Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)

Healthcare organizations are recognizing that clinical decision support technology that integrates with electronic health records can be utilized to improve quality of care and better utilize staff and resources. Community Medical Centers, for instance, had already embarked on adoption of an EHRs system when in 2014 it added clinical decision support technology to develop an evidence-based approach to care. Such a system promised to help nurses and doctors save valuable time by integrating CDS tools into their care plan and, in turn, improving their communication with patients. [Poll: What topics will define HIMSS16?] “The goal was to enhance quality of care and efficiency,” said Lauren Garrick, Corporate Informatics Nurse and Plan of Care Coordinator at Community Medical Centers in Fresno, California. The hospital group selected ZynxCare, a plan of care solution from ZynxHealth, which provided templates to allow nurses and doctors to recommend and provide relevant services by providing access to medical research libraries, comprising hundreds of diagnoses and procedures. With this evidence-based information at their fingertips, the clinicians could  focus on their individual patients. The CDS tools also easily integrated with Community Medical Centers’ digital Epic EHR system. Garrick said a benefit for Community Medical Centers was the ability of the ZynxCare system to be customized according to the needs of the hospital group. “They have software you build and an integration process you use to integrate it into your system,” Garrick said. “You can pull up these templates for plan of care and support changes and create templates in Excel files, and our tech team can migrate the files into EHRs.” Garrick, along with Judi Binderman, VP and chief medical informatics officer for Community Medical Centers, will outline how CDS technology program was conceived, developed and implemented across the four hospitals in a presentation at HIMSS16.    [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] Their talk, “Taking Plans of Care from Clinician to Patient-Centric” will examine how Community Medical Centers replaced its homegrown, generic plans of care with the evidence-based, CDS system specific to the patient’s condition and adjustable to special requirements the patient may have. Garrick said that with the CDS program in place, nurses can now easily access information on generic conditions for patients while examining and communicating with the patient closely. “A nurse would have access to relevant information, and be able to instantly go through medical journals and web links for a patient,” she said. “For example, if they are advising someone about Sudden Infant Death prevention, a staff member can click on links and read research right at the patient’s bedside.” “Taking Plans of Care from Clinician to Patient-Centric,” is scheduled for Wednesday March 2, 2016 from 10-11 AM in the Sands Expo Convention Center Palazzo G. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Medsphere Systems, maker of the OpenVista electronic health record, and MBS/Net have merged, adding physician practice services and proprietary applications to Medsphere’s existing healthcare IT tools and services for acute and inpatient behavioral health settings.  Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but officials said MBS/Net will retain its name and operate as a division of Medsphere.  Medsphere’s OpenVista EHR is derived from the VistA system developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Service. [Also: Health Partners New England taps Medsphere for behavioral health] The addition of Cleveland-based MBS/Net expands Medsphere’s products and services to include an ambulatory physician suite of products that includes a physician practice management system, ambulatory EHR, document management system and a scheduling app. It also includes the company’s outsourced revenue cycle management and practice hardware management services, officials say. The Medsphere-MBS/Net merger follows the March 2015 merger of Medsphere and Phoenix Health Systems, which provides a range of healthcare IT services, including systems implementation, compliance project management and more. MBS/Net’s products and services coupled with Medsphere’s OpenVista platform will further interoperability between Medsphere’s hospital clients and their affiliated physician communities, Medsphere President and CEO Irv Lichtenwald said in a statement. "We’ve seen the benefits the practice management and revenue cycle solutions have created for MBS/Net clients, in some instances boosting individual practice revenue by more than 100 percent," he said. "The focus of MBS/Net solutions on physician practices and the recent addition of Phoenix Health Systems’ consulting and services enables Medsphere to meet the needs of providers across the spectrum of healthcare." Twitter: @HealthITNews

