before the end of fiscal year 2012, in time to receive the full Medicare or Medicaid bonus, according to the annual HIMSS Leadership Survey of CIOs and other health IT executives.  "We feel like we can be compliant on April 1, 2011," David Dawdy, CIO of Phelps Regional Hospital in Rolla, Mo., said Monday morning at the annual HIMSS conference in Atlanta. "We really are at a tipping point," said HIMSS Chairman Dr. Barry Chaiken. It's a phrase we've heard before, but data from the survey suggests that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act really is pushing providers to adopt EMRs and other health IT en masse. "A year ago, spending was down and hospitals were feeling pressure, but the stabilizing of the economy and the ARRA meaningful use provision has provided an incentive for making healthcare IT investments," Chaiken added. Some 38 percent of respondents cited government issues--meaningful use, HIPAA and the transition to 5010/ICD-10 coding--as the business issue having the most impact on health IT this year, up from just 6 percent in 2009. Financial considerations dropped to 23 percent from 54 percent a year ago. And for 42 percent of respondents, the top IT priority over the next two years is meeting meaningful use. Last year's top priority, a focus on clinical systems, fell to 27 percent from 51 percent last year. About a quarter of organizations surveyed have fully operational EMRs in at least one facility, and another 22 percent are fully operational across the whole organization, which is one reason why HIMSS does not support a delay in the federal EMR incentive program. "I think keeping the bar high is important," said Allana Cummings, CIO of Children's Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha, Neb. For more data:- Take a look at this HIMSS press release Related Articles:Survey: Hospitals will struggle to meet 'meaningful use'Confidence in meaningful use may be high, but time is short

Smart cards promote great efficiencies in Europe, Asia

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:03:57 +0000

In researching his book, The Healing of America, in which he promotes universal healthcare, Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid visited France to see how that nation's health system worked. Reid came away most impressed with a smart card issued to each resident, containing patient insurance information, reimbursement history, medication lists and, yes, medical records. "For me, the carte vitale...became a symbol of what the French have achieved in designing a health-care system to treat the nation's 61 million residents," Reid writes. In excerpts published in Newsweek, Reid thankfully tamps down the hype surrounding unproven technologies--though, like so many mainstream reporters somehow equates the Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault platforms with electronic health records. (How many times do I have to tell you, they are not EHRs. They are platforms for building personal health records, and early-stage products at that!) Smart cards like France's carte vitale provide security and portability while also holding down non-medical costs. The politics of implementing a national ID program in America notwithstanding, smart cards really do shine in the area of administrative efficiency, Reid finds. "The French, for example, have used the carte vitale since 1998 and have 67 percent fewer administrative personnel per building than a comparable American establishment. Taiwan, which implemented a national health-care system in 1995, spent $108 million to implement a smart-card system in the early 2000s. Their administrative costs are less than 2 percent of total health-care expenditures and possibly the lowest in the world," he writes. For more:- read this Newsweek excerpt from Reid's book Related Articles:Germany halts smart-card program for security review'Smart' medical debit cards on the riseNY-area hospitals testing smart cards

Survey: Top CMIO focus is on reducing errors

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:43:18 +0000

Chief medical information officers and other medical informatics directors tend to love their jobs and want to stick around for a while, even though this is a relatively new position for many organizations, according to a survey of this discipline by CMIO magazine. Two-thirds of the 118 CMIOs who took the online survey said they were "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with their compensation and 86 percent indicated they had no immediate plans to leave their jobs. The majority of CMIOs earn between $180,000 and $300,000 annually in base salary, though a third of survey respondents make less than $180,000 a year. Nearly half did not receive a bonus in 2009, reflecting the moribund economy, though 56 percent say they expect to get one this year. Their top IT priorities for 2010 include reducing medical errors, delivering clinical knowledge to practicing physicians and implementing EMRs, while on the business side, CMIOs are planning on concentrating on EMRs, CPOE and clinical decision support this year. Other notable findings: * 93 percent of CMIOs are men * 68 percent currently practice medicine * 36 percent report to the CIO, 31 percent to the CMO and 13 percent directly to the CEO For more data and analysis:- check out this CMIO feature Related Articles:Raking in the CMIO bucksSPOTLIGHT: The emergence of the CMIO

