Several recent studies have shown the vast majority of doctors in the U.S. have not adopted the standardized use of Electronic Health Records. Dr. Angel Garcia, CEO of EHR solutions provider Global Medical Consultants, believes it’s one of the driving forces behind rising healthcare costs. He addresses this problem in his book “Do No Harm: Saving Our Health Care System“.

Early estimates from the 2010 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS), conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, showed the percentage of physicians with EHRs that met the criteria of a basic EHR system by state ranged from 12.5  to 51.5 %.  However, if you exclude the 27 states with unreliable estimates, the percentage of physicians having fully functional systems that met the criteria ranged from only 9.7  to 27.2%.

“Tracking medical problems can prevent complications of chronic illnesses such as heart attacks, strokes and can increase the overall quality of care,” said Dr. Garcia. “Moreover, the cost savings of having widespread adoption of EHR in the U.S. healthcare industry would reduce healthcare costs by more than 30 percent per year — a savings of more than $720 billion per year. That’s more than enough savings to insure all 47 million Americans currently without health insurance.”Newly released data suggests almost one-third of physicians now own an iPad. Also, according to a report by the “American Medical News” in April 2011, nearly 33 percent of all doctors indicate they own the new technology. Another report from the market research firm Knowledge Networks stated that 27 percent of primary care and specialty physicians own an iPad or similar device, five times the rate of the general population.

What’s unclear to Dr. Garcia is the role the technology has in their practice. “Some doctors surf the web and download movies or music on a device that could help save the industry that is in crisis. It’s time for the healthcare industry to catch up to other industries and adopt an electronic solution, not just record-keeping but more importantly, clinical tracking of medical problems that will make patients safer and healthcare affordable.”

This video, produced by the BBC  is amazing on so many levels.  It is definitely worth taking four minutes to watch.  HT to John Halamka for posting this in his weekly “Cool Technology of the Week” post.

ChiroTouch,  a provider of chiropractic practice management software, recently launched a  EHR stimulus calculator on its website to help chiropractors estimate potential ARRA incentives.

“The stimulus package represents an incredible, unprecedented opportunity for chiropractors,” said Robert Moberg, President of ChiroTouch. “And so, in addition to our monthly webinar series that keeps the chiropractic community abreast of the constant flow of new information, we developed a tool that bridges the gap between questions and the curiosity doctors may have—and the actual potential incentive that would result from their participation.”

The ChiroTouch EHR Stimulus Calcluator:

- Estimates potential ARRA incentive
- Is simple and intuitive
- Provides results in seconds
- Allows estimation for multiple providers in one office
- Graphs total stimulus available by year
- Shows totals per provider, or for entire practice
- Is continually updated to reflect changes as they are announced

Chiropractic software designed from the ground up to maximize efficiencies for virtually every process, including patient self check-in, scheduling, SOAP notes, billing, interoffice communication and more; ChiroTouch has developed its HIPAA-compliant system to drastically reduce the time it takes to perform tasks that chiropractors are already doing.  That gives chiropractors more time to see more patients—resulting in increased referrals, improved efficiencies, and a direct, measurable impact on practice profitability.

“We’ve invested considerable time, effort, and research to make this a truly powerful resource,” added Robert. “It was specifically designed for chiropractors, and is the only calculator in the market that focuses on both the positive aspects of the stimulus that will bring benefit to the doctor, as well as the looming penalties for those that fail to adopt a certified EHR system. It’s also unique in that the EHR stimulus calculator allows doctors to select a planned year of adoption to estimate how it will affect their bottom line.”

To learn more, visit http://stimulus.chirotouch.com/ehr-stimulus-calculator

About ChiroTouch

ChiroTouch, by Integrated Practice Solutions Inc., is the premier provider of innovative chiropractic software technology solutions for the chiropractic industry. Fusing advanced software systems with superior support services, we partner with chiropractors across the country to help them automate operations, improve patient care, and increase profitability.  Visit www.chirotouch.com.