HIMSS is launching the HIMSS Executive Institute, a community of senior leaders at provider organizations that have achieved either EMRAM Stage 7 or Davies Award recognition. “These people represent the most sophisticated providers, the best and the brightest,” HIMSS Executive Vice President Carla Smith said. “These already high-performing executives can participate in the HIMSS Executive Institute to take their IT even higher to ultimately improve health. These are people who want the best for patients and clinicians.” HIMSS Analytics honors health systems with its Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model which recognizes a truly paperless enterprise as Stage 7. JoAnn Klinedinst, HIMSS Vice President of Professional Development explained that a Stage 7 recognition represents a significant accomplishment in technology execution. And Smith added that earning a Davies Award is yet another big step technologically. [Also: 11 essential quotes from notable HIMSS keynotes] HIMSS launched the Executive Institute in November of 2015 and has since conducted monthly webinars on topics including: maximizing value from HIT investments, revalidating Stage 7 status, EMRAM 2.0, HIMSS16.  HEI has 87 members from 49 North American-based providers. HEI’s executive committee, meanwhile, is comprised of nine familiar faces in the health IT fray: Pam Arora, SVP/CIO, Children’s Health Ray Gensinger, MD, CIO, Hospital Sisters Health System Brian Jacobs, MD, CIO & CMIO, Children’s National Health System Kyle Johnson, CIO & System Vice President, Eastern Maine Medical Center John Kenagy, PhD, Senior Vice President & CIO, Legacy Health Don Reichert, CIO, MetroHealth System Patty Sengstack, RN, CNIO, Bon Secours Health System Ferdi Velasco, MD, CHIO, Texas Health Resources Greg Wolverton, CIO, ARcare At HIMSS16, HIMSS Executive Institute members will meet for a number of briefings and private meetings, including a roundtable on cybersecurity challenges particular to EHRs. Members will also have access to the Executive Institute Lounge, get reservations for the SuperNAP Data Center Tour and receive VIP seating at HIMSS16 keynotes. A range of IT executives are eligible to become members, including CIOs, chief information security officers, chief technology officers, chief medical officers, chief health information officers, chief nursing informatics officers, chief clinical innovation officers, to name just a few. Smith said that because EMRAM 7 and Davies winners are two IT-oriented designations, technology professionals are the tip of the spear for Health Executive Insight membership, and the long-term plan is to expand that to any executives at Davies or EMRAM Stage 7 winners. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] “At some point we’re going to be interested in attracting CEOs, CFOs and COOs,” Smith said, “because technology executives often report to them and because those leaders increasingly understand the power of clinical and business intelligence in successfully running their business.” Smith added HEI is global in scope, though in different parts of the world it operates under various names and has other membership criteria. In other countries, for instance, membership is open to senior executives at Davies-winning hospitals as well as EMRAM Stage 6 and 7 achievers. “One of our aspirations is to have face-to-face meetings at member’s facilities wherein they host in-depth tours including education and networking,” Smith said. “It’s the opportunity to interact with your true peers, very high achieving individuals at very high achieving IT shops at providers doing remarkable things.”  Twitter: @SullyHIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

The HCI Group, a healthcare IT services consultancy, will highlight at HIMSS16 its new partnership with HIMSS to become the healthcare IT society’s first EMRAM global education provider. HIMSS Analytics provides the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model with a focus on important areas of healthcare advancement. EMRAM is used globally as a measurement of the maturity of healthcare facilities as they leverage technology to improve the quality of healthcare. [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] As a HIMSS global EMRAM education partner, HCI will provide client education and consulting to healthcare provider organizations to help them improve electronic health records EMRAM scores and prepare them for HIMSS Analytics validation as Stage 6 and Stage 7 organizations on the world scale. HCI Group CEO Ricky Caplin said the certification enables HCI “to become expert partners with HIMSS Analytics and support the values brought by EMR adoption.” See all of our HIMSS16 previews Also at HIMSS16, HCI Group executives will be highlighting the results of a new partnership with data security intelligence firm Securonix. The deal is designed to bolster HCI Group’s adaptable security capabilities in a range of environments. Caplin said the partnership with Securonix addresses healthcare organizations’ need to move beyond using HIPAA as the standard for security and allow HCI to offer security-focused solutions. The companies will demonstrate their enhanced security service platform at HIMSS16 at The HCI Group’s booth, No. 6832. