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Drummond Group certifies gMed's EHR system
GMed's gGastro EHR system, which has endoscopy report writing and patient portal features, has received certification from the Drummond Group, an ONC authorized certification body. The certification indicates the platform complies with requirements set by HHS for meaningful use. BeckersASC.com (10/24)
Red the whole article: http://www.beckersasc.com/gastroenterology-and-endoscopy/ggastro-ehr-system-receives-full-ehr-certification.html
TJG, thanks for the update. It should be a sticky. Now that pic is 1 fine mobile, tell me you own that sweet ride.
8 Elements of Total Patient Engagement
Oct 17, 2013 07:18 am | By: John
I came across this great whitepaper that looks at 8 Elements of Total Patient Engagement. I love that someone dug into the topic of patient engagement like they did in this whitepaper. It’s not a comprehensive look at patient engagement, but it sure provides a great starting point for organizations that want to become more patient centered. Take a look at the first 4 elements to get a taste of what I mean:
1. Understand how to synthesize and deliver actionable information to patients
2. Facilitate engagement in all settings across the continuum of care
3. Activate patients at their convenience
4. Integrate seamlessly into IT systems and workflow
I love number 3 and 4 on this list. Far too often we translate patient engagement into more work for doctors and patients. These points indicate that we need to make patient engagement an integral part of what we’re already doing. Plus, patients need to be able to engage at their convenience or the reality is that they won’t engage.
The reality is that if an organization doesn’t start engaging patients more, they’re going to miss out on so many opportunities. These 8 elements are a great place for any healthcare organization to start evaluating their patient engagement strategy.
Link to article so that you may click on the link that allows you to download the 8 elements:
http://www.hospitalemrandehr.com/2013/10/17/8-elements-of-total-patient-engagement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HospitalEMRandEHR+%28Hospital+EMR+and+EHR%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail
Where do patient engagement and empowerment differ?
Author Name Kyle Murphy, PhD | Date October 15, 2013
Slotting the patient into the continuum of care is one of the emerging challenges in healthcare reform. In Stage 2 Meaningful Use, eligible providers are required to engage patients. The same is true of healthcare organizations and providers participating in forms of accountable care. But what role does the provider play in patient engagement and how does that differ from patient empowerment?
According to Blair Butterfield, North American President of VitalHealth Software, the move from paper records to EHRs is accompanied by a similar change in the way patients are expected to partake in the healthcare process:
The whole pendulum has shifted away from the early years of PHRs, which was all about what I would call patient empowerment — putting the data in the hands of that patient and giving them control of their destiny and their selective sharing of data with whom they want to see it. It shifted from that to what I would say now is patient engagement. That’s really the buzz word that everybody uses.
And this current trend is putting the onus on the provider to be the hub of patient-centered care rather than patient. “Engagement implies that someone is engaging them and in this case it’s providers. It’s really still a provider-driven process; it’s not really a patient-driven process. The patient is a participant, but they are no longer viewed as really the owner and driver of the process. That’s for a specific reason,” Butterfield observes.
“Many organizations that have experimented with PHRs and so on,” he continues, “have realized that patients left to their own devices typically don’t choose to empower themselves unless there are certain subsets like the chronically ill that do because they’re very active in their care but the other population doesn’t.”
Although the term is bandied about quite frequently, patient engagement is simply another word for something consumers experience in other aspects of their lives. “It’s really just extensive customer service in a sense. It’s what we expect in every other industry that we participate in,” adds Butterfield.
While it may be a simple concept to grasp, it’s a much harder one for healthcare organizations and providers to implement.
“The main thing is the labor-intensiveness,” Butterfield explains. “They have to put a nurse on the phone, to dial and actually reach the patient, and the patient has to be willing to talk to them. So there’s a certain amount of dropout from that and the hit rate is not as necessarily high as they would like. That’s probably a key challenge.”
And the key to meeting this challenge centers on automating these processes to save time as well as money, something which proves difficult for large and small organizations alike. Even the most sophisticated of health organizations, such as the Mayo Clinic (which co-founded VitalHealth along with the Noaber Foundation in 2006), struggle with it.
The solution to the problem is likely to come in the form of “smart” technology that targets patients based on their diagnoses and demographics and engages them in an easily accessible way, online.
While the term patient engagement may put emphasis on the patient in name and action, the responsibility for making it happen is beginning (if it hasn’t already) to fall squarely on the shoulders of providers and giving new meaning to the term primary care.
http://ehrintelligence.com/2013/10/15/where-do-patient-engagement-and-empowerment-differ/
Go to the page to view these links, Bone
Related White Papers:
Improving the ROI of Your EHR: 3 Keys for Success
A Case for EHR: 5 Status Quo Myths that Hold You Back and Reduce Your Bottom Line
Meaningful Use – Now or Never!
6 Secrets of Smart EHR Buyers
Guide to Meaningful Use Demonstration
Browse all White Papers
Related Articles:
What digital access is needed for true patient engagement?
ONC continues push for Blue Button during National HIT Week
What meaningful use means to non-meaningful users: CIO series
CMS: EHR adoption, meaningful use helps providers, patients
Enabling patient access, understanding through patient portals
Thank you for getting back with me. I have been in XSNX a long long time but haven't paid it much mind in some time. I better get back in the game watching it more closely. Again, thank & stay safe.
Is this the Dr. John R. Tuttle that joined XSNX? If so he has connections galore. Check out his LinkedIn page, there is a link below.
John R. Tuttle: CEO / Principal
Saratoga Springs, New YorkRenewables & Environment
Current: Skypoint Solar, Inc.
Previous: Alpha Delta Phi International Fraternity,
DayStar Technologies, Inc., National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Education: Cleantech Fellows Institute
Summary:
Multi-faceted, innovative C-level executive who transforms ideas into operating cleantech businesses. Formulates and executes strategies that optimize invested capital, strengthen competitive position, establish market & industry leadership, and enhance ROI. Articulates technology and market complexities to all audiences, enrolling new and existing stakeholders in organizational mission and vision. Combines well-structured corporate entities with cross-disciplinary, motivated teams to deliver results. Respects interdependency of corporate functions through hands-on, personal contribution and oversight.
? Public Company Leadership: Founder, CEO and Chairman of DayStar, transitioning it from the private to public markets, with a strong focus on employee ownership and social responsibility. Grew Board of Directors from 3 to 7 members and created Advisory Board with 7 members.
? Capital Management: Raised and managed over $45M in capital for DayStar, achieving superior results vs. competitors with 2-5x capitalization. Works closely with financial officer(s) to assure efficient utilization of funds.
? Start-up Operations: Evolved DayStar from a virtual company of 3 to an operational organization with world-class development & pilot production facilities producing solar cells in three shifts, with >100 employees, in 2+ yrs.
? Product Innovation: Led DayStar’s technology innovation, demonstrating a novel solar PV technology platform that is gaining industry acceptance - continuous processing of thin-film solar cells on flexible media.
? Empowering Communications: Conducted > 250 presentations to investor, business, and technical audiences on a wide range of technical and non-technical subject matters.
? Technology Leadership: Former Senior Scientist at the NREL. Published over 70 technical articles, with R&D efforts leading to nine patent awards and five patent applications between 1994-2006, and establishing four PV device world-records (16.1-17.7%).
Specialties:CEO, Public Company Management, Capital Management, Start-up Operations, Product Innovation, Empowering Communications, Technology Leadership, Executive Leadership, Market Assessment, Competitiveness, Cost Analysis, Finance, Capital Structures, Manufacturing Development, Technology Development
Experience
Skypoint Solar, Inc.
