The following infographic seemed fitting since in two weeks I’ll be attending the AARP Life@50+ event in Las Vegas. It looks to be a really interesting event with a lot of great healthcare technology that can benefit seniors. I’ll be sure to report back on what I find. Until then, check out this infographic on seniors and technology.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
I got the following email from a practice manager:
But here is a monster of a question for EMR/EHRs: In 510 days, ICD-10 and its 70,000 plus codes (as opposed to ICD-9′s 14,000 codes) will be on the necks of providers. How will the software handle that? It will have to keep both sets available, because old claims will still be under that system, and may even have to provide a “translator” function from one to the other. Not just a crosswalk, a decision rubric.
This is how the money gets made, and everyone wants to be paid. Cool may be awesome, but payment…well, that’s serious.
As my programmer daughter says, this is what computers do best, but a human has to program it to do that.
This comment is a really interesting one and reminds me of the hospital administrator I was with recently who talked about being overwhelmed with the administrative. ICD-10 is an example of the administrative that can be overwhelming and could have serious financial consequences if not dealt with appropriately.
Plus, the above comment highlights how many practices will be at the mercy of the EHR and other software programmers when it comes to ICD-10. I agree that ICD-10 won’t be an issue for many as long as the programmer does a good job implementing it. In fact, this is why the concept of dual coding ICD-10 is so important. However, as the linked article discusses, that’s not likely an option for a smaller clinic.
Either way, I’m interested in the core idea of being distracted by the shiny things so we miss out on the serious ones.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
Paul Levy blogged about Eric Topol’s move to be editor-in-chief at Medscape. It’s an interesting move for Dr. Topol and it will be interesting to see how Medscape does with Dr. Topol at the helm. However, even more entertaining is the video that Paul Levy embedded in his post. A nice rework of the popular scene from Jerry Maguire. Many of my readers will really appreciate it. I guess Dr. Topol uses this video in the lectures he does to explain why patients need their data. Enjoy!
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
Yesterday HHS released news that they’d revoked the EHR certification of the EHRMagic-Ambulatory and EHRMagic-Inpatient EHR software. Looks like InoGard originally certified the EHR and they and ONC received information that had them retest the EHR software and it failed the certification re-test.
I think we all want government to hold bad actors accountable. So, it’s good to weed out EHR companies that aren’t doing what they should. However, they better also be careful. Imagine being a doctor of an EHR vendor whose EHR certification gets revoked. Does that mean that they have to give back the EHR incentive money the received? Those doctors trusted in InfoGard’s ability to certify an EHR vendor and InfoGard failed at that job. Should a doctor be punished for InfoGard’s failing? Now apply this to a hospital that uses a certified EHR and loses that EHR certification. That’s a multi-million dollar impact.
I guess EHRMagic better take down the info on their website that says they can get physicians $44,000 in EHR incentive money. Looking at their website, it makes me wonder who chose to use their EHR in the first place. That would be interesting to know.
Here’s the full press release from HHS on the EHR revocation:
Two electronic health records, previously certified as products to be used as part of the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs, have had their certifications revoked. Farzad Mostashari, M.D., the national coordinator for health information technology, announced today that the products do not meet standards and providers cannot use these products to meet the requirements of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive programs.
EHRMagic-Ambulatory and EHRMagic-Inpatient, both developed by EHRMagic Inc. of Santa Fe Springs, Calif., no longer meet the EHR certification requirements. The EHRs must be certified by a certification body (ACB) authorized by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) before regaining certification.
Both ONC and an ONC ACB, InfoGard Laboratories Inc. (InfoGard), received notifications that the EHRMagic products did not meet the required functionality and the products should not have passed certification. InfoGard analyzed the additional information from the notification and contacted EHRMagic, launching the ONC authorized certification body required surveillance activities. InfoGard concluded that it was necessary for the EHR products to be retested for select requirements. EHRMagic, Inc. participated in retesting and failed.
“We and our certification bodies take complaints and our follow-up seriously. By revoking the certification of these EHR products, we are making sure that certified electronic health record products meet the requirements to protect patients and providers,” said Dr. Mostashari. “Because EHRMagic was unable to show that their EHR products met ONC’s certification requirements, their EHRs will no longer be certified under the ONC HIT Certification Program.”
Information about ONC’s certification process for EHR technologies is available at http://www.healthit.gov/providers-professionals/certification-process-ehr-technologies.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
The CMS website has a great resource with answers to a number of FAQs. For example, here’s two questions that related to sequestration’s impact on EHR incentive and meaningful use attestation.
Question: Will incentive payments earned in the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Records Incentive programs be affected by sequestration?
Answer: Incentive payments made through the Medicare EHR Incentive Program are subject to the mandatory reductions in federal spending known as sequestration, required by the Budget Control Act of 2011. The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 postponed sequestration for 2 months. As required by law, President Obama issued a sequestration order on March 1, 2013. Under these mandatory reductions, Medicare EHR incentive payments made to eligible professionals and eligible hospitals will be reduced by 2%. This 2% reduction will be applied to any Medicare EHR incentive payment for a reporting period that ends on or after April 1, 2013. If the final day of the reporting period occurs before April 1, 2013, those incentive payments will not be subject to the reduction.
Please note that this reduction does not apply to Medicaid EHR incentive payments, which are exempt from the mandatory reductions.
Question: For the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, how should an EP, eligible hospital, or critical access hospital (CAH) attest if the certified EHR vendor being used is switched to another certified EHR vendor in the middle of the program year?
