Weekly Overseas Health IT Links – 16th September, 2017.
Here are a few I came across last week. Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.-----http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/4-former-national-coordinators-cio-and-ceo-weigh-how-fix-meaningful-use4 former national coordinators, a CIO and a CEO weigh in on how to fix meaningful useA rock star lineup of health IT pros including Karen DeSalvo, John Halamka weigh in on where the program went astray and suggest the direction that government and industry...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - September 16, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David More MB PhD FACHI Source Type: blogs
Take back our practices with physician cooperatives
One of the biggest points of contention in the ongoing discussion of burnout is that the system of health care is flawed. The endless bureaucracy, decreasing physician pay, and increasing meaningful use requirements that spawn endless clicking on an already inefficient electronic medical record platform have become unbearable by most practicing physicians today.
Furthermore, all the talk about mindfulness only riles up more anger in physicians as they feel they are being blamed for their burnout. While there is a case for physicians taking personal responsibility for their own self-care skills (or sometimes lack thereo...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 14, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/maiysha-clairborne" rel="tag" > Maiysha Clairborne, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Practice Management Primary Care Public Health & Policy Source Type: blogs
Hospitals Obstructing Medical Record Exchange; Here Are the Reasons Why
I recently came across an article byBruce Fryer discussing the problems he encountered when a relative of his was hospitalized atSt. Josephs Hospital in Atlanta which is part of Emory Healthcare. He was trying to get access to the patient's electronic records in a hospital across the street and was encountering an interoperability problem, a topic that I have blogged about repeatedly (see, for example:NYT Op-Ed on EHR Interoperability Blames Vendors and Greedy Hospitals;Integration and Interoperability Are Essential for Growth of Digital Pathology; Hospitals Need to Pressure Their EHR Vendors to Improve Software ...
Source: Lab Soft News - September 14, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Business Healthcare Information Technology Hospital Executive Management Medical Ethics Source Type: blogs
We Can Improve Care Management
As a physician and CIO, I ’m quick to spot inefficiencies in healthcare workflow. More importantly, as the care navigator for my family, I have extensive firsthand experience with patient facing processes.My wife ’s cancer treatment, my father’s end of life care, and my own recent primary hypertension diagnosis taught me how we can do better.Last week, when my wife received a rejection in coverage letter from Harvard Pilgrim/Caremark, it highlighted the imperative we have to improve care management workflow in the US.Since completing her estrogen positive, progesterone positive, HER2 negative breast cancer treat...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - September 12, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Let ’s Adapt Health Care Quality Measures To Meet The Needs Of Transgender People
Editor’s Note: This month’s issue of Health Affairs also features a personal essay by a transgender doctor about meeting the health care needs of transgender patients.
As transgender people become increasingly visible, so have the challenges they face in our health care system. In response, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) recommends better educating providers on how to competently care for transgender patients, and the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) recommends collecting gender identity information in electronic medical records and conducting more research around trans...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 11, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Landon Hughes and Heather Pearson Tags: Featured Health Equity Population Health Quality Alternative Payment Models equality LGBT health quality measures transgender health Source Type: blogs
DirectTrust, CHIME Deal Not All It ’s Cracked Up To Be
Recently, CHIME and DirectTrust announced a deal that sounded pretty huge on the surface. In a joint press release announcing the agreement, the two organizations said they had agreed to work together “to promote the universal deployment of the Direct Trust framework and health information exchange network as the common electronic interface for health information exchange across the U.S.”
Their plans include making the Direct exchange network available anywhere they can, including hospitals, medical practices, pharmacies, labs, long-term care facilities, payers, insurers and health departments, and to top it off, on ap...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - September 7, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Anne Zieger Tags: Direct Project EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR Healthcare Healthcare Interoperability HealthCare IT HIE C-CDA Care Everywhere Carequality Cerner CHIME CommonWell Health Alliance DirectTrust Epic Source Type: blogs
Information technology-naive defense lawyers vs. " strident critic of electronic health records "
A tale from the trenches.In recent years, as a result of the 2010 IT-related injury and 2011 death of my mother, I have engaged myself as an independent EHR forensic expert regarding evidentiary and patient harm issues in medical malpractice litigation. Interestingly and disappointingly, I still often find that hospital attitudes towards health IT safety and information transparency have changed little since 2010 or, for that matter, the 1990s when I did my postdoc in medical informatics. Hospitals and defense attorneys often (ab)use the lack of technology experience of judges to delay or prevent evidentiary tra...
Source: Health Care Renewal - September 1, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: bad health IT Heathkit H8 Jay Hancock Kaiser Health News medical malpractice PICIS Pulsecheck Source Type: blogs
IT Leaders Question Allscripts Acquisition of McKesson EIS
Not long ago, I shared the results of a poll featured on HISTalk on the potential benefits of the Allscripts acquisition of McKesson EIS. The poll asked readers “Who will benefit most from the proposed acquisition of McKesson EIS by Allscripts?”