According to a new report from Accenture, healthcare organizations planning large investments in e-health solutions face challenges in five interrelated disciplines of information governance — data privacy, confidentiality, security, quality and integrity.

The report, Information Governance: The Foundation for Effective e-Health, details and explores specific targets for the five disciplines and provides an actionable framework that healthcare organizations, such as care providers, insurers, and public health organizations can use to perform a high-level assessment of their current information management situation, challenges and opportunities. The objective is to ensure investments in e-health are supporting strategic goals of increasing efficiency and reducing costs, reducing errors, and improving patient outcomes. The target areas for evaluation explained in the report are:

Data Privacy

– Patient consent models and mechanisms

– Patient-provider relationship-based access controls

– Patient access controls

– Effective data security and data handling policies

Data Confidentiality

– Role-based access control models

– Patient and provider record sealing

– Identification and authentication

– Anonymization and pseudonymization

Data Security

– Message integrity and communications security

– Event audit and alerting

– IT security audit

– Network integrity

Data Quality

– Error correction

– Data validation

– System and interface certification

– Standards-driven architecture

Data Integrity

– Code integrity

– System hardening

– Interoperability governance

– Standards-driven architecture and standards management

The new report draws heavily on Accenture’s experience supporting health care organizations’ efforts to transform administrative and clinical systems, capture and manage data, develop evidence-based insights, and connect fragmented health care systems.

“Health care organizations are making unprecedented investments in e-health systems, and this new framework speaks to the practical but rather complex implementation challenge, namely to ensure the investments are successful,” said Mark Knickrehm, global managing director of Accenture’s health care practice. “From working on e-health implementations around the world, we have built and are sharing this framework to help organizations address data privacy concerns, ensure compliance with standards and regulations, maximize the value of electronic health record systems, and support physician adoption.”

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 190,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$21.58 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2009. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

SOURCE: Accenture

While more than one-third of home health care and nursing home organizations said they expect the government’s economic stimulus package to increase use of healthcare information technology, another 52% said the stimulus package will have little or no impact on their businesses, according to a recent survey by IVANS, Inc.

“Home health and nursing home care is expected to be one of the fastest growing provider segments over the next several years,” said Clare DeNicola, IVANS President and CEO.  “IVANS analysis reveals that while providers are optimistic about reform’s ability to improve patient outcomes, budget concerns, understaffing, and the lack of clarity in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act regarding stimulus funding for long-term care has them concerned.”

Providers Looking to Electronic Health Records to Improve Patient Care
According to the survey, nearly 70% of home health care and nursing home organizations say that electronic health records (EHRs) will have a positive impact on their businesses, and 56% of respondents have begun or plan to implement EHRs within the next year.  Other key technology priorities for long-term care facilities include implementation of wireless networks, solutions to provide electronic documentation at point of care, and business continuity planning, the survey shows.

When it comes to sharing data outside the organizations, survey respondents were not as positive.   More than 70% of respondents said they have no plans to participate in a Health Information Exchange (HIE).  Experience with failed efforts in the past, lack of an immediate driver to move forward, and no standards were all noted as barriers to implementation of HIEs.

The survey, conducted by IVANS among 500 healthcare providers in May 2009, drew responses from more than 300 home health care and nursing home organizations, whose specific survey responses are reflected in this release.

A healthcare industry association projects that hospitals will spend more than $14 billion on information technology systems during the next five years, but it said capital outlays will remain relatively flat until stimulus-related funding kicks in.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) discussed hospital spending trends June 16, based on the group’s tracking of more than 5,000 U.S. hospitals. HIMSS pegged hospital outlays, impacted by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, at $14.4 billion through 2014. Expenditures on systems such as electronic medical records, computerized practitioner order entry and clinical decision support is expected to hit $1.7 billion this year.

Mike Davis, executive vice president of HIMSS Analytics, suggested hospitals face a constrained funding environment in the near term. He said banks are still not lending to the hospitals he’s encountered, including those that have submitted business plans based on ARRA. In addition, hospital endowment funds, a source of funding for capital acquisitions, have lost 20 percent to 30 percent of their value in some cases, he said.

