Guest post by Dean Wiech, managing director, Tools4ever.
Once again, the media abuzz with a massive theft – 1.2 billion email addresses and password – by a hacking group supposedly based out of Russia. In a case like this, it does not matter how secure your password is – lots of characters, number, upper and lower case, etc. — because the hackers accessed the providers and pulled the information. This type of attack is much different than someone breaking into your computer or smart device and stealing the confidential information from there where a thief might be able to directly access all your accounts. In this case, they “might” be able to access your email account and then again, they might not.
There a couple of interesting items left out of all the various stories. First, were the passwords encrypted? It seems that any self-respecting form that is strong passwords in conjunction with a user name would do something as simple as an encryption algorithm and not store them in plain text. If they were encrypted, were they stored using an irreversible hash with a leading edge algorithm? Many techniques are readily available to insure encryption with hashing, salting and obfuscation, cannot be easily broken, if at all.
The other thing that has not been explicitly mentioned is what sites were hacked. We hear that upwards of 500,000 websites could have been hacked, but no one is coming forward to name any specific sites. Were Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail or other major sites compromised? If so, why are they not sending out notifications to change passwords in a similar fashion to what eBay did back in May when they were attacked?
Let’s assume, for a moment, the providers figured no one could ever hack into their systems so the passwords were stored in plain text along with the email addresses. How can we protect ourselves from these diabolical hackers? The answer is quite easy – change your passwords on all of your accounts and do it on a regular basis. If all 1.2 billion users that had their information stolen did this tomorrow, the hacked information would become useless overnight.
Results of the inaugural 2014 HIMSS Cloud Survey show the widespread adoption of cloud services among healthcare organizations across the U.S., with 80 percent of the 150 respondents reporting they currently use cloud services. The top three reasons for adopting cloud services include lower maintenance costs, speed of deployment and lack of internal staffing resources. The survey shows a positive growth outlook for cloud services as almost all healthcare organizations currently using cloud services plan to expand their use of these tools.
Half of the cloud adopters are hosting clinical applications in the cloud, primarily using Software as a Service (SaaS). Other typical cloud services include health information exchange (HIE), hosting human resources applications and data as well as backup and disaster recovery.
“Cloud services have been long praised as a tool to reduce operating expenses for healthcare organizations. The data presented in our inaugural survey demonstrates the healthcare industry’s eagerness to leverage this resource,” said Lorren Pettit, Vice President of Market Research for HIMSS Analytics. “With such a positive market outlook, we hope vendors will leverage the business intelligence gleaned from this report, continue working with providers to meet their needs, and help healthcare organizations provide the most cost-efficient care.”
Healthcare organizations take into consideration a number of factors when selecting a cloud services provider. The top concerns for healthcare organizations seeking cloud services are the cloud services provider’s willingness to enter into a business associate agreement (BAA) as well as physical and technical security.
Even after a cloud services provider has been selected and the cloud services have been adopted by the healthcare organization, there are still challenges. Two-thirds of healthcare organizations have challenges, including a lack of visibility into ongoing operations, customer service, as well as costs and fees.
Half of the respondents also identified performance issues, such as slow responsiveness of hosted applications as a problem, but were willing to work with their existing cloud service provider to resolve their issues, rather than switch to a new one.
Lance Speck, general manager of Actian cloud and healthcare, speaks here about healthcare big data and how it can be used in healthcare to improve processes from care coordination to coding for ICD-10. In his day job, he is focused on delivering healthcare solutions to help payers and providers address an estimated $450 billion annual opportunity created through data analytics, ranging from fraud analytics to patient re-admission reduction to staff optimization to accountable care reporting and clinical auto-coding. For more than 20 years, Lance has served in a variety of management, sales and product roles in the software industry including a decade focused on SaaS, cloud and healthcare.
How can big data analytics improve patient care?