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Kalorama Information says electronic health record systems are here to stay after recent situations in Flint, Michigan and Hollywood Presbyterian in which electronic medical records played key roles in times of crisis. In Flint, Michigan, where residents are dealing with a lead poisoning water crisis, the lead was discovered as the result of searches conducted using data from an Epic EHR system. [Also: Flint hospital hit with cyberattack tied to hacker group Anonymous] Paper records would have failed the community, Kalorama claimed in its report, "EMR 2015: The Market for Electronic Medical Records." In Flint, the key physician involved in the case reviewed the EHRs of the children whose blood had been tested at the local hospital. Paper records alone would not have lent themselves to the kind of research needed to detect patterns, Kalorama researchers said. "The side benefit of EMR conversion, aside from cost savings, is that practice would improve and providers, academics and governments could obtain better epidemiological information," said Kalorama Information Publisher Bruce Carlson in a statement. "The visibility of the Flint, Michigan, story provides a real-world example of the benefits oft-stated during the conversion and incentive campaign," he said. [Also: Hollywood Presbyterian gives in to hackers, pays $17,000 ransom] The Kalorama report also points to EHR's vulnerabilities – most notably the recent case of medical data being held hostage by hackers at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, which ultimately opted to pay $17,000 to rescue its information from cybercriminals. Kalorama points to questions raised in that ransomware incident: whether the hospital properly encrypted information, whether staff was properly trained in anti-phishing techniques, whether EMR use audits were conducted, and if anyone was designated as chief security officer at the hospital. "Such services and consulting offer opportunities for the industry, which has always been as much of a service industry as a software one," the Kalorama report said. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] The incident comes a time when many physicians and hospitals have and are continuing to convert to electronic records, driven by federal government incentives, Carlson points out. Three out of four U.S. hospitals have a basic EMR system and most EMRs are being used without incident," Carlson said. "Ransomware attacks are not limited by any means to EMR or healthcare facilities as corporations and even police departments have suffered attacks." Twitter: @HealthITNews

The electronic health record software maker said it will debut early components of new cloud-based technology at HIMSS16.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine are making progress tackling the issues associated with incomplete data in patients' digital health records. Founded a year ago, the HIMSS-SIIM Enterprise Imaging Workgroup is focused on unmanaged – and sometimes missing – imaging data in patients' electronic health history. “Despite widespread electronic health record implementations, many patients and doctors find the majority of their clinical data lies in poorly integrated diagnostic image, documentation image and clinical scanned document silos,” Christopher Roth, MD, vice chair of radiology and director of imaging informatics strategy at Duke Health, said in a statement. [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] This is where the workgroup comes in, HIMSS and SIMM members point out. The group offers a platform for sharing enterprise imaging strategies, creating awareness that images are an essential part of the electronic health record, inclusive of, yet broader than the more pervasive radiology or cardiology domains. “This joint effort between HIMSS and SIIM highlights the importance of this topic and provides timely resources that offer organizations insights on how to manage and share imaging data across the enterprise,” Joyce Sensmeier, HIMSS vice president, informatics, HIMSS North America, said in a statement. In its first year, the workgroup has addressed critical topics resulting in the publication of several whitepapers. Among them: Enterprise Imaging Governance: Needs, Models, and Intents to Consider; The Current State and Path Forward for Enterprise Image Viewing; A Foundation for Enterprise Imaging; Orders Versus Encounters Based Image Capture: Implications Pre- and Post-Procedure Workflow, Technical and Build Capabilities, Resulting, Analytics and Revenue Capture; Workflow Challenges of Enterprise Imaging; Technical Challenges of Enterprise Imaging, and Considerations for Exchanging and Sharing Medical Images for Improved Collaboration and Patient Care. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Healthcare organizations are making big investments in population health and patient engagement platforms as they prepare to move past meaningful use and toward value-based reimbursement, according to "The Big Mega HIT Purchasing Report" released Monday by market research firm peer60. Electronic health records remain core to healthcare IT, according to the report, which gathered 567 responses from CEOs, CIOs, nursing and financial leaders and others with purchasing authority at hospitals and medical practices. However,many customers are still dissatisfied with their products. Projected EHR replacement rates for 2016 show 23 percent of health providers (inpatient and outpatient combined) planning to look for new vendors, according to peer60. [Also: Hospitals keeping close eye on revenue cycle vendors] Still, "population health and patient engagement are the hottest areas by a wide margin," wrote peer60 executive vice president Chris Jensen in the report. "It’s really no surprise these two segments continue to lead the way among hospital IT upgrades considering their impact on successful migration to value-based care and value-based purchasing." As for pop health, peer60s sees some stabilization in contracting plans. In 2015, roughly 25 percent of providers were certain they'd keep their population health vendor; in 2016, that amount has doubled. "The pressure is on for vendors that have not already made their mark in this market because they’re about to be squeezed by increasing renewal rates and a declining pool of hospitals that have not already adopted," said Jensen. [Also: New trends ahead for imaging informatics] But when it comes to patient engagement, authors see the opposite. "More enterprise vendors are capturing more of the minds of providers, while interest in the best of breed crowd is beginning to dwindle," Jensen said. Other big purchasing trends are also unsurprising. Data security, enterprise analytics and revenue cycle management are all in play. Security technology, especially, has seen a big jump in provider interest. "In 2015 it was at the bottom of the list of top IT priorities and placed third this year," said Jensen. "Since this is not a growth market with 90 percent of hospitals already employing a true data security solution, the jump in interest in this area likely means the replacement market for more robust solutions in this very critical segment is heating up. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN

The hospital’s director of biomedical engineering will discuss at HIMSS16 securely bringing biomedical devices into the network, including mitigating existing gaps.

Nuance will unveil its Dragon Medical One Platform at HIMSS16, an evolution of its speech recognition and documentation tool that aims to redefine the relationship clinical users have with healthcare technology, the company says. According to Jonathon Dreyer, Nuance's director of cloud and mobile solutions marketing, increasing demands on physicians – not least the number of places they need to be and IT systems with which they're supposed to interact – has changed the equation, putting a premium on flexibility and mobility. Nuance touts its new cloud-based Dragon Medical One platform as a tool to offer physicians a unified speech recognition functionality – irrespective of care settings, workflows, devices or applications. The new version brings analytics functionality that keep tabs on the time spent documenting, helping health organizations track efficiency and productivity. Additionally, workflow enhancements such as Dragon Medical Advisor offer notes to help improve ICD-10 specificity, case mix index and more.  A pair of new features, PowerPack and PowerMic Mobile, enable users to tap into evidence-based content using a smartphone as a secure microphone to dictate, edit and navigate the EHR on any workstation. Whether they are dictating into EHRs or mobile messaging apps, the Dragon Medical One desktop app offers secure speech recognition wherever physicians need to document. With a unique Nuance Healthcare ID, doctors gain access to an ecosystem of personalized tools. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] "We are always interested in technology that improves productivity, and cloud-based speech supports the ways physicians work and eases the effort of entering clinical documentation into patient records," said Don Fosen, director of IT at Naperville, Illinois-based Edward-Elmhurst Hospital, in a prepared statement, noting that the tools "have let us scale voice recognition in a way that we simply couldn't have done in any other way." Nuance’s Dreyer added that the vendor has been seeing a shift in doctors’ workflow.  "There's a general trend of physicians being in more places, having to interact with not just the EHR but with other technologies as part of their daily workflow," Dreyer said.  Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.