Healthcare organizations maintain a juggling act of caring not only for their patients’ well being, but also the safety and security of the sensitive information that comes in the front door with every patient, doctor, technician and nurse. Data security issues are top-of-mind for information technology professionals in healthcare today, driven by a trifecta of factors: the large number of endpoint devices in use; a rise in the number and frequency of malicious attacks; and strict privacy laws such as HIPAA and regulations related to the Affordable Care Act.
For healthcare IT professionals, it has never been more important to ensure that endpoint security systems are up-to-date and functioning properly so that every endpoint is constantly secure and meeting compliance.
Take HIPAA regulations, which require that end user devices containing sensitive data cannot also have unapproved software running on them. Knowing exactly what software is installed on hundreds or even thousands of endpoints can be tremendously difficult, especially when there isn’t an easy automated way to track this information. Unapproved software is just the tip of the iceberg. What about approved software that isn’t working properly? For example, antivirus software installed on a PC running in a doctor’s office may be outdated, or completely disabled, without the administrator’s knowledge. This gives attackers an open door from this individual endpoint to gain access to the larger network—and a whole host of private information.
Guest post by Ellen Derrico, director of global market development, life sciences and healthcare at QlikTech.
Electronic health records (EHRs) are getting a lot of attention these days, but amid the hype there are skeptics out there arguing that the EHR is old news. However, I’d like to argue that the EHR is not dead; in fact, it’s growing up.
Today’s EHRs are so much more than a digital version of a paper chart. They are evolving and getting more sophisticated. One of the most promising and exciting developments of this is the integration of data discovery and analytics to analyze and compare EHR data. Where business intelligence (BI) was once used primarily to analyze data from a business perspective – revenue cycle management, finance, supply chain management – it’s increasingly being used to analyze patient data, physician performance, facility and utilization – all to improve clinical outcomes.
In healthcare, data discovery and analytics offer the possibility of improving patient care by synchronizing the resource planning with patient logistics and allowing physicians and nurses to focus on improving performance. With BI technology medical practitioners can look across data from different people and locations to support decision making not only for their individual patients, but also for larger patient populations. As a result, practitioners can improve patient outcomes and population health.
Recently, the president of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) called on all American’s to commemorate National Home Care & Hospice Month. He also stated that in the coming years, home health care is poised to play a central role in the delivery of healthcare throughout the country. Yet, the growing home health market is not without challenges. Solutions that blend innovation and mobility at the point of care can help pave the way for strong patient-caregiver interactions and support positive outcomes.
Home Health Poses Challenges: Mobile Solutions Can Improve Care Delivery
An aging population and tough new compliance and regulatory issues are posing challenges for the home healthcare segment. The unique and specific needs of the home healthcare market must play a paramount role in organizations seeking to develop mobile solutions to address these issues. Home caregivers urgently need “smart” solutions that address not only patient privacy, but also, wireless connectivity, mobile printing, security and remote data access.
There are a number of issues and trends impacting the healthcare industry that solution providers and caregivers need to keep top-of-mind:
Reimbursements/Re-admissions – Medicare reimbursement reductions and new penalties are being imposed on hospitals with high avoidable re-admissions. This increases the pressure on home health agencies to leverage technology to aid patients in following aftercare instructions, adhering to medication plans and accessing their medical information – all to better prevent costly re-admissions from occurring.
Guest byline by Doug Coombs director, healthcare strategy, for RES.
The healthcare industry is facing an uncertain future. Governments, employers and patients are putting pressure on healthcare providers to reduce prices even as costs continue to increase. While hospitals differ in size, specialty and many other variables, it will often be an ongoing commitment to operational efficiency that will differentiate successful providers from those that fail. Increased operational efficiency can improve the fiscal health of a hospital by improving its adherence to medical standards and improving its patient satisfaction scores.
One change that can dramatically increase operational efficiency is to simplify complex, frustrating, and outdated IT systems and replace them with processes that maximize usability, reach, and speed. The healthcare industry, like many others, is becoming increasingly reliant on computer technologies both in patient treatment and day-to-day operations. It is vital that these IT systems help, not hinder, a hospital’s commitment to operational efficiency.
Hospitals are predicted to undergo massive shifts in the near future. David Houle and Jonathan Fleece estimate that one-third of all hospitals in the United States will close or be reorganized into another kind of healthcare provider by 2020. [1] A range of factors are expected to contribute to this shakeup, from the exorbitant cost of healthcare in the United States to patient dissatisfaction with inefficient service and long wait times at hospitals.[2] In no uncertain terms, it is a critical time for the well-being of these healthcare organizations.
Guest post by Bettina Experton, MD, MPH, president and CEO, Humetrix.