According to a recent PwC survey, 95 percent of healthcare CEOs are exploring better ways of using and managing big data; however, only 36 percent have made any headway in getting to grips with big data. All agree that big data analytics has the potential to improve the quality and cost of care, but many are still struggling with finding the right ways to infuse analytics into everyday operations. Assuming they realize that they already have access to the data, what do they do with it? What are the areas that will have the biggest impact? Where do they start?
Start with the basics. Organizations should focus in infusing big data analytics where a big impact can be recognized. They should ask themselves:
Is there enough value in solving the problem?
Can the problem can be predicted?
Can the problem be prevented?
Can the predictive action be delivered accurately, and in a timely fashion to make a difference?
Very early in the process, organizations should address how they plan to incorporate big data into the everyday workflow of clinicians, financial staff and other healthcare stakeholders for organizations to:
Use predictive analytics against historical and external data to anticipate patient occupancy needs to adjust staffing levels to have the right care available at the right time.
Use science to determine with accuracy health trends in specific communities and take action to prevent costly
Determine patients’ risk of readmission before they are discharged to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs and penalties by nearly $70 billion.
Realize that for this insight to be effective, you must put this information into the hands of the clinicians and the patients in the format that fits their daily flow.
How can healthcare providers transition to ICD-10 as simply as possible?
Significant increases in the use of electronic health records (EHRs) among the nation’s physicians and hospitals are detailed in two new studies published today by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).
The studies, published in the journal Health Affairs, found that in 2013, almost eight in 10 (78 percent) office-based physicians reported they adopted some type of EHR system. About half of all physicians (48 percent) had an EHR system with advanced functionalities in 2013, a doubling of the adoption rate in 2009.
About six in 10 (59 percent) hospitals had adopted an EHR system with certain advanced functionalities in 2013, quadruple the percentage for 2010. Unlike the physician study, the hospital study does not have an equivalent, established measure of adoption of some type of EHR system; it only reports on adoption of EHRs with advanced functionalities.
“Patients are seeing the benefits of health IT as a result of the significant strides that have been made in the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health records,” said Karen DeSalvo, M.D., M.P.H., national coordinator for health information technology. “We look forward to working with our partners to ensure that people’s digital health information follows them across the care continuum so it will be there when it matters most.”
Guest post by Michael Murphy, MD, co-founder and CEO, Scribe America.
In May 2014, the Department of Health and Human Services released findings of their most recent study pertaining to reimbursement amounts provided to outpatient physicians for evaluation and management services. The study uncovered that Medicare overpaid outpatient physicians close to $7 billion and most improper payments were results of errors in coding and insufficient documentation (Table 1, highlights the percentage of claims that were wrongfully claimed for in 2010.). However this is not a problem isolated to physicians from the outpatient clinics, as physicians from inpatient clinics could also be found guilty of miscoding and insufficient documentation.
Recovery audit contractors (RACs) were created by the Medicare Modernization Act to evaluate the accuracy of Medicare claims. If a claim is determined by RAC to be flawed for any one of the many different reasons, the claim is denied. Although Medicare’s retrospective program of auditing bills is good, it is not perfect. There has been a huge spike in appeals of Medicare payment decisions, from hospitals mainly, since the introduction of the auditing program and delays in the appeal process has resulted in hospitals facing great financial difficulties as a lot of their funds are tied up till the appeal has been heard.
Adapted from : “Improper payments for evaluation and management services cost medicare billions in 2010”
In order to receive reimbursement from Medicare, a physician needs to follow a three-step process: 1) appropriate coding of the service provided by utilising current procedural terminology (CPT); 2) appropriate coding of the diagnosis using ICD-9 code; and 3) the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) determination of the appropriate fee based on the resources-based relative value scale (RBRVS). It is not surprising that physicians often incorrectly code patient visits and procedures as there exists a truly daunting number of codes from which to choose. Moreover, coding structure and reimbursements schemes are constantly evolving and becoming more complex, resulting in a coding process that is often cumbersome and difficult.