Roughly equal numbers of respondents said Allscripts customers would benefit (29%) and McKesson customers (27%). However, a new research report from Reaction Data suggests that many of their peers doubt that things will work out for McKesson customers or even do much to build Allscripts’ market position.
A number of health IT leaders quoted in the report say they’re fea...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - August 31, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Anne Zieger Tags: EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR EMR Selection HealthCare IT Hospital EHR Allscripts Cerner Epic HIMSS Analytics HISTalk McKesson EIS Paragon Reaction Data Siemens Source Type: blogs
Administrators who don ’t see patients often make the most important decisions
I was browsing the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, as I often do, and an article by one Andy Slavitt, MBA, and Gail Wilensky, PhD, titled “Reforming Medicaid,” caught my eye. From 2015 to 2017, Mr. Slavitt served as the Acting Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). In that role, he oversaw the government’s awful Meaningful Use EHR program, and helped to shape the new even more awful MACRA value-based pay program which is being implemented this year.
In the article, there are a number of policy recommendations, the first one being “making Medicaid a...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 27, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/matthew-hahn" rel="tag" > Matthew Hahn, MD < /a > Tags: Policy Cardiology Diabetes Endocrinology Medicare Public Health & Washington Watch Source Type: blogs
To Combat ‘Information Blocking,’ Look To HIPAA
Back in 2009, when the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act became law, US taxpayers committed $300 million to seed nationwide health information exchange. Taxpayers also agreed to pay what turned out to be $35 billion in incentive payments for physicians and hospitals to adopt and “meaningfully use” electronic health records (EHRs). In implementing the meaningful-use program, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) required eligible providers and hospitals to attest to certain activities, including engaging in health information exchange and providing their patients ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 24, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Lucia C. Savage Tags: Health IT 21st Century Cures electronic health records HIPAA information blocking medical data privacy Source Type: blogs
CMS Issues Proposed Rule on EHR Reporting Requirements
A recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed rule would ease EHR reporting requirements over the next two years. The proposed regulation, which covers the 2018 Medicare payments for hospital inpatient services, relaxes data reporting requirements for Clinical Quality Measures (CQMs) that are part of the EHR Incentive program. In 2017, eligible hospitals demonstrating meaningful use for the first time would need to submit two self-selected quarters of CQM data and report at least six selected CQMs, down from eight. CMS offered similar flexibility when it released its Hospital Outpatient Prospective P...
Source: Policy and Medicine - August 18, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
A New Pothole on the Health Interoperability Superhighway
By ADRIAN GROPPER, MD
On July 24, the new administration kicked off their version of interoperability work with a public meeting of the incumbent trust brokers. They invited the usual suspects Carequality, CARIN Alliance, CommonWell, Digital Bridge, DirectTrust, eHealth Exchange, NATE, and SHIEC with the goal of driving for an understanding of how these groups will work with each other to solve information blocking and longitudinal health records as mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act.
Of the 8 would-be trust brokers, some go back to 2008 but only one is contemporary to the 21stCC act: The CARIN Alliance. The growing li...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 15, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Interoperability ONC Tech Source Type: blogs
What Should We Conclude From ‘ Mixed ’ Results In Payment Reform Evaluations?
Now that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) repeal-and-replace process is coming to an end, perhaps it’s a good time to turn to an area of health policy where there is considerably more bipartisan consensus: payment reform. Even here, however, challenges remain. A recent spate of evaluations, reviews, and published perspectives have cast doubt on the promise and spending-reduction potential of care coordination initiatives, shared savings accountable care organizations (ACOs), patient-centered medical homes, and bundled payments in particular. As the Trump administration, members of Congress, states, and other health care sta...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 14, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Len Nichols, Alison E. Cuellar, Lorens Helmchen, Gilbert Gimm and Jay Want Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Payment Policy Accountable Care Organizations Patient-Centered Medical Home Payment Reform Source Type: blogs
How to unite doctors in these divided times
American doctors are unhappy about a lot of things. Americans, in general, are unhappy about a lot of things. In many ways, both groups share similar concerns. But the road back to happiness may follow a similar path for both, as well.
American doctors once felt part of something special. American health care, by reputation at least, was the best in the world, and we were its proud emissaries. We functioned with a satisfying sense of autonomy. Patient care was paramount, and the business of health care derived from that ethic, not the other way around.
And Americans once felt like members of a special club. America symboli...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 12, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/matthew-hahn" rel="tag" > Matthew Hahn, MD < /a > Tags: Policy Health reform Hospital Source Type: blogs
Deep Dive Into Proposed MACRA Rule
As we recently reported, CMS published their proposed rule to update the MACRA Quality Payment Program (QPP). The QPP is a part of a fundamental shift from fee-for-service to a more value-based health care system. Below, we offer a more in-depth look at the proposed rule.
Some Major Points
MACRA eliminated the sustainable growth rate formula and replaced it with a 0.5% rate increase through 2019. Physicians are encouraged to pick one of two Quality Payment Programs: 1) the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) or 2) Alternative Payment Models (APMs). MIPS folds together CMS legal programs of Meaningful Use, ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - August 10, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