Mobile technology core to HIT implementation, a silent revolution which took place on September 23 this year when the HIPAA omnibus rule took effect, giving Americans the right to obtain electronic copies of their health records. But how can this new right be exercised at scale to transform healthcare nationwide? How do we help patients better coordinate their care and ensure their safety by getting their health records in their own hands?
The scalable computing device of choice in the hands of many is a smartphone, now owned by more than 50 percent of the population, and for many the only computing device they use daily to access information on the Internet. Clearly, electronic access to health records would be best provided on the very mobile device most of us carry at all times, especially when navigating a complex health care system with multiple and dispersed providers.
Electronic copies of health records on CDs or flash drives are not only tools of the past, but also perpetuate the barriers and complexity most of us have to face when requesting copies of our records. Desktop and portal-only solutions are also not the optimum approach to consumer-directed health information exchange, since these cannot be available at the point of care where patients need to share their medical history in the most convenient and expedient way. Mobile is, therefore, central to health information exchange policies and new care delivery models built on patient-centered care, and should not be an afterthought or secondary implementation to dated patient portal systems.
Guest post by James Hofert, Roy Bossen, Linnea Schramm and Michael Dowell, all partners with Hinshaw & Culbertson.
James Hofert
New federal healthcare legislation and implementing regulations, seek to exert control over multiple aspects of patient care. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“HITECH”)[i] with staged implementation through 2016, seeks to not only promote implementation of electronic health record systems (“EHR”), but also regulate electronic communications of health information by and between the patient, physician, hospitals and other healthcare institutions so as to enhance care quality, care coordination and reduce costs.
HITECH further envisions implementation of clinical decision support algorithms for the diagnosis and treatment of disease both during admission and after discharge. The Hospital Readmission Reduction Program[ii], effective October 1, 2012, consistent with the objectives of HITECH seeks to financially penalize hospitals for higher than standardized readmission rates for heart failure, acute MI and pneumonia. The Center of Medicine and Medicaid Service (“CMS”) intends to expand application of the program to readmission for COPD, elective total hip arthroplasty and elective total knee arthroplasty in 2015[iii]. Consistent with preventative care goals so as to mitigate further health care problems as found in HITECH, CMS has refused to adjust the re-admission penalty program to account for readmissions unrelated to the patient’s initial hospitalization even though the readmission could be considered to be outside the hospital’s or physician’s control[iv].
Dr. Lucy Hornstein, solo practitioner at Valley Forge Family Practice in Phoenixville, Penn., was not a proponent of electronic health records. An active physician blogger and published writer, she spent quite a few of her words on the technology’s uselessness.
They were expensive, overly complicated and tough to use and provided little return on the investment for users. Besides, most physicians, in her opinion, only implemented them because of meaningful use and the federal incentives they received for using them.
Paper, she had long decided, was good enough for her and during the first 21 years of practice in her own practice, she had no plans to change. It was only after the loss of one of her two staff members that she soon realized that she’d have to re-hire just to maintain her practice at its current load. However, that wasn’t an option for her. Neither, she thought, was adding an EHR to handle the management of the records because other than her perception of the technology, the self-described “dinosaur” didn’t have the budget for such an endeavor. She had zero for such technology.
Even if she had a change of heart and adopted the technology, she had not seen one system that was not cumbersome, not hard to use, intuitive to maneuver and or that offered her the option to meet the needs of her small practice while running the business efficiently.
Michael Nusimow, CEO, and Daniel Kivatinos, COO, co-founders of drchrono discuss the company, its goals, how to disrupt health IT and how mobile is being embraced by those in healthcare.
Tell me about drchrono, mission, goals and how it fits into the current landscape.
drchrono created a free electronic medical record (EMR) platform on the iPad, iPhone and cloud, and recently announced its newest app for iOS7. This is the first mobile EHR to support Apple’s new iOS7. Physicians are using mobile devices such as the iPad as a key business tool in their practice and it’s drchrono’s mission to enable the world’s doctors and patients to be better connected.
Daniel Kivatinos
On a more local level, we are looking to bring Silicon Valley technology and people into the forefront of the healthcare space. We are using cutting edge technologies like the iPad and SaaS software to deliver clinical and business tools for office based doctors.
Why use your talents in health IT? What drives you to serve this space?
We went to college together back East and several years after graduating we met up to learn that we both had family members with unfavorable healthcare experiences. We felt this urge to improve healthcare practices starting at the physician/patient level. We realized that a healthcare system built on faxing and shuffling papers is inefficient and thought so much more could be done to streamline the process via new technologies.
Based on our experiences, we witnessed that many office-based doctors were using paper charts for clinical work. If they have a patient taking 10 or more drugs or who has a very complex chart, they will waste a lot of time trying to understand the entire patient’s history. Seeing this need and personally suffering through bad healthcare experiences due to inefficiencies was the inspiration to start drchrono with the goal to digitize healthcare. We both knew we could build a software application that would create a better care experience.