Founder / CEO / Principal
2008 – Present (5 years)|Malta, NY
Skypoint provides business and technology expertise to clients seeking to navigate the challenging waters of renewable energy and clean technology. We can assist with business planning, capital structures, financing, technology assessment and due-diligence, technology modeling, process and product innovation, and Board representation.
History: Appointed CEO of TekSUN PV Manufacturing, Inc., in Q4-2007, a predecessor company founded to construct turn-key, thin-film silicon-based PV module factories in Texas. Received $100M term sheet for project. Following a successful restructuring in Q2-2008, Skypoint Solar, Inc. was created to broaden geographical scope and was financed by its Principals (~90% by Dr. Tuttle). In partnership with Jones Lange LaSalle, 51 incentive package bids were considered for location in 13 states. PV Market conditions, technology concerns and the 2008-2009 economic downturn led the Company to re-focus efforts on thin-film CIGS PV technology and on International markets – primarily China. After 18 mos., it was determined that the business model required for Chinese investment in an early stage company – a relocation of all efforts to China – provided for a low probability of success. In parallel, initiated consulting business in 2010. Skypoint has served multiple clients in the area of technology development support, investment due diligence and financial modeling.
Board of Governors / Past President
Alpha Delta Phi International Fraternity
2007 – 2012 (5 years)
International Literary Fraternity with 35 Chapters and Affiliates in USA and Canada. Founded in 1832 by Samuel Eells at Hamilton College.
Founder, Chairman & CEO
DayStar Technologies, Inc.
July 1997 – June 2007 (10 years)|Halfmoon, NY & Santa Clara, CA
Founded DayStar, a NASDAQ-listed Company (“DSTI”), to commercialize technologies for the generation of clean, solar-based electricity and was first capitalized in 1996 to pursue a novel combination of PV technologies – thin-film and concentration. Led the Company for eleven years through early stages of product development, marketing and pilot production. Also led the development of the technology platform, built a world-class Management Team to execute on the business and technology plans and expanded operations from New York to California in 2006.
• Raised over $500,000 in private investment, $4.5 million in grant monies, $9.5 million in New York State tax incentives and over $41 million in public equity offerings, including DayStar’s Initial Public Offering in February 2004. Early funding came from a pioneer in sustainable manufacturing – Interface, Inc.. Progress led to acquisition negotiations with a world-leading energy company – Enron.
• “Most Promising New Enterprise of the Year” – 2005 Capital Region (NY) Award.
• Achieved ~900% return-on-investment to IPO investors.
• Evolved Company from a virtual company with 3 employees to an operational organization with world-class development and pilot production facilities producing solar cells in three shifts, with over 100 employees, in 2+ years.
• Conducted over 200 investor encounters domestically and in European markets.
• Chairman of the Board, expanding from three (3) to seven (7) members and created Technical Advisory Board with seven (7) participants.
• Filed eight patent applications related to process, product and equipment design.
• Demonstrated highest combination of solar cell efficiency (15.2% AM0) and specific power (1433 Watts/kg) for airborne and orbital power applications.
Senior Scientist
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
September 1986 – July 1997 (10 years 11 months)
Recruited to NREL to participate in the advancement of thin-film PV technologies for the generation of clean electricity. Was engaged in the research and development of I-III-VI2 (CuInSe2 and related alloys) and II-VI compound thin-film materials for photovoltaic applications. Some of the highlights of 10+ year tenure at NREL include:
• Developed absorber fabrication processes, resulting in six (6) patents and four (4) world-record devices – 16.1%, 16.8%, 17.1%, 17.7% performance, and the 1st world-record for thin-film devices under concentration (17.7% @ 20 Suns).
• Published first microstructural model for the thin-film CIS material system.
• Published over 70 peer-reviewed, conference and trade-journal articles and made over 30 oral presentations.
• Initiated laboratory-wide compensation restructuring program.
Development Engineer
Unitrode Corporation
June 1984 – September 1986 (2 years 4 months)
Was responsible for the direction of high-voltage MOSFET process and product development, R&D laboratory operations and the support of MOSFET production. Conducted extensive development work in low pressure chemical vapor deposition, diffusion, and photolithography areas. Designed and constructed the Company’s 1st toxic gas handling system to bring the laboratory within compliance.
From LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=12229883&authType=OPENLINK&authToken=7KvF&locale=en_US&srchid=1571465131381975992374&srchindex=1&srchtotal=5&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A1571465131381975992374%2CVSRPtargetId%3A12229883%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary
Allscripts goes live at HVHS
The Allscripts Sunrise electronic health record system has gone live at Heritage Valley Health System’s hospitals in Beaver and Sewickley.
Sunrise provides computerized provider order entry, which guides doctors through treatment decisions using protocols. The system also offers integrated pharmacy, bar code medication administration, patient portal and acute and critical care solutions.
“Within 90 days of activation, we had integration with a regional health information exchange and seamless acces from Sunrise to our existing clinical data repository containing over 18 years of clinical patient data,” HVHS CIO David Carleton said in a prepared statement. “The evolving health care market requires vendors that can support a single unified record and rapid development of innovative solutions.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2013/10/15/allscripts-goes-live-at-hvhs.html
Big Ideas From The Forbes Healthcare Summit
The Forbes Healthcare Summit in New York last week brought together very senior people across the U.S. healthcare spectrum: CEOs of big insurance companies, R&D heads of top pharma companies, CEOs of major medical centers, and CEOs of a few of the key upstarts: AthenaHeath, ASAP Urgent Care, Rothman Institute, MinuteClinic, etc. Here’s a summary of the big ideas that emerged.
No One Thinks Health Reform Is Going Away. Regardless of the drama in Washington, health reform is going ahead, and the major institutions are working to adapt to it. Beyond the ACA* the big driver for this is patient empowerment, which was the theme of the conference. Patients are being forced to pay more of the cost of their care, and because of this plus social change, they are taking more control and demanding more information and service.
Healthcare Is Becoming A Consumer Business. Senior officer of a major hospital: “For a long time [we] thought care quality was all. Patient service and engagement has been a discovery. Care systems will need to provide understandable bills, and actual customer service.” Lives will move to the public exchanges (different views on how fast). Employers and insurers are offering private exchanges to stretch dollars and keep control: that puts them in the direct to consumer business. Consumers are doing a good job buying what they need on private exchanges: over-insured consumers tend to accept more risk; others spend more than the employer allowance to get what they need. New care modalities (drug store clinics, urgent care centers, surgi-centers) cater to consumer needs. Start-ups such as ZocDoc and Pokitdok facilitate transparency and consumer choice. Healthcare used to be primarily B2B, now it’s B2C**.
Patient Engagement Is The Key To Better Health At Lower Cost. Hospital CEO: “US health care was founded on dependence and authority. That is eroding. Patients now have access to technology and info: WebMD is the same info I got in medical school 30 years go, but it looks nicer”. Some see a new meme that makes healthiness a widely-held norm, similar to smoking cessation, seat belts, and sober driving. Insurance CEO: “It’s hard to get patient engagement without a provider in the mix.” The healthcare power players acknowledged a bit grudgingly that primary care needs to play a bigger role and have a seat at the table. As Gibbs would say, “Ya think?”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddhixon/2013/10/12/big-ideas-from-the-forbes-healthcare-summit/
NeHC Survey: Engaging Consumers is Critical to Healthcare’s Future
October 14, 2013 by Rajiv Leventhal
The future of healthcare must include consumer engagement in eHealth, according to a new survey of stakeholders by the National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) and its partner HealthCAWS, a healthcare services company.
