QueueDr is a web app that practices can use in any browser to build and utilize a waitlist to fill appointments. First, they upload their existing waitlist and then after that they can add individual patients who call-in. Once an appointment opens, with a press of a button, texts are sent out to patients in the waiting list and the first one that texts back gets the appointment. Physicians see a pop-up on their screen and an email notifying them which patient is showing up.
The average appointment is filled in less than one minute because patients compete to fill the appointment. Once a patient fills an appointment, they are removed from the waitlist. They can also unsubscribe (and re-subscribe) at any time if they want. If a patient doesn’t show up, practices can press QueueDr’s “no-show” button in the “appointments” section then the next appointment is free to schedule.
QueueDr works on every browser. All patient data is encrypted when transferred and when stored. Only one person in the company has access to the data, and QueueDr does not sell or utilize the data.
Elevator pitch
We bring smiles to doctors’ offices with simple products that save time and make money. Our first product helps doctors fill missed appointments in than one minute which saves them two hours every time they use it, while shortening patient wait.
Guest post by Cliff Bleustein, M.D., M.B.A., chief medical officer, Dell Services.
For decades, reimbursement for the time spent coordinating care and keeping people healthy has been mostly non-existent. But the tide is turning, as government and private payers see that coordinated care and the time spent keeping people healthy can lower the amount of money they spend treating illness.
Primary care physicians are even seeing higher reimbursements in some areas. For example, beginning in 2011, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the largest insurer in the Washington, D.C., area, substantially raised reimbursement rates for general internists and family practitioners who adopted the medical home model, which emphasizes care coordination. They also rewarded them with significant bonuses if they met quality standards and reduced costs. They also provided the physicians with round-the-clock nursing assistance to help with their sickest and riskiest patients.
CareFirst CEO Chet Burrell said in news reports that the program is saving “hundreds of millions of dollars in accumulated, avoided costs.”
Government payers are also reaping benefits from coordinated care, including Medicaid, Medicare and the Veteran’s Administration.
That’s good news for everyone. Coordinated care requires an upfront-investment in people and technology that is often beyond the resources of a primary care practice, but it is far less expensive than the business-as-usual, uncoordinated care that has seen costs rise at double the rate of inflation for most of the past two decades. If public and private health plans make that upfront investment, paying for the time and the needed resources, they can reap the financial benefits while patients reap the benefit of better health.
Guest post by Randy Hickel,manager of worldwide healthcare business development, Printing and Personal Systems Group of HP.
Mobility and BYOD trends in healthcare are a hot topic. With more healthcare businesses transitioning work processes to mobile platforms for increased collaboration and productivity, data security can be a major concern.
It’s clear that advanced mobile technologies allow healthcare employees – who are constantly on the move – to connect from anywhere, anytime; however, mobility can pose several challenges. By engaging with a health IT mobility expert, healthcare organizations can plan and build the appropriate infrastructure to manage various mobile devices, secure data and promote fluidity between paper and digital documents.
Prepare your IT infrastructure for BYOD
Personal devices in the workplace are quickly becoming the norm, rather than a trend, even in the healthcare industry. Administrative and medical staffs more frequently use personal devices, such as smartphones or tablets, to connect to work networks or enterprise systems. According to the Pew Research Center, in January 2014, 58 percent of American adults had smartphones and 42 percent had tablets. And for the first time ever, Americans used smartphone and tablet apps more than PCs to access the Internet.
Mobility focused IT experts can help healthcare organizations develop a mobile printing strategy that manages the growing number and diversity of mobile devices in the workplace, ensuring that staff can print securely using their mobile devices.
Through grants, sponsorships and employee volunteerism, Aetna and the Aetna Foundation are working to help improve the health of children and adults and to make the healthcare system more equitable and effective. Garth Graham, M.D., M.P.H., is the current president of the Aetna Foundation and former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during both the Bush and Obama administrations. Here he discusses some of the most pressing issues he’s seeing, as well as the Aetna Foundation.
People are using wearable technology and smartphone apps for just about everything these days. How do you see the Aetna Foundation’s commitment to technology playing a role in reshaping health?
Digital health technology provides a powerful tool to reach people with real-time health solutions that fit easily into their daily lives. In early 2014, the Aetna Foundation significantly expanded its commitment to digital health technology and mobile health solutions. Our $4 million, three-year commitment will help to implement and evaluate technology innovations that can help reach underserved communities with health solutions.
But does this technology really impact underserved groups?
People from all walks of life are increasingly relying on technology and we are increasingly seeing technology being utilized more among underserved communities, which offers an opportunity for direct education to individuals that have been hard to reach in the past. In fact, adults living in poverty account for 56% of cell phone-only households (CDC), making mobile technology a powerful equalizer for low-income communities. One example of our work is the Institute for eHealth Equity’s Text4Wellness program that focuses on reaching African American women ages 19 to 55 in Cleveland, Ohio. Women are a key audience because they not only make decisions about their own health, but are also more likely to be the decision-makers in their homes regarding food choices, meal preparation and wellness activities. Through programs like Text4Wellness, we are helping underserved communities access the tools that they already use daily to impact their health.
