Fortuneteller Farzad Mostashari said recently that a lull in adoption of EHRs is expected, by him, and that 2014 will be a huge – banner – year for the adoption of the technology to participate in the meaningful use program, since 2014 is the last year to participate and still be eligible for federal incentives.
The penalty phase begins in 2015.
The incentive program is having a clear impact on adoption of the technology, as we all know. Without the “free” federal money and the threat of cuts in reimbursements, motivation to implement the oft described as burdensome technology was lagging.
Despite the government doling out billions for the advancement of healthcare information technology (HIT) through the electronic health record (EHR) Medicare and Medicaid incentive programs, the shift toward adoption of EHR has not picked up as rapidly as expected.
A deeper study into the issue reveals that physicians and healthcare providers, who are normally at ease in incorporating cutting edge technology into their work, are facing a plethora of problems because of the government’s incentive programs. A hasty implementation of certified EHR, which were provided by hundreds of vendors, resulted in physicians buying tools that were not optimized to meet a individual user’s needs. As a result, instead of facilitating providers, these tools have had a negative impact on their workflows, decreasing efficiency.
HIMSS Analytics released the results of the first HIMSS workforce survey, sponsored by Medix IT, which examines hiring trends and barriers for healthcare provider organizations and IT vendors. The report, based on a survey of 224 executives working for hospital/healthcare system IT and vendor organizations, provides human resource leaders insights into the current hiring environment, recruitment and retention tactics, hiring plans for 2013 and resources currently employed by health IT providers and vendors.
“As healthcare organizations become increasingly sophisticated with their IT initiatives, human resource leaders are experiencing a new set of hiring challenges,” said Jennifer Horowitz, senior director of research for HIMSS Analytics. “By identifying those challenges and hiring trends, we hope this new report will be considered a resource for career development professionals as they plan their strategic personnel efforts.”
More than 85 percent of survey respondents indicated that their organization hired at least one employee in 2012. Only 13 percent reported implementing layoffs during the same time frame. While the health IT hiring environment has been very positive for both healthcare provider organizations and vendors, vendors were more likely to report hiring staff than were healthcare providers. Looking ahead, 79 percent of organizations also plan to hire additional staff in the coming year.
After having spent several days in a hospital recently caring for a loved one, I can unequivocally say that there is no comparison for patient engagement – in relation to meaningful use and in regard to health IT such as EHRs – between the hospital setting and the ambulatory practice.
Simply put, there is no comparison between the amount of attention given to the topic of patient engagement in ambulatory practice and in hospital care, at least as far as the patient experience is concerned.
Guest post by Bob Janacek, CTO and co-founder of DataMotion.
Duplicate tests and sky high costs. Healthcare records stored in filing cabinets and warehouses. Millions of documents lost in floods and fires. For the past few decades, these woeful stories have been typical of healthcare. Ask a seasoned administrator about those times and you’ll likely hear stories of heroic hospital staff wading waist deep in a flooded archive basement salvaging whatever floated by.
Fortunately, there’s been a significant push toward the use of electronic health records (EHR) and the days of managing tons of physical documents are gradually becoming a distant memory. Every new innovation, however, brings new challenges. This is especially true when it comes to recent federal mandates requiring the electronic exchange of healthcare records among providers and clinical systems.
Guest post by Girish Kumar Navani, CEO and co-founder, eClinicalWorks.
In a world becoming more and more connected by technology, we have countless resources that fit in the palms of our hands. Thanks to smartphones, we are empowered to shop, bank and manage our social networks and more – whenever and wherever we choose. And companies are working in new ways to meet our needs by building apps and optimized websites that make our lives easier.
This notion of consumerization – the power of the consumer to drive technological