Stakeholders were asked to share their experience with the role of consumer engagement in the overall transformation of healthcare, and overwhelmingly agreed that consumer engagement is a top priority:
• 96 percent strongly agree that engaging consumers in their care is critical to transformation
• 86 percent believe consumer engagement is very important, the highest rank for the question, to their organization
Participants were asked to select from a list of tools and services, those that were important to their consumer engagement efforts. The following selections were most frequently chosen as important to support an organization's consumer engagement efforts, and as a whole, indicate the need to work with multiple partners from associations, government agencies and solution service providers to engage consumers:
• Networking with colleagues (69 percent)
• NeHC Patient Engagement Framework (63 percent)
• Programs from the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT (59 percent)
• Vendor support (59 percent)
• NeHC tools and resources (47 percent)
To support their efforts, NeHC and HealthCAWS are building up the Solutions Directory feature of the NeHC Consumer eHealth Readiness Tool (CeRT)—powered by HealthCAWS—to house a database of consumer engagement solutions and supporters available to the healthcare community. The CeRT Solutions Directory is specifically designed to showcase organizations committed to advancing consumer engagement and the many companies that provide technology solutions, system integration, services or other products and services that support patient and their family engagement, NeHC says.
http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/news-item/nehc-survey-engaging-consumers-critical-healthcare-s-future
Improving Patient Engagement Equal Parts Technology, Empathy
By Brian Eastwood Mon, October 14, 2013
Improving efficiency and cutting costs in healthcare means better collaborating with patients. Web portals and mobile applications can help, but only if they connect with the myriad systems that doctors actually use. Organizations can't forget that a little empathy goes a long way, too.
CIO — When Dr. Ken Ong, now chief medical information officer (CMIO) for New York Hospital Queens, began his medical career, he was treating infectious diseases. It was the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic and, he states flatly, "We knew nothing." Only by working closely with patients could Ong and his colleagues begin to determine which drugs made AIDS a largely treatable condition.
Years later, patient engagement has emerged as a key strategy for not just treating chronic conditions but also providing better, more collaborative and more efficient healthcare. This is especially true of healthcare systems aiming to pursue models of coordinated care such as the accountable care organization (ACO) in an effort to eschew what many consider an outdated, expensive fee-for-service model.
A range of innovations, from wearable tech and medical devices to patient portals and personal health records, appear poised to improve the patient experience by streamlining administrative tasks and providing physicians with data to enhance the care process.
For such technology to have an impact, though, patients must use it, physicians must be accept it and healthcare organizations must integrate it — as well as the basic principles of patient engagement — into their strategic plans.
Patient Engagement a Necessary, but Difficult, Sell
If you think of patients as customers, the healthcare industry is essentially backwards. Banks, retailers, utilities and other firms constantly reach out to their customers with deals, tips and other forms of communication. Healthcare providers, however, wait for patients to reach out to them. Many patients don't reach out until they need urgent care — which is the most costly and, in many cases, the least effective form of care.
Regulatory efforts requiring providers to demonstrate that 5 percent of patients are viewing, downloading or transmitting electronic versions of their records, then, should be an easy sell, says Norm Chapin, CMIO and medical director for Columbia Memorial Hospital. It negates the need to take time off work, get in the car, drive to the doctor's office and make a co-pay for what often amounts to a one-minute conversation with a physician.
Unfortunately, providers often struggle to justify the expenditure, says Chapin, speaking with Ong and other at the Institute for Health Technology Transformation's New York Health IT Summit. The return on investment for health IT projects is rarely as advertised; as Chapin says his CEO points out, staffing levels at Columbia Memorial remain the same, and people still print paper records. "It's a challenging paradigm shift," he says.
Continue Reading
http://www.cio.com/article/741400/Improving_Patient_Engagement_Equal_Parts_Technology_Empathy?AllowView=VW8xUmo5Q21TcWJOb1gzb0tNN3RLZ0h0MWg5SVgra3NZRzRORzNnYU1lK0lDS2dlQ2l5TlNVT294ZTcycHo1T2F1WC9KU2dQeGxjUTUyR0RNOWMvaENxVG85eTlYTXVLY3JvUEM2UTg3S2Z4YTdMVTM5bFJZOGlaOVVScUc1a1JobklEby9nNQ==
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Yes, I will always remember his name. Take care!
Garriswh, not to be rude but this company is done, finished if there was even a business to begin with. GLTY on your other ventures but here we all have lost our money.
Hello RC4, I liked it & thank you for sharing it. As LS always says... Time Is On Our Side!
Effort connects medical homes with 'essential' IT tools
By Andis Robeznieks 1 hour ago
While the patient-centered medical home has been touted as the foundation for a better coordinated and more efficient healthcare system, experts now say medical home practices need to be connected to other parts of the healthcare system. To this end, the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative has released a report (PDF available for download here) listing 10 “essential” health information technology tools needed to make these population health connections.
“Health IT offers an essential infrastructure and solutions for population health management that can be adopted incrementally over time and help providers continue on a path of quality improvement and primary-care transformation,” Dr. David Nash, founding dean of Thomas Jefferson University's Jefferson School of Population Health and a member of the PCPCC report review committee, said in a news release.
The 10 essential population health IT tools identified by the PCPCC are:
• Electronic health records, to document diagnosis, vital signs and other data needed for advanced analytics;
• Patient registries, to serve as central databanks to identify care gaps and report quality measures;
• Health information exchange, to coordinate care and share data between care team members;
• Risk stratification, to classify patients by their current health status and identify who may need interventions to prevent hospitalization;
• Automated outreach, to generate automatic messages to patients who need preventive care or chronic disease management;
• Referral tracking, to ensure that providers receive results of consultations from specialists patients were referred to;
• Patient portals, to share records with patients and encourage self management;
• Telehealth/telemedicine, to allow remote examination and treatment;
• Remote patient monitoring, to track vital signs of patients with chronic conditions and to alert providers when intervention is needed; and
• Advanced population analytics, to evaluate how different segments of patient populations are faring and assess the performance of individual clinicians and provider organizations as a whole.
“Improving population health presents a major cultural, operational and financial shift across a broad range of stakeholders,” according to the report. “While our current system is designed to respond to the acute needs of individual patients, it must transition to one that anticipates and shapes patterns of care for populations, and addresses the environmental and social determinants of health.”
The report cites a 2011 study by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality as evidence of why such tracking and communication tools are needed. According to the AHRQ study, only 62% of primary-care physicians report getting consultation results from specialists, even though 81% of specialist reports are sending them. Also, 69% of primary-care providers report sending patient histories to specialists, but only 35% of specialists report getting them.
The report is scheduled to be the focus of an Oct. 15 panel discussion at the PCPCC annual conference in Bethesda, Md.
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20131014/BLOG/310149995?AllowView=VW8xUmo5Q21TcWJOb1gzb0tNN3RLZ0h0MWg5SVgra3NZRzROR3l0WWRMWGFWUHdGRWxyd01qUzMyWmFyNW5nWUpiV2s=&utm_source=link-20131014-BLOG-310149995&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mpdaily
Only speculation... but probably because of the Clowns in DC. KC Chiefs 6-n-0
Study: Parental PHR Use Means More Well-Child Visits
October 11, 2013 by Gabriel Perna
A new study from the Oakland-based integrated care provider, Kaiser Permanente, suggests that children whose parents use a personal health record (PHR) were more likely to attend six or more of the nationally recommended well-child care visits by 15 months of age.