Hyginex is a patented wearable hand hygiene improvement technology that is saving patient lives by preventing the spread of healthcare associated infections that cause nearly 100,000 deaths in the U.S. annually. The patented arm-based system provides real-time feedback to help staff remember to wash their hands and also collects highly accurate data on both duration and frequency of hand hygiene events.
Elevator pitch
Hyginex is a patented wearable information technology that generates big data to drive change and save lives in the healthcare industry.
Founders’ story
Hyginex was founded when Efrat Raichman lost her uncle to a healthcare associated infection (HAIs). After researching the problem further, she realized better hand hygiene was key to preventing these terrible infections and that there was no technology solution available on the market. She developed the Hyginex system, the first electronic hand hygiene improvement and monitoring technology to save patient lives and help hospitals improve their hand hygiene culture.
Marketing/promotion strategy
Hyginex reaches customers through conferences, tradeshows, webinars, email marketing and social media. Hyginex is also developing strategic partnerships with thought leaders and patient advocacy organizations to increase public awareness of the importance of hand hygiene for patient safety.
As more healthcare providers modernize their IT with cloud solutions and mobile devices, the opportunity for breaches increases dramatically. Hardly a week goes by without a major hospital or practice announcing a data breach. Breach reporting is costly, time-consuming and harmful to the reputation of otherwise legitimate practices. But is it really unsecured data, hackers or doctors sharing information that is causing breaches?
A quick analysis of the public data released by the Department of Health and Human Resources (HHS) reveals that from the first reported breaches in 2009 through early 2013, there were 572 breaches involving 500 or more patients (the threshold for reporting). Of these breaches, only about 10 percent came from hacking/IT incidents or improper disposal, while over half—51 percent—were a result of theft.
When you combine these details with the location of the breach, the picture becomes even more clear: 44 percent of the breaches are from laptops, 13.5 percent are from a computer, 13.1 percent are from portable devices and 10.5 percent are from network servers. That means a whopping 81 percent of breaches are from computing devices, and 57 percent are from mobile devices alone.
The security priority is apparent. Mobile devices cause the majority of PHI breaches and must be secured. While they aren’t foolproof and breaches can still occur, there are a variety of methods to control access to data on laptops, tablets, and smart phones on today’s market, as well as ways to wipe the device and track it.
By Stephen Cobb, senior researcher, ESET North America.
The benefits of making health records available electronically would seem to be obvious. For a start, faster access to more accurate patient information – which is one of the promises of EHRs (electronic health records) and HIEs (health information exchanges) – could save lives. The author of a recent report on the many thousands of lethal “patient adverse events” that occur in America every year, Dr. John T. James, pointed to “more accurate and streamlined medical recordkeeping” as a top priority in the effort to reduce these deadly medical errors. Yet headlines about healthcare facilities exposing confidential patient data to potential abuse have been all over the media this year. So, will security issues and privacy concerns stymie EHR adoption or slow down HIE rollouts?
Today, more than half of all Americans probably have at least some part of their medical record stored on computer. In January, the CDC reported that roughly four out of five office-based physicians are now using some type of EHR system, up from one in five in 2001. A few months later, in a Harris poll sponsored by ESET, only 17 percent of adult Americans said that, to their knowledge, their health records were not in electronic format.
During that same survey of 1,734 American adults, we asked “are you concerned about the security and privacy of your electronic patient health records” and 40 percent said they were. Slightly more of them, 43 percent said they were not. However, if we take out the 17 percent whose records were not in electronic format, the “concerned or not?” question breaks down as 48 percent Yes, versus 50 percent No, a statistical tie.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a new meaningful use rule that allows healthcare providers “more flexibility” in how they use certified electronic health record (EHR) technology (CEHRT) to meet meaningful use for an EHR Incentive Program reporting period for 2014. According to the HHS’ statement, “by providing this flexibility, more providers will be able to participate and meet important meaningful use objectives like drug interaction and drug allergy checks, providing clinical summaries to patients, electronic prescribing, reporting on key public health data and reporting on quality measures.”
“We listened to stakeholder feedback and provided CEHRT flexibility for 2014 to help ensure providers can continue to participate in the EHR Incentive Programs forward,” said Marilyn Tavenner, CMS administrator. “We were excited to see that there is overwhelming support for this change.”
Based on public comments and feedback from stakeholders, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) identified ways to help eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals (CAHs) implement and meaningfully use Certified EHR Technology. Specifically, eligible providers can use the 2011 Edition CEHRT or a combination of 2011 and 2014 Edition CEHRT for an EHR reporting period in 2014 for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs; All eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and CAHs are required to use the 2014 Edition CEHRT in 2015.
These updates to the EHR Incentive Programs support HHS’ commitment to implementing an effective health information technology infrastructure that elevates patient-centered care, improves health outcomes, and supports the providers that care for patients.
The rule also finalizes the extension of Stage 2 through 2016 for certain providers and announces the Stage 3 timeline, which will begin in 2017 for providers who first became meaningful EHR users in 2011 or 2012.
