There's an App for That!

Did you know there are 17,000 medical applications available for download from major app stores for the Apple iPhone and iPad, and for smart phones and mobile computers? Technology is exploding and physicians are starting to use an iPad and other devices to track their patients through EMR.

Has anyone transitioned their credentials committee or MEC to use an iPad for committee work? If so share your best practices with other members.

For the full story click here:
http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag_app/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HHNMAG/Article/data/04APR2011/0411HHN_Coverstory&domain=HHNMAG


Source: H&HN

Industry Groups Pledge to Cut Healthcare Costs by $2 Trillion

The White House has announced that several healthcare industry groups have pledged to help reduce healthcare spending by 1.5 percent a year over the next ten years. These groups promised to help reform the healthcare system to make it more cost efficient.

The groups, which include the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, American Health Insurance Plans, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, have not outlined a specific plan for how they plan to save the US $2 trillion, despite increasing healthcare costs. They plan to disclose more details after meeting with President Obama.

Areas of focus for reform include: standardization, use of evidence-based best practices and treatments, health information technology, administrative simplification, and the use of quality-based incentives.

Source: The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051002222.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009051002328

CONNECT Helps Make Health IT Interoperable

The Federal Health Architecture, an initiative of the Office of the National Coordinator for Information Technology (ONC) has released CONNECT, free software which will allow existing health IT systems to connect to the the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).

The NHIN will serve as the "network of networks," allowing previously non-interoperable health IT systems to connect and share data with each other. Standards for the NHIN were developed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services based on public and private interoperability specifications. The ONC is currently working on the legal framework of information sharing over the NHIN.

"This software will strengthen our health systems' ability to share data electronically and provide a wide range of benefits to citizens," said Robert Kolodner, M.D., National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. "Benefits include up-to-date records available at the point of care; enhanced population health screening; and being able to collect case research faster to facilitate disability claims, as demonstrated by transfers of information already underway between the Social Security Administration and MedVirginia, a regional health information organization."

More than 20 federal agencies will use CONNECT to access the NHIN, including the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Social Security Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Organizations can download CONNECT for free at: http://www.connectopensource.org/. Although the download is free, organizations will be responsible for the implementation and maintenance costs of using the program.

Source: Department of Health and Human Services

Blumenthal Named Health IT Coordinator for HHS

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has selected David Blumenthal, MD, MPP to serve as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Dr. Blumenthal will lead efforts to create a secure, interoperable health IT network. This effort, which is a priority for the Obama Administration, will be funded by $19.5 billion from The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Dr. Blumenthal has extensive experience in health policy. He was recently a physician and director at the Institute of Health Policy at The Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Medicine and Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and served as director of the Harvard University Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement. Prior to that, he was senior vice president at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital and served as executive director of the Center for Health Policy and Management and as a lecturer on Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Dr. Blumenthal worked on Senator Edward Kennedy's Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research in the 1970s and as a senior health adviser to the Obama for America campaign. He has focused on issues such as the dissemination of health information technology, quality management in health care, the determinants of physician behavior, access to health services, and the extent and consequences of academic-industrial relationships in the health sciences.

Modernizing health care through the implementation of a health IT system by 2014 is expected to increase the safety and efficiency of care, minimize errors, and reduce the federal government's health care costs by $12 billion over 10 years.

Investment in Electronic Health Records Shows Improvements in Care

President Obama has pledged $19 billion to implement electronic health records (EHRs), aiming to reduce errors in care, while lowering costs.

The Los Angeles Times reports improvements at several hospitals where physicians are using EHRs to keep better track of their patients' medical histories. One hospital reported that an electronic prescribing system has virtually eliminated prescription errors.

Despite the advantages offered by EHRs, there are many facilities still weary of the transition. Implementing an EHR system will come at a cost of about $30,000 per physician. Furthermore, it is not guaranteed that one facility's system will be compatible with another facility's. There is also concern from patient groups about the security of their data and who should be granted access to it.

President Obama's health IT initiative in the stimulus package will offer funding to those facilities implementing EHRs. Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services is set to work on standards regarding the use of EHRs.

Source: The Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health-it15-2009mar15,0,3918496.story?page=2

Congress Passes Economic Stimulus Package

Last week’s goal for both the House and the Senate was to pass an economic stimulus package before the Presidents’ Day recess. The House adopted the conference report on H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Friday afternoon, with the Senate completing its vote late Friday evening. No Republicans in the House voted for the bill. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Arlen Specter (R-PA) were the only Republicans to vote for the bill in the Senate, providing the key votes needed to pass the bill. Democrats gained the support of the three Republicans after trimming what they considered to be pork spending from the bill. The final bill includes $782.2 billion in spending, down from the original proposal of over $800 billion.