For the study, Kaiser researchers looked at data for more than 7,000 children aged 0 to 2 years who were enrolled in Kaiser Permanente health plans in the Hawaii and Northwest regions between January 2007 and July 2011. What they found was that the children in the Northwest whose parents use Kaiser Permanente's PHR at least once during the study period were 2.5 times more likely to attend all recommended well-child visits and 1.2 times more likely to receive their recommended immunizations. In Hawaii, it was twice as likely to attend the well-child visits.
"Our study found that in two demographically and geographically distinct regions in the United States, PHRs appear to be a viable tool to help ensure children adhere to recommended preventive care,” Jeffrey Tom, M.D., study lead author and assistant investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research.
Kaiser’s PHR, My Health Manager, is one of the industry’s true patient engagement success stories. The PHR reached more than four million users last August.
"We expect that PHRs are likely to become more fully integrated into patients' daily activities with the growing adoption of smartphones and the availability of PHR-enabled mobile applications," said Dr. Tom.
http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/news-item/study-parental-phr-use-means-more-well-child-visits
MAeHC Quality Data Center Modular EHR is MU Certified
October 10, 2013 by John DeGaspari
Cloud-based EHR reporting and analytics tool also received 2014 ONC HIT certification
The Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC) has announced that its Quality Data Center (QDC) v. 3.0 electronic health record (EHR) is certified to support meaningful use Stages 1 and 2 by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) and is compliant with the 2014 Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology HIT criteria. According to MAeHC, it is one of the first to receive certification for all three criteria approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services for eligible providers or hospital technology.
QDC v. 3.0 meets the following certification criteria:
•Capture and Export—EHR technology must be able to electronically record all of the data identified and electronically export a data file in accordance with specific standards;
•Import and Calculate—EHR technology must be able to electronically import a data file and calculate each and every clinical quality measure for which it is presented for certification;
•Electronic Submission; and
•Quality Management System.
http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/news-item/maehc-quality-data-center-modular-ehr-mu-certified
PHR will be needed, Time Is-On Our Side
For $49, a doctor will see you now -- online
American Well unveils a new service that connects consumers directly to physicians through their mobile devices for advice -- and sometimes even for diagnoses and prescriptions.
by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore | October 9, 2013 3:43PM PDT
When Dr. Teresa Myers took a call from a woman who thought she'd gotten strep throat right smack in the middle of an important business trip, the Akron, Ohio-based family medicine physician who loves telemedicine so much she actually does it in her spare time didn't mean to scream.
But when the patient -- hoping a doc could diagnose her problem via her iPhone camera so that she could get a prescription without going to an ER -- pointed her phone's flashlight toward the back of her throat, Myers couldn't restrain herself.
"Oh my God!" she yelled. "You've got exudate!" To which the patient yelled back, "What does that mean?" (Dr. Myers explained that it's the white discharge often visible on one's tonsils when they have the highly contagious strep, and that she had yelled because she'd never expected to see it so clearly during a phone visit.)
"That was probably the most rewarding 10 minutes," said Myers, who was able to do an exam, make a diagnosis, and write a prescription in 10 minutes.
Myers is among a growing group of physicians in the US practicing telemedicine. She currently works with the Online Care Group, which manages telemedicine physicians for American Well, which this week announced the introduction of $49 10-minute video chats with doctors online and via mobile phones and tablets in 44 states and Washington, D.C.
While many services are popping up that connect patients to doctors through phone calls -- think Teladoc, First Stop Health, and Apogee Doctor On Call, to name a few -- American Well claims to be the first to offer immediate, live video visits on mobile devices, the Web, and at kiosks. (Disclosure: This writer does occasional work as a contract editor for First Stop Health.)
And while American Well has been offering phone calls with physicians in roughly 20 states for a few years, until this week it only offered the service through insurance providers. Patients had to log onto their health plans to talk to a doc.
Now, the service is offered directly to consumers, with a fixed rate of $49 for 10 minutes and an additional 3 to 5 minutes running anywhere from free to $10 or so depending on whether the patient has health insurance that covers these visits. Those without health insurance are certainly saving a lot of money via this doctor's "visit," and those with health insurance may find that their plan completely covers the virtual visit, or that it still saved them in fees they may have incurred had they rushed off to the ER first.
"We really feel we're developing a whole new way of practicing medicine, and it's exciting," said Dr. Peter Antall, medical director of the Online Care Group who has been recruiting physicians for this service for the past two years.
He said the group currently employs 45 full-time staff physicians and just over 100 contractor physicians, with another 100 or so in varying stages of vetting. The physicians have the benefit of working full-time or part-time from their personal or home offices, though the criteria are strict to ensure that patients who call in see a private and professional environment.
And while Antall acknowledges that there are many skeptics of telemedicine -- those who worry about privacy, the quality of virtual visits, and so forth -- he thinks we'll get over it eventually. "Patients do have to get comfortable with this, but I remember a time where we were worried about electronic banking, and we got over that. Maybe it isn't perfect, but it is as close as it could be, and there are mechanisms in place to deal with potential security breaches."
Likewise, not all physicians are convinced of the virtues of telemedicine. But some, like Myers, are doing everything they can to get the word out about the benefits.
Even -- or perhaps especially -- over the phone, Myers' enthusiasm is infectious. She argues that she often makes stronger connections during her phone exams than in clinics and hospitals because both she and the patients are in the comfort of their own environments, with patients often calling from their own beds and relieved to learn they don't have some horrible, rare disease they read about online, or that they don't have to go to an ER just to get a simple prescription. Sometimes, she says, they even call back requesting her specifically.
She goes on to list several other benefits as well -- her patients don't risk infecting others by going to hospitals or clinics, not to mention risk infecting the doctor, and they don't have to spend time, money, and energy on a trip to the ER, nor the hefty bill that comes with said trip
And in the case of the patient who had strep throat, Myers basically taught her how to examine her own lymph nodes, which she realized she'd never done before in her years of practice in clinics because she simply performs the exams herself. But when patients must be a doctor's hands, they become better informed about how to analyze their own symptoms, and can better monitor them throughout the course of taking medications to determine when to stop.
Myers, who still practices medicine full-time in hospital and clinical settings, stresses that she doesn't see these online visits as replacements of traditional medicine in any sense.
"I guarantee that not a single person who practices telemedicine would say this is a replacement of traditional medicine," she said. "This is an extension of traditional model care. With telemedicine, we can appropriately triage patients to higher levels of care needed to avoid preventable negative outcomes, which includes direct and indirect costs. We're constantly talking about how our health care system is drained, how we overspend, and this is a way we can do things more effectively and efficiently."
The free American Well app is available at the Apple App Store and Google Play store, and the new service can also be accessed online at www.americanwell.com.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57606794-1/for-$49-a-doctor-will-see-you-now-online/
Click Link & Scroll Way Down, I believe MMRF has patents here
How Technology is Helping Nurses Build Patient Engagement
Patient portals. Patient portals, offered by electronic health record vendors, bring another element to patient engagement.