Answer: If an EP, eligible hospital or CAH switches from one certified EHR vendor to another during the program year, the data collected for the selected menu objectives and quality measures should be combined from both of the EHR systems for attestation. The count of unique patients does not need to be reconciled when combining from the two EHR systems.
If the menu objectives and/or clinical quality measures used are also being changed when switching vendors, the menu objectives and/or quality measures collected from the EHR system that was used for the majority of the program year should be reported.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
The NYeC has put together a patient portal design challenge to provide the best patient portal for New Yorkers. It’s a pretty cool challenge and they have 14 prototypes that are participating in the current voting. I’ve copied an email that contains more info on the challenge and the voting, but I thought it was a pretty cool thing to be able to see a number of different companies approaches to a patient portal. I wonder if some EMR companies will hire the portal designers directly.
As you may know, the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) is building the Patient Portal for New Yorkers—a statewide website where New Yorkers will be able to securely access their healthcare records.
To create the most user-friendly portal design possible, NYeC hosted a design challenge earlier this year, calling on designers and developers to submit prototypes of what the portal should look like. Now they’re are asking the public to vote on the designs!
And now they want to hear from you—help shape the future of healthcare in New York State byvoting today.
After the public voting period ends on April 23rd, the top 10 finalists will be invited to demonstrate their prototypes to a panel of judges and a larger audience at 2 events: April 30th in New York City and May 2nd in Buffalo. You are invited to attend. As a result of these events, first, second, and third place will be awarded, concluding the design challenge.
To learn more about portal, vote, and to register, visit: http://
PatientPortalforNewYorkers. org/
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
At HIMSS, the news was tweeted out about the impact of Sequestration on Meaningful Use and EHR incentive money. I’d seen little other details about the impact of sequestration on the EHR incentive money until now. CMS just sent out the following update on the mandated sequestration.
Mandated Sequestration Payment Reductions Beginning for Medicare EHR Incentive Program
Incentive payments made through the Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program are subject to the mandatory reductions in federal spending known as sequestration, required by the Budget Control Act of 2011.
Incentive Payment Reduction
The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 postponed sequestration for two months. As required by law, President Obama issued a sequestration order on March 1, 2013. Under these mandatory reductions, Medicare EHR incentive payments made to eligible professionals and eligible hospitals will be reduced by 2%.Reduction Timing
This 2% reduction will be applied to any Medicare EHR incentive payment for a reporting period that ends on or after April 1, 2013. If the final day of the reporting period occurs before April 1, 2013, those incentive payments will not be subject to the reduction.Please note: This reduction does not apply to Medicaid EHR incentive payments, which are exempt from the mandatory reductions.
The 2% will be a little annoying for a doctor’s office, but the 2% off the multi-million dollar EHR incentive a hospital receives is going to add up to a pretty penny. At least the information is out there so that hospitals can plan. Although, it’s not like you can stop the EHR implementation at this point in the cycle.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
I’m always a fan of the various healthcare infographics that are put out and the same is true from the healthcare document management infographic that was published by Globodox. The infographic highlights one of the myths that exists in healthcare that once you go EHR that you’ll be done with paper. Unfortunately, you’ll still have a lot of paper to deal with in the process of going paperless. So, document management of some sort is a really important part of any EHR implementation.
I find the HIPAA violation section interesting, but I’m not sure I think going electronic actually helps solve a lot of the breach problems that they list. I don’t personally believe that electronic records makes more HIPAA breaches happen, but I do believe that the size of the breaches increases dramatically in an electronic world. 10,000 charts could be stored on a small thumb drive that can be easily lost. Try losing 10,000 paper charts. You get the idea.
Now, without further ado, the healthcare document management infographic:
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
The great people at Extormity have put out another great announcement (embedded below). They’re really taking healthcare interoperability to a new level with their ability to share health records at “distances up to 65 feet.” The satire is terrible since there are still many EHR vendors that can’t share data even that far.
Enjoy the great write up!
Extormity Announces Oh Well Initiative, Plans to Interoperate with Itself
On the heels of the HIMSS conference, electronic health record vendor Extormity today announced that it will begin making its own solutions interoperable as part of what calls its Oh Well effort.
“It has become increasingly clear that interoperability is a buzzword we must pay attention to,” said Extormity CEO Brantley Whittington from a corporate planning retreat in Monaco. “Our attitude is ‘Oh Well’ we clearly have to make a token gesture, so we are planning to make every Extormity application interoperable at distances up to 65 feet.”
“What separates this initiative from other relatively banal announcements we have made in the past is the fact that this level of interoperability will no longer require complex and time-consuming integration,” added Whittington. “The only customer requirement is a sizable check.”
Extormity also announced that it has reserved more than 50 percent of the exhibit space for HIMSS14 in Orlando. “In the past, we have been low key at HIMSS, preferring to host lavish off-site parties,” said Whittington. “Next year, we are doing an about face and we plan to own the conference. As attendees enter our booth, they will find themselves trapped in a maze that is all but impossible to escape without signing an agreement. However, there will be jumbo shrimp, cocktails and constant entertainment by 80′s arena bands with at least one original member.”
About Extormity
Extormity is an electronic health records mega-corporation dedicated to offering highly proprietary, difficult to customize and prohibitively expensive healthcare IT solutions. Our flagship product, the Extormity EMR Software Suite, was recently voted “Most Complex” by readers of a leading healthcare industry publication. Learn more at www.extormity.com
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
The following is an infographic released by Nuance that looks at the benefits of a virtual assistant in healthcare.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