Health care provisions of the stimulus package include:

• $24.7 billion in subsidies for the COBRA program, which provides health insurance for the unemployed
• $86.6 billion in state Medicaid funding
• $19 billion for health information technology development
• $10 billion toward health research and new construction projects for the National Institutes of Health
• $1 billion for disease prevention and wellness programs

President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law on Tuesday.

More States Moving Toward Health IT Implementation

According to a report by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), more states are moving toward health IT (HIT) implementation, recognizing its impact on improving the quality of care, while lowering costs.

The report shows that between 2007 and 2008, more than 370 HIT bills were introduced at the state level, three times more than the number introduced between 2005 and 2006.

Supporters of HIT cite improvements it can make in patient record-keeping and the prevention of duplicate records.

Source: Healthcare IT News
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=10590&fromRSS=true

AOIA Announces First Subscriber to XML-Based Physician Profile Service

The American Osteopathic Information Association (AOIA) has announced that Collaborative Fusion, Inc. (CFI) is the first subscriber to its XML-Based Physician Profile. CFI customers can use the service to conduct automated primary source verification of physician specialty information within the AOIA database.

AOIA developed the system to aid with emergency response efforts as part of the Emergency System for Advanced Registration of Volunteer Health Professionals (ESAR-VHP).

CFI customers will be able to access the service as part of the CORES Platform. CORES reports provide information such as certification histories that can be used for primary source verification.

Source:
American Osteopathic Information Association
Contact: Annette Gippe
agippe@osteotech.org

AHIC Advises HHS to Build Regulatory Compliance of EHRs

The American Health Information Community (AHIC) issued a recommendation to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), urging HHS to promote electronic health records (EHR) compliance.

AHIC encourages the creation of EHR templates to reduce redundancy in information collection. AHIC also encourages HHS to convene a panel of experts who can determine what licensing, regulatory, quality, and payment data should be included in EHR templates. These templates would be stored in a database accessible to the public.

To read more on AHIC's recommendations, click here:
http://www.govhealthit.com/online/news/350669-1.html

Source: Government Health IT

HHS Inspector General Says CMS HIPAA Oversight Is Ineffective

An October 27 report from the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General states that “limited actions” by CMS have “not provided effective oversight or encouraged enforcement of the HIPAA Security Rule by covered entities.”

The main concern of the report is that CMS relies on complaints in order to identify organizations to investigate for failure to comply with HIPAA regulations.

The HHS Inspector General admits that the audit cited in the report was performed in 2007, before CMS signed a contract in January 2008 with PriceWaterhouseCoopers to assist with compliance reviews. However, it still stands behind its recommendation that CMS take a more proactive approach to identifying HIPAA compliance issues.

CMS disagrees with the report. While compliance reviews would be beneficial, CMS believes that the complaint-driven system encourages voluntary compliance. It also stated that the Inspector General's report fails to highlight other steps taken by CMS to improve HIPAA compliance such as industry outreach, education, and complaint investigation and resolution.

Source: Government Health IT
http://www.govhealthit.com/online/news/350651-1.html

Click here to view the HHS Inspector General's report:
http://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region4/40705064.pdf

PCMA Opposed to Proposed DEA E-Prescribing Rule

The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) released its comments opposing a proposed rule on e-prescribing from the DEA, published on June 28, 2008.

The proposed rule would authorize prescribers to electronically submit prescriptions for controlled substances directly to pharmacies. The DEA believes that e-prescribing will reduce prescription fraud and errors due to illegible handwriting.

PCMA opposes the rule, citing four concerns:

• E-prescribing standards will prevent pharmacies from being able to substitute generic drugs
  
• Real-time DEA registration verification of prescribers is not possible because the DEA database is only updated weekly, not in real-time
  
• Prescribers should be allowed to verify their identity and license in-person at a DEA registered facility where they hold privileges, a state or professional license board, or with state or local law enforcement
  
• If the e-prescribing system remains idle for 2 minutes, prescribers must re-authenticate their request, which would create a work burden

The proposed rule can be found here: http://frwebgate4.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/PDFgate.cgi?WAISdocID=699774509331+0+1+0&WAISaction=retrieve

PCMA's Comments can be found here: http://www.pcmanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/finalpcma-docketno-dea-281.pdf

Source: Business Wire 2008