“The portals help to keep the patient’s care top-of-mind in between physician visits,” Friis said. “The portals also help bring a dimension of control into the picture. The patient can access portions of their medical record whenever they want and by doing this, it helps them to manage their care.”
http://www.nursezone.com/Nursing-News-Events/more-news/How-Technology-is-Helping-Nurses-Build-Patient-Engagement_41740.aspx
Using a Patient Portal to Boost Patient Engagement
Patients are being asked to take a greater role in their own healthcare and medical practices are expected to be the conduit to meet that goal. So it is no surprise that practices nationwide are turning to various means to boost patient engagement, including technology.
One emerging tool is a patient portal, which allows practices to send patients secure messages about their care with an equally safe reply. But issues linger between implementation and enrollment, from getting patient (and physician) buy-in to what information to share online.
At Northwest Primary Care in Oregon, staff has used a patient portal since 2008 for the 27 physicians in its Patient-Centered Medical Home model serving more than 25,000 patients in eight locations. At this year's Medical Group Management Association Annual Conference in San Diego, Jeanette Christopher, the practice's information systems team leader, shared successes that can be duplicated for other practices seeking greater patient engagement through portals.
"Patients log in online, get access, and enhance their experience with patients," she said. "It comes down to quality care at their fingertips."
Northwest Primary Care met the Stage 1 requirements of meaningful use requiring distribution of electronic patient records and online accessibility starting in 2011. With an eye toward the Stage 2 rules, practice staff and physicians feel confident that they can meet the requirements of sending medical records to referral providers and provide online clinical summaries through the patient portal.
"We need to engage our patients …the regulations require it of us," Christopher said.
With 13 percent of its patient base currently enrolled and using the portal, the practice now averages an enrollment rate of about 200 patients per month. Patients can access their records, communicate with physicians and nursing staff, ask billing department questions, and even send requests to book their next appointment.
It is that latter ability that Christopher said has put more power — and responsibility — in the hands of patients. "Not only has this feature increased the efficiency of our staff [who no longer need to book appointments over the phone] …but patients are more dedicated to keeping their online appointments as well," she said. "We have seen a decrease in the number of no-shows when patients make their own appointments."
But she did note that when you trade one form of patient communication for another, you do have to adjust the work flow at your practice. At Northwest Primary Care, there are seven "advice line" employees responsible for answering phone inquires as well as checking secure messages from patients sent via the portal.
Those messages are then routed to nurses, physicians if necessary, and then the nurse is the one who communicates back to the patient.
To get patient buy-in requires staff buy-in and most importantly, buy-in by physicians. Christopher noted that if physicians are the ones to approach patients about the portal, patients "are on it" and enroll at higher rates. But you must also train your front-desk and any other staff who interact with patients about what the portal does and how to access it. When it implemented the system four years ago, staff actually accessed the portal as "patients" to get a feel for what it offered.
Here are other tips Christopher gave to attendees to boost patient engagement via a patient portal:
• Look to your current EHR vendor to see if they have a portal product that will easily integrate.
• Communicate with vendors the needs of your community. For example, Northwest Primary Care wanted to send its patients e-newsletters, but not to all 25,000 at one time. So the practice now has the ability to spread out that distribution so the office isn't overwhelmed with questions after each send.
• Consider instant enrollment at the time of the patient visit versus sending patients home with instructions. A helping hand to get them started can boost further engagement.
• Advertise the portal on your practice website, in brochures, and any other way you reach patients. Christopher's practice also had a contest among its eight locations to see which office could enroll the most patients.
The result, said Christopher, is a portal in place not driven by physicians and staff, but its patients.
"The patients want these portals," she said. "It's not our physicians who say they need it …it's the patients asking for this."
http://www.physicianspractice.com/mgma13/using-patient-portal-boost-patient-engagement?GUID=F8F0782F-425F-40DE-9B50-632EB9F800B6&rememberme=1&ts=09102013
FJ74 I appreciate your post. But Damn, I wished you would put it in laymen turns so dummies like me understand. Please!
Yes I thought the same thing FJ74. Like someone else who mentioned it in the last week or 2... I appreciate & am grateful for all your DD.
As in the words of Lickety Split... Time Is On Our Side!
Damn FJ74, you met Japan's Minister? You never stop impressing me. You Go Boy! Whoo Hoo,
Time, It Is On Our Side!
I feel GREAT about my INVESTMENT here!
Go Chiefs 4-0!
Thank you KOZ1, I appreciate the work. I'd also like to hear any questions & responses that are given.
Again Sir, thank you for your effort.
Walgreens Cashing in Big In the Data Selling Epidemic Arena–Incentives Connected to Apps and Devices That Sell, Re-Query and Re-Sell Our Data And Data Profiles.
This article from Bloomberg pretty much cements exactly what you have been reading here about the data selling epidemic and Walgreens knew how to craft the algorithms in a way to make them a ton of money selling data, around a billion a year
As the article states you have to walk 500 miles image to get a $5 discount but in return they get the data as you log in. Again too, “they care” no they want the money. Let’s be real. Strap on that device so we can get the data. I’m not saying that the devices are not serving a purpose but there are others out there that I talk about that don’t sell you data and to me, when you are not making corporate America rich with selling your data and giving up your privacy, that’s a real plus to me. The Sensoria sensors even go beyond the accelerators that Fitbit and the rest have and you get to choose who gets to see the data. Here’s a couple from the archives that tell you how this works with the business models of the devices and apps that sell data and remember Walgreens does have your phone number or the card to offer you savings. Anymore they just want your phone number and how hard is that to re-query and find out who you are? Remember too they sell prescription data so again how hard is that to match up with this data? Think about it..
Jawbone Buys BodyMedia. Launches New “Up App” Platform–Partnerships Allow for More of Your Data and Profiles To Be Sold As Data Selling Epidemic Continues to Grow
Fitbit Wireless Device Monitors your Daily Activity and Movements Released
And we have insurance companies buying up your Visa and MasterCard records…and as Larry Ellison from Oracle said in a recent interview worry about the NSA as #2 as banks have 30 years worth or so of data they can sell. Insurance companies buy data from drug stores, lots of it and then re-query and resell you again.
Insurance Companies Are Buying Up Consumer Spending Data-Time is Here to License and Tax the Data Sellers-As Insurers Sell Tons of Data, Gets Flawed Data When Data Buyers Uses Out of Context Too
After all of this has been going on we have this with consumers finding their data out there on the web and no clue how it got there and certainly when you have been re-sold and re-queried a number of times this happens. This also increases the amount of flawed data out there.
Data Floating Around the Web and You Don’t Know How It Got There? Time to License and Excise Tax Data Sellers–Identify “Flawed Data” Epidemic At The Root of the Problem
The time has come to license and excise tax ALL the data sellers out there as they are numerous and all want to make a buck “flipping algorithms” today with little or no concern as to how it ends up affecting the end consumer. Certainly Walgreens would be in a good spot as well as banks and other companies to pay some tax here. When the data gets flawed and we can’t get a car, loan or whatever they we are stuck and all the data sellers have a pool of “free labor” to fix it..us as we are stuck otherwise. This is the big fear with all of this as well as “data used out of context” against us as I covered in “THE ATTACK OF THE KILLER ALGORITHMS.