Cerner Corporation (Nasdaq: CERN) and Siemens AG today announced they signed a definitive agreement for Cerner to acquire the assets of Siemens’ health information technology business unit, Siemens Health Services, for $1.3 billion in cash. By combining investments in R&D, knowledgeable resources, and complementary client bases, the acquisition creates scale for future innovation. As part of the agreement, Cerner and Siemens will form a strategic alliance to bring new solutions to market that combine Cerner’s health IT leadership and Siemens’ strengths in medical devices and imaging.
“We believe this is an all-win situation for the clients of both organizations and all of our associates and shareholders,” said Neal Patterson, Cerner chairman, CEO and co-founder. “Through more than $4 billion of cumulative investments in R&D, Cerner has established a strong market standing and is positioned for continued growth. Siemens’ health care IT assets provide additional scale, R&D, an impressive client base, and knowledgeable and experienced associates who will help Cerner achieve our plans for the next decade. In addition, the alliance we’re creating will drive the next generation of innovations that embed information from the EMR inside advanced diagnostic and therapeutic technologies, benefiting our shared clients.”
Based on 2014 estimates, Cerner and Siemens Health Services have combined totals of more than:
20,000 associates in more than 30 countries
18,000 client facilities, including some of the largest health care organizations in their respective countries
$4.5 billion of annual revenue
$650 million of annual R&D investment
The transaction is expected to be more than $0.15 accretive to Cerner’s non-GAAP diluted EPS in 2015, and more than $0.25 accretive in 2016. Non-GAAP earnings are expected to exclude share-based compensation expense, one-time transaction costs, and acquisition-related amortization and deferred revenue adjustments.
Implementation of electronic health records is considered a national priority in this era of healthcare reform. However if EHRs are not implemented correctly they can be painful.
EHRs that are not implemented effectively can affect productivity and revenue. The extra documentation requirements and intricate workflows create distance between physicians and their patients. Physicians have reported that they spend too much time on EHRs and that they don’t get enough time to interact with their patients. But physicians often communicate that spending time on EHRs is crucial to creating a trusted set of structured data that can guide their business. Every click that providers make creates important data points that can be used to inform the efficient delivery of their practice.
Every EHR saves a large amount of data inside it regarding patient health, effectiveness of treatments, system efficiency and provider tendencies. Despite the extra time and effort that is dedicated to electronic documentation, many practices and physicians do not make full use of this precious data set that they have produced.
If a practice can get its EHR adoption right they can make a number of positive results, some of which are mentioned below:
Revenue Gains
By overcoming the difficulties providers can see more patients and will be able to generate more billed revenue using its existing staff. Furthermore, if a provider is using its EHR efficiently then the improved documentation produces billing at higher rates, combined with increased patient flow. This represents significant potential revenue.
Quick Cash Flow
Many of the practices work on revenue cycle management, but few make it flawless. With increased charge accuracy and reduced time for denials, there will be an increase in the yield with timely reimbursements by the payers.
Add to the list of known certainties: death, taxes, and the need to lower the cost of healthcare.
Neither HIPAA standards nor encryption were created with the purpose of lowering the cost of healthcare, but neither was penicillin originally purposed as an antibiotic. Both welcome side effects in the world of medicine.
Cloud Computing and Healthcare
Healthcare and medical companies are migrating to cloud computing in record numbers. The cloud offers flexibility and scalability to manage ever-growing databases of patient records. At the same time, it offers mobility to enable care providers to access patient information remotely and shareability to share data with colleagues, specialists, and labs. The cloud, perhaps most importantly, enables cost reduction on several levels.
It eliminates the need healthcare organization have to purchase, maintain, upgrade, and replace costly computing equipment and staff.
It saves costs of multiple providers running multiple tests by enabling them to share and track the results.
It saves time and money by enabling paperless transmission of prescriptions and insurance claims. It also increases the accuracy of reimbursement coding.
Now, HIPAA omnibus and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) requirements stipulate everyone in the healthcare industry begin migrating patient records and other data to cloud computing. Essentially, by 2015, all medical professionals with access to patient records must utilize electronic medical and health records (EMR and EHR), or face penalties.