For the rest of this article please see the govhealthit.com website here.

Patient privacy rights are at the heart of research by a University of Virginia professor.

The Federal Stimulus Package is pumping $20 billion into the healthcare system to move it completely to electronic records, but state privacy laws may slow that down in Virginia and across America.

Electronic Medical Records (or EMRs) have been around since the 1970′s, but today less than half of America’s hospitals have a basic EMR system.

Virginia is one of several states with strict privacy protection for hospital patients.

“There is this idea that there may be identity fraud, in particular medical identity fraud,” says University of Virginia Economics professor Amalia Miller.

While the enhanced rules should protect hospital patients in Virginia, at the same time, they could slow down vital sharing of information between hospitals.

“One of the big benefits of going electronic about sharing information could be suppressed or blocked, and this would be an unintended consequence of these strong privacy regulations,” Miller says.

Miller says the investment in a widespread switch to electronic records would not only save lives, but up to $34 billion nationwide.

“It could save money by reducing costs spent on the administration of the hospital,” she says, “reducing time that staff has to spend on paperwork.”

Miller also says there are worries that the switch could compromise privacy.

“You can imagine with certain conditions, patients or individuals wouldn’t want their insurers to know, they wouldn’t want their employers to know if they’re getting health insurance from their employer,” says Miller.

Still she believes lawmakers can find a way to computerize records and still give patients the privacy they want.

For the rest of this article please see the nbc29.com website here.

A MIDDLE-AGED man felt chest pains. As an executive at IBM, an information-technology firm, he had excellent health insurance, so he went straight to a specialist. His cardiologist put him through a bunch of tests, including a computerized tomography scan. A radiologist noticed something odd in his neck, so he went to a neck surgeon, who checked him out and found nothing. He went back to the cardiologist, who gave him an angiogram, which caused dangerous complications and landed him in hospital for a while. In all, he ran up more than $150,000 in medical expenses before the chest pains disappeared on their own.

When they reappeared several months later, he spoke to Paul Grundy, the head of health-care technology at IBM. Dr Grundy, a doctor of preventive medicine by training, asked him if his lifestyle had changed recently. The executive mentioned that he had taken up gardening again. Dr Grundy quickly established that his chest pains sprang from a muscle he had strained through overzealous weed-whacking. …

Such stories are all too common. Americans will spend a staggering $2.5 trillion on health care in 2009, says the Congressional Budget Office. As a share of national income that is far more than other rich countries spend, despite America’s slightly younger population. To say that Americans do not get value for money is putting it mildly. They live no longer than Europeans and die younger than the Japanese. Meanwhile, 46m of them lack health insurance.

For the rest of this great article please see the Economist website here.

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

—-President John F. Kennedy

Imagine if President Kennedy in his famous speech didn’t stop at this point.

Instead, he started describing the rocket.

Assume he demanded a rocket with only two, or maybe four stages; that he insisted on a specific type of fuel, or certain weight and speed.

Would the American space program have succeeded? I doubt it, and you should too.

The Obama administration’s plan to spend $19.2 billion on electronic medical records as the sole path to achieve health care automation is the equivalent of Kennedy dictating to NASA the specifications of the rocket carrying Neil Armstrong to the moon.

Health care automation is the new national project for good reasons.

To read the rest of this article at the Atlanta Journal Constitution website click here.

A push for widespread use of electronic health records (EHRs) has become a central part of the national health care debate, but a new study shows that the technology is not equally available to American patients.

Your own doctor’s use of EHRs mostly depends on whether she practices alone or as part of a group or clinic, with group practitioners more likely to adopt the new technology, the researchers found.

But researchers Esther Hing and Catharine Burt also uncovered differences in EHR adoption among the doctors who treat underserved minorities, which they report in the May issue of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

To read the complete article please see the Newswise Medical News site here.