Time Has Come to License and Tax the Data Sellers of the Web, Companies, Banks, Social Networks..Any One Making a Profit-Latest Microsoft/Google Privacy War Helping the Cause –Consumers Deserve to Know What Is Being Sold and To Who in a Searchable Format
For a better understanding on the mechanics of how all this works and why modeling for inequality with segmentation is so powerful out there, visit the ALGO DUPING page and take in a few videos and you will get it, something you have never seen explained to you before where the layman can understand what goes on behind closed server doors. You can also scroll to the footer and take in a few of these educational videos on this page as well. BD
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Walgreen (WAG), the biggest drug-store chain in the U.S., has been trying to make its customers healthier—at least ostensibly. It’s a counter-intuitive strategy for a company that collects one in five U.S. pharmacy dollars and fills 821 million prescriptions a year to treat diabetes, high cholesterol, and a spate of other conditions that might be improved by some push-ups or prancercising.
Walgreen carefully crafted the program to be stingy with the discounts. To get $5 off through Steps With Balance Rewards, a customer would have to walk 500 miles. But on any given day, participants are only allowed to log a maximum of 20 points—the equivalent of a one-mile walk. So if you walk a mile a day for almost two years, you can save $5 at the pharmacy. (Shoppers can get a $5 discount a lot faster by simply filling 10 prescriptions through a Walgreen store.)
The math isn’t the important thing here; it’s the message: Walgreen cares about you. The company is subtly trying to create the kind of psychological, emotional connection that marketers pine for. If it gets a person to log into its activity app every day, that person is likely to be a more loyal shopper—and more likely to buy some of Walgreen’s health and wellness products, from FitBit activity trackers to Flintstones vitamins.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/10/walgreens-cashing-in-big-in-data.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FPHZF+%28The+Medical+Quack%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail
Thought you all might find this interesting?
The Pacific Wheel
Santa Monica, California
Located just 25 minutes from Downtown L.A., Pacific Park at Santa Monica Pier is home to the only solar-powered Ferris wheel in the world, the Pacific Wheel. Towering over the Santa Monica Pier at 130-feet, this powerful wheel makes a whopping 2.5 revolutions every minute and sports more than 160,000 LED lights, dazzling visitors with panoramic views of the beautiful California coast from above while, at night, providing a light show for everyone below.
Many patients still uninformed about digital health records
Less than one-third of the more than 2,000 U.S. adults surveyed were informed by their physicians about the conversion of their health data to a digital format, according to the results of Xerox's fourth annual EHR survey. The poll also revealed that 32% of respondents are interested in getting their health records digitized, while 19% have online access to their health data. "Patients will soon have more access to their personal health information than ever before, but they need to be educated by providers on how this will empower them to take charge of their own care," said Charles Fred, president of health care provider solutions at Xerox. Healthcare IT News (9/30) Read More...
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/patients-still-ill-informed-about-ehrs
Patient Portal Market Expected to Reach $900M by 2017
The total U.S. patient portal market for hospitals and physicians earned revenue of $279.8 million in 2012, and is expected to increase steadily, reaching $898.4 million in 2017—representing a 221.1 percent increase—according to new research from consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.
According to the analysis, "U.S. Patient Portal Market for Hospitals and Physicians: Overview and Outlook, 2012–2017," the majority of revenue will primarily result from increased demand driven by myriad forces, including the need to meet Stage 2 meaningful use requirements, the growing move to clinical integration and accountable care, and increasing consumer demand for health information technology.
What’s more, approximately 50 percent of U.S. hospitals and 40 percent of U.S. physicians in ambulatory practice possess some type of patient portal technology, mostly acquired as a module of their practice management or electronic health record (EHR) system. While the availability of patient portals does not necessarily translate into active provider or patient use, the technology is emerging as the key platform for various efforts around patient engagement such as access to medical records, communication with providers, education, wellness tracking and e-visits, the research says.
Patient portal adoption and active use is accelerating dramatically across the U.S., driven by Stage 2 requirements. Stage 2 requires providers to adopt and use technology that allows patients to electronically view, download, and transmit electronic copies of their own medical records. Patient portals are the key technology that will help providers meet these requirements. In addition, providers that adopt patient portals will enjoy a competitive advantage as patients increasingly demand convenient, 24/7 access to their financial and clinical data.
"The need to fully engage patients as a member of the care team is fundamentally about encouraging individuals to become more involved with their healthcare, so they will be motivated to make behavioral changes that can positively impact their health status,” Frost & Sullivan connected health principal Analyst Nancy Fabozzi, said in a statement. "That need will only grow as the healthcare system moves towards accountable care and value-based reimbursement. The importance of this movement cannot be underestimated."
http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/news-item/patient-portal-market-expected-grow-221-2017
Time, It Is On Our Side!
Hello Fleck2012, thanks for sending me the LinkedIn link. It does look as if she need to update her work resume from August 2001 to current date. Again, thank you. Have a good day.
I tried to find her on LinkedIn but could not. Would you please post a link to that page? Thanks!
Morning RC4, see if this helps
Lisa L. Dahm, Esq.
Vice President, Healthcare Regulatory Affairs
Ms. Dahm's experience in the healthcare industry spans more than 25 years. After graduating magna cum laude from South Texas College of Law in 1995, Ms. Dahm became licensed in Texas that same year. After serving as in-house counsel for a major integrated healthcare system in Houston, she joined a "Big Four" accounting firm and assisted in creating the firm's approach to providing HIPAA services to its healthcare clients. Ms. Dahm conducted numerous executive briefings for healthcare clients to assist in raising awareness of HIPAA, and managed and participated in HIPAA privacy and other healthcare risk assessments. Additionally, Ms. Dahm is a contributing author to the Privacy Chapter in E-Health and Transactional Law and she authored a monograph on patient confidentiality laws in the United States for the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA) that was published in June 1999. Ms. Dahm also wrote the sidebar articles for Privacy of Health Information: A Report on the 2001 Public Interest Colloquium, sponsored by the AHLA. She has written numerous other articles and papers on HIPAA and other legal topics, is a recognized expert on privacy and confidentiality and is a frequent speaker at healthcare, HIPAA and legal conferences across the United States.
https://www.mymedicalrecords.com/aboutUs.html?view=lisa
Carrots and Sticks in the HITECH Act: Should Covered Entities Panic?
By Lisa L. Dahm, JD, LLM-Health, South Texas College of Law, Houston, TX
http://www.americanbar.org/publications/health_lawyer_home/health_03_publications_HealthLawyer_vol_22.html
Medical Futility and the Texas Medical Futility Statute: A Model to Follow or One to Avoid?
by Lisa Dahm, South Texas College of Law, Houston, TX
http://www.americanbar.org/publications/health_lawyer_home/health_03_publications_HealthLawyer_vol_20.html
What Do You Mean – I Can’t Have Copies of the Medical Records I Need For Trial?
http://www.law.uh.edu/healthlaw/perspectives/LDHIPAAAuthorizations.pdf
More from Google Search: https://www.google.com/#q=Lisa+L.+Dahm%2C+Esq
Morning MMRF Boardees, SMF if you have facts to back up your post
Morning Cburg, no I did not send it to BL, please feel free to do so. Thanks!
MMRF Boardees this has 2 articles in it. Hopefully Ihub will lift my restriction soon.
Helping Patients Stay Engaged in their Own Care
Will electronic record keeping make patients more willing to take part in keeping themselves healthy?
By Neil Versel
Doctors for years have struggled to get people to change unhealthy behaviors and to care about their own health. Yet people continue to smoke, eat poorly, neglect to fill prescriptions and avoid preventive care.
Various health care reform initiatives, including the imperative for accountable care under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – commonly known as Obamacare – as well as the shift from paper to electronic record-keeping, might not get people to ditch their bad habits, but these changes are forcing providers to get creative, lest they get hit where it hurts the most: in the pocketbook.
