Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)
The Citizens' Council for Health Freedom (CCHF) has added its voice to those of four Republican lawmakers who recently called for a temporary halt to meaningful use incentives until the program is revamped. But, unlike the lawmakers, CCHF wants federal involvement in EHRs eliminated altogether.
As director of the HIT Initiatives Group in the Office of E-health Standards and Services at CMS, Elizabeth Holland is front and center at the rules table, shaping the meaningful use rules that many view as driving healthcare transformation. Holland is a veteran policymaker. She joined CMS in 1991, right around the time the proposed rule for the Medicare fee schedule was in the works. CMS received 100,000 comments - all on paper.
Healthcare organizations have a lot on their plates nowadays, and the challenges are only growing. Meaningful use is a big one, of course - not least Stage 2's new focus on patient engagement.
HIMSS Analytics' Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) has been tracking hospitals' slow upward climb towards advanced health IT use - an eight step ladder, from paper-based to totally wired - since 2005.
Imagine a clinical database containing medical histories, diseases and demographic data taken from millions of patients across the U.S. Imagine data analytics that could help eliminate healthcare disparities and socioeconomic inequalities, could help pinpoint certain diseases in particular populations, reduce morbidity numbers, and rather than improve healthcare for a single patient, could potentially improve the healthcare of millions across a geographic area.
The American Medical Association recently called on CMS to exempt physicians who were close to retirement from the meaningful use program, arguing it would be too costly, perhaps even driving doctors to drop their Medicare patients to avoid the program's penalties come 2015.
As it rolls out a new electronic health record system across eight hospitals, MaineHealth will also deploy speech recognition technology to make it easier and quicker to fill in the patient chart.
The Seventh Annual National Health IT Week, held September 10-14, celebrated the need for health information technology in making comprehensive healthcare reform possible, and was a testament to the progress being made.
If renowned nurse, "The Lady with the Lamp," Florence Nightingale were alive today, she would most likely be amazed and pleased. Nightingale (1820-1910) meticulously collected data on healthcare and used it to improve outcomes. She was the founder of several data analysis tools still used today, according to American Nurses Association.
To some today - and perhaps to Nightingale - healthcare IT adoption may be going too slow, but there is achievement worth noting. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently reported it has paid nearly $7 billion in Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record payments since the program's beginning in 2011, with $6.9 billion paid out to 143,800 physicians and hospitals in total program estimates through the end of August.
In July, the totals were $6.6 billion since the program's start, paid to 132,511 eligible providers.
Of course, it's not all roses. Most hospitals and health systems report being well along in completing electronic health record implementation, but many still have doubts about their ability to meet new EHR standards, according to a new poll from KPMG.
Forty-eight percent of hospital and health system business leaders who participated in the survey said they were confident in their organization's level of readiness to meet Stage 1 meaningful use requirements, say KPMG officials. Thirty-nine percent said they were somewhat confident, 3 percent said they were not confident at all, and 10 percent didn't know what their level of readiness was.
With the impending election and fears that the Affordable Care Act may be dismantled should Republicans take power, some are also afraid the frenzy to cut federal spending could blossom into cutbacks on health IT incentives into the future. But for now, HIT incentives are safe through the HITECH Act.
One thing is certain. With or without incentives, healthcare IT will move forward, if simply to catch up with a rapidly advancing tech society, accustomed to new smart phones and computers with new bells and whistles on an ongoing basis.
It may be only the seventh year - a small step - for National Health IT Week, but it is part of a big leap for healthcare consumers.
Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. What about usability when it comes to machines and especially software? Is it unreasonable to expect elegance?
Michael Grunwald, author of The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era, spoke to Healthcare IT News about the making of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and about why health information technology may be the most lasting and transformative pillar of the stimulus bill.