HIMSS10: Medical banking, personalized medicine join the schedule

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:35:19 +0000

Like most kinds of technology, health IT evolves and changes. Likewise for the HIMSS conference. This year, it's fairly clear what the central theme is going to be: meaningful use. Still, there are some new elements to the HIMSS conference in 2010. Notably, the agenda includes a series of sessions on health IT in the life sciences, touching on such subjects as integrating quality into EMRs, clinical decision support--both key elements of meaningful use--and the new horizon of personalized, predictive medicine. HIMSS also will be playing up its relationship with the Medical Banking Project, starting with "Medical Banking Boot Camp" for four hours on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 28 (for an extra registration fee of $140). Part of the main conference is a session on Wednesday, March 3, at 2:15 p.m., called "Medical Banking: An Emerging Strategy to Improve Global Healthcare," hosted by Al Briand, senior VP of global treasury services at Bank of New York Mellon. The Medical Banking Project will have a booth on the exhibit floor, too.

HIMSS10: More clarity on ARRA means more specific sessions

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:22:35 +0000

Health IT changed forever on Feb. 17, 2009. It was on that day that President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the $787 economic stimulus bill that includes an estimated $25.8 billion for health IT. "A year ago, the HIMSS conference was only five or six weeks after the signing of the ARRA legislation, and it was a time of anticipation," HIMSS CEO H. Stephen Lieber tells FierceHealthIT. "This year, the world is a little more settled....We've got a significantly stronger idea of what it's going to take [to achieve meaningful use]." And thus there is more certainty about ARRA at the 2010 HIMSS conference. National health IT coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal likely will address meaningful use during his keynote on Wednesday, March 3, but there are plenty of other sessions related to the federal EMR incentive program. On Tuesday at 8:30 a.m., Dr. John Halamka hosts a Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel town-hall meeting on harmonized standards in the era of meaningful use. Later that day, at 2:15 p.m., there's an Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology town hall, which likely will feature Blumenthal and his deputies for an hour and a half of Q&A. We also are looking forward to "Implications of ARRA for Clinical Decision Support" with Dr. Scott Weingarten of Zynx Health and Dr. Loran Hauck of Adventist Health System in Lake Mary, Fla., on Monday, March 1 at 11 a.m., and a session on EMR usability, Monday at 12:15 p.m.

HIMSS10: Sprint CEO Hesse is but one of the keynote stars

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 05:36:24 +0000

We're big fans of the HIMSS keynote sessions, and, as usual, the 2010 edition features some heavy hitters. The conference kicks off Monday at 8 a.m. with an address from Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint Nextel. Hesse, whose resume includes 23 years at AT&T, including as president and CEO of the company's wireless division, will speak about the evolving role of mobile applications in healthcare and why the future of health IT may be in handheld devices. On Wednesday at 8:30 a.m., Dr. David Blumenthal makes his first appearance at a HIMSS conference since becoming national coordinator for health IT last year. Now, of course, he's Dr. Meaningful Use, the chief policy-maker and head cheerleader for the push toward a nationwide system of interoperable electronic health records. If you're still around on Thursday--and most of the vendors tend to skip town after the trade show portion of the conference closes on Wednesday--you can catch two fascinating keynote sessions. Atlanta is the home base of CNN, and at 8:30 a.m., the network's senior medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, will interview forensic accountant Harry Markopolos about Medicare fraud. Markopolos is known for helping to expose the Ponzi scheme of Wall Street robber baron extraordinaire Bernie Madoff, but he also investigates healthcare companies. HIMSS10 closes with a keynote address at 12:30 p.m. by a true American hero, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III, the U.S. Airways pilot who saved 155 lives by landing his crippled aircraft on the Hudson River last year, then getting everyone out of the plane safely. A longtime safety expert, you can be sure Sully will talk about the lessons healthcare can learn from commercial aviation.