[READ: Hospital of Tomorrow: How the Industry is Facing the Future]
Notably, the $27 billion federal incentive program for "meaningful use" of electronic health records (EHRs) moves into its second of three phases as soon as Oct. 1 for some hospitals.
In Stage 2, providers have to offer at least half of their Medicare populations online access to their own records and, significantly, 5 percent of these patients actually have to log in and either enter their own data or send unsolicited messages back to providers.
For the first time, there is a financial incentive to "engage" patients in their own care: Hospitals and health care professionals must meet all the requirements or they lose out on extra Medicare and Medicaid payments (there is no partial credit). That has a lot of executives concerned.
[READ: Are ACOs the Rx for the Future of Health Care?]
"Having a physician penalized for something a patient doesn't do is troubling," says Dr. Howard J. Luks, chief of sports medicine and arthroscopy at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y.
A strong proponent of social media in medicine, Luks publicizes his email address and Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts on his website and on his business cards. The response has been underwhelming. "The number of people who reach out are very low," Luks reports. He forges ahead because he sees the promise of patient-doctor communication.
As an orthopedic surgeon, Luks encourages post-operative patients to send him photos to show how incisions are healing. "I have picked up blood clots earlier than I would have had I not been available electronically," Luks says.
Post-op and post-acute care is where a lot of providers are looking to meet that 5 percent requirement, especially since Medicare no longer pays for certain "preventable" readmissions within 30 days of hospital discharge. Many also see potential in engagement platforms such as Web portals and patient-controlled personal health records (PHRs) for patients with chronic diseases.
A portal is great for delivering test results, for post-surgical care, patient education and for patients to ask questions, according Charles E. Christian , vice president and chief information officer at St. Francis Hospital in Columbus, Ga. "I think it's going to be a source of information for patients who have a lot of questions after they leave the hospital," he says.
The bottom line, according to William Montgomery, VP and CIO at Springfield, Ill.-based Hospital Sisters Health System, is that patients will use a portal or a PHR if they perceive value in doing so.
Hospital Sisters, which has 13 hospitals in Illinois and Wisconsin, is trying to provide some value by working with a pharmacy information service called Surescripts to collect and deliver complete, up-to-date medication histories to patients via personal health records tied to the organization's EHRs. This, Montgomery says, helps eliminate the need for individuals to keep their own medications lists current, saving time, hassle and, potentially, lives.
Value also applies on the provider side. In a traditional fee-for-service reimbursement model, doctors won't bother with portals, PHRs or patient-supplied data unless they get paid for their time. Accountable care and "bundled" payments for managing entire episodes of care flip this around, shifting risk from insurer to provider.
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/hospital-of-tomorrow/articles/2013/09/06/electronic-health-records-helping-patients-engage-in-their-own-care
Personal health records not dead yet, experts say
You will need to scroll way down to read this article
http://searchhealthit.techtarget.com/news/2240036083/Personal-health-records-not-dead-yet-experts-say
Giants VS 3-0 Chiefs @ Arrowhead 12:00pm CST, Go Chiefs!
MMRF Boardees have a good Sunday & Stay Safe.
How to win with personal health records? Build something beautiful and social
Missy Krasner landed at Google Health in April of 2006 — a time she calls pre-social, pre-quantified-self and pre-internet-of-things. Google wanted to create a central repository for consumers to collect and store their health records, and make the APIs available for developers to build on top of.
We all know how that turned out: Google eventually retired its personal health record platform in 2011, citing a lack of widespread adoption. But Google Health also had problems scaling in the eyes of Krasner, who served as the product marketing manager.
I recently talked with Krasner, who is now entrepreneur-in-residence at Morgenthaler Ventures and a startup mentor for 500 Startups and Healthbox, about why PHRs seem to finally be taking hold, and what the next generation of personal health records will look like.
Thinking back to your time at Google Health, what was the difference between what you guys were doing and what’s finally starting to get serious traction with patients now?
We were in a pre-social world and a pre internet-of-things world. This was pre-quantified-self movement. Basically, what we were building was a place that you could store all of your medical information in an untethered personal health record. That’s an important distinction — a tethered PHR is when you have a solution that is attached to a health insurance plan or to a large hospital or to an employer. It’s tethered to their EHR so all of the data gets populated.
That’s very different than an untethered solution, which is consumer-directed. The reason it was tough to do an untethered PHR, is because you have to go out and build all of these point-to-point integrations with the data, and that’s very hard to scale. I have to hit all of the insurance companies. Once I integrate with their claims systems, then I have to go talk to all of the EHR vendors.
So it seems that so far we’ve seen the most success with tethered PHRs. Do you see that changing any time soon?
Eventually, yes. This is where the industry has morphed: the world of cloud, social and mobile have basically penetrated late in the game. Now you have mobile apps that are very easy to navigate because the (user interface) is much easier, that are attached to brands that consumers know, whether it may be Weight Watchers or Walgreens. We’re essentially now in an environment where the biggest challenge is not getting patients to engage with these apps, but rather who owns the social health graph?
I have at least 11 apps to monitor my health, but I have to log into each of them. They are all little pieces and features that used to be in a PHR. I would like to not have separate apps. I would like someone who I trust to own all of my data and visualize and normalize it and organize it in a way that makes sense. That’s where we’re headed. We’re not there yet, but that’s where we’re headed.
What comes next?
The biggest theme right now is Meaningful Use Stage 2. You have to now have a certain amount of patients that have viewed, downloaded and transmitted their data.
The other thing with what I call PHRs 2.0 is now you have a social networking element. At the very end of Google Health we were headed to social networking and device connectivity. We just needed more roadway.
Now, you won’t just have a report. Some of the newer PHRs are getting business if they have amazing (user interfaces) — if they’re beautiful, if they have companion user apps, and they’re social. They don’t just say we want to structure your data; now we want to connect you with other people who have your same illness, if you’re comfortable with that. We’re seeing social networking sprouting up around companies like MyHealthTeams, Alliance Health Networks, Audax Health and OneHealth who are doing the social model and selling to large self-insured employers under the wellness banner, or to providers that are in shared-risk networks. They want the patients to engage and get better. That’s where we’re seeing new companies.
http://medcitynews.com/2013/09/3-qualities-that-define-personal-health-records-version-2-0-cloud-social-and-mobile/
Time, It Is On Our Side!
Morning MMRF Boardees, I can only make 1 post a day so I am making the most use of this post. It contains 5 different articles that I thought some of you might find interesting. Have a good weekend & stay safe.
Meaningful Use And Patient Portals–Advertising and Data Selling With 3rd Party Apps Software Impact Consumer Engagement and Furthermore Makes It More Confusing to the Patient-Non Data Selling Portal Services are Winning..
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/09/meaningful-use-and-patient.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FPHZF+%28The+Medical+Quack%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail
Technology and Focusing on the Patient Video
I had a chance to sit down with Dr. Nick van Terheyden, CMIO at Nuance Healthcare, to discuss some of the latest topics in healthcare IT: meaningful use stage 2, ACOs, ICD-10, and patient engagement. Dr. Nick gives a lot of valuable insights into healthcare IT trends and also the shift to a more patient focused healthcare environment. I hope you enjoy the video interview with Dr. Nick embedded below
Hello KingOZ1, I appreciate the news you posted... but how about posting the link where you got the information from?
Fewer certified EHRs for Stage 2 may pose problems for hospitals, doc practices
By Joseph Conn Posted: September 25, 2013 - 4:00 pm ET
There is growing concern that far fewer software developers have certified electronic health-record systems for use by healthcare providers under federal Stage 2 meaningful-use requirements than under Stage 1.
A Modern Healthcare review of the Certified Health IT Product List compiled by HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology shows that just 79 companies, providers and other organizations have developed software and had it tested and certified to ONC-determined software functionality standards for Stage 2 meaningful-use requirements. In comparison, there were 988 developers of health information technology systems tested and certified for Stage 1.
This could cause problems for hospitals and office-based physician practices, which must advance quickly from Stage 1 to Stage 2 to avoid penalties but still don't have tested and certified systems for meeting the Stage 2 requirements.
Experts say vendors are facing problems as they try to develop EHR systems capable of performing calculations for measures providers must report to the CMS under the Stage 2 meaningful-use requirements.
“I've had a number of vendors calling me in a panic about it,” said Alisa Ray, executive director of the Chicago-based Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, one of several organizations that test and certify health IT systems for eligibility in the federal EHR incentive payment program. “It's not just one or two vendors. We've seen it again and again.”
This evidence of the slow progress of EHR developers to upgrade, test and certify their software to the more stringent Stage 2 criteria is one reason some are pushing for a delay in Stage 2 meaningful-use requirements. On Monday, 17 Senate Republicans wrote to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius calling for a partial delay. They said that EHR vendors “are under tremendous time pressures” to upgrade and ensure their products are tested and certified for use in the EHR incentive payment program.
The American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the National Rural Health Association, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, the Medical Group Management Association, the American College of Physicians, and the Tennessee Medical Association have all weighed in calling for a Stage 2 delay or adjustment.
“In the last few weeks, it started to come to a head,” Ray said. “We always poll and communicate with our customers and ask, 'When are you going to test?', and we've pretty much seen everyone with good intentions say, 'Oh, I'm coming in the second quarter or the third quarter, and they end up pushing their schedule back as they run into the complexity.”
Ray said some of the gnarliest problems hit the vendors when they try to develop systems to automatically add up numerators, denominators and do the calculations on percentage-based measures providers must report to the CMS as part of their Stage 2 meaningful-use requirements.
The clock for the Stage 2 requirements starts Oct. 1 for hospitals that have already attained at least two years of meaningful use of a certified EHR system under the federal program, which aims to boost the use of interoperable health IT systems in the U.S. healthcare industry.
So far, the government has paid out $16.2 billion to providers participating in that program, including nearly $9.7 billion to hospitals, and better than 81% of the roughly 5,000 hospitals eligible for the programs under Medicare and Medicaid have received payment.
To qualify for continued payments, however, and to avoid penalties of cuts to their Medicare reimbursements, these experienced meaningful-user hospitals must step up the ladder and achieve 90 consecutive days of meaningful use measured against the more stringent Stage 2 criteria within the fast-approaching 2014 federal fiscal year.
But to do that, they must have installed and train staff to efficiently use health IT software—either a complete EHR or a sufficient collection of modular IT systems—that has been tested and certified as having sufficient functionality for them to meet the Stage 2 criteria set by federal rule.
According to the ONC's list, hospitals have used 3,343 “complete” EHR systems in inpatient settings from 38 developers to receive payment under the Medicare portion of the program, according to a database kept by the ONC and the CMS.
More than 90% of those installations are of complete EHR systems for inpatient use from the top 10 vendors. Eight of the top 10 have at least one health IT product tested and certified against the ONC's 2014 Edition criteria.
But just two of the next 10 vendors with complete EHRs for inpatient use sold to hospitals have a tested and certified product on the list. These companies have 229 of those systems installed and used by hospitals paid under the Medicare EHR incentive payment program, federal data shows.
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20130925/NEWS/309259950?AllowView=VW8xUmo5Q21TcWJOb1gzb0tNN3RLZ0h0MWg5SVgra3NZRzROR3l0WWRMWGJYZjhFRWxiNUtpQzMyWmVpNVhrWUpibWg=&utm_source=link-20130925-NEWS-309259950&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hits
Exceeding Patient Expectations: 6 Simple Techniques
September 20, 2013 | Health IT, Operations, Patient Relations, Patients
By Tom Giannulli, MD, MS
Like most physicians, I have seen how healthcare reimbursement is changing. Patients are expected to pay between 25 percent and 30 percent of their own healthcare expenses this year. That is more than ever before. As a result, patients are beginning to expect a higher level of care and engagement. They want more and better access to their own medical information and to their healthcare providers.
According to research from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, two thirds of patients would actually consider switching to a physician who offers access to medical records through a secure Internet connection. Additionally, the Optum Institute has release data that a majority of patients want to communicate online with their physician about their health, receive electronic reminders, and view medical records online.
As part of a process I call "heads-up medicine," which is about using technology to engage patients and keep your focus on them and not on the device or software, here are six techniques I suggest you begin using as a way to engage patients better and increase your competitive edge:
1. Share preventive care guidelines and recommendations. Most EHRs offer recommendations for preventive care based on gender, age, and other factors. Take the time to walk through these with the patient and discuss them.
2. Show trends in the patient’s health over time. Sometimes it’s hard for patients to visualize the changes in their health. An actual graph or chart that shows changes in blood pressure, weight, or other health indicators may help patients understand the change and your concerns. Showing actual images can be helpful as well. I have had patients who finally made an effort to quit smoking after seeing the actual CT showing the damage to their lungs.
3. Print health educational information. Take advantage of health information resources in your EHR. Patients often find it helpful to have more information to read at home and reference later. This is another area where I have seen patients who are much keener on taking steps in their own wellness after receiving handouts. This is especially true around simple preventive care topics like sunscreen and antioxidants.
4. Print a visit summary. Even if you have opted out of meaningful use, printing a visit summary is another really useful tool for patients. Again, I find that patients are grateful to have the information printed out and are more likely to be compliant with getting needed tests or taking medications.
5. Use your patient portals. Patient portals are the tool of the future. It may be the most critical solution available to you to help engage patients. Not only can it be used by patients to review their medical record, see lab results, or send a message to their physician, it also has a revenue component. Many portals allow patients to view and pay their bills online.
6. Allow patients to see your notes. I know that many physicians are uncomfortable with this, but the recent Open Notes trials have shown us that patients want to see their records and may be more compliant and satisfied when they do. If you can’t provide complete notes through a portal, consider other ways of offering access to visit notes for patients.
Times are changing and all of us will have to change with them. It isn’t just meaningful use or CMS mandating some of these changes. It is coming directly from patients.
According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, 80 percent of patients who have access to their health information through an EHR use it. There is no denying it is what patients want and if you want to stay competitive in a changing healthcare landscape, you’ll need to offer the solutions that patients are asking for.
http://www.physicianspractice.com/blog/exceeding-patient-expectations-6-simple-techniques?GUID=F8F0782F-425F-40DE-9B50-632EB9F800B6&rememberme=1&ts=24092013
GO KC CHIEFS 3-0!
Great, lot of potential. In your reply I believe you typed in the wrong letters. Would you please send again?
Hello, thanks for the heads up, I appreciate it. Like many others here I am ready to see some sales. But I also would like to see the patents approved & issued. Someone once said XSNX does have patents waiting for approval correct?
I am in another company in the medical industry that has 8 or 9 patents issued. They seam to take long at all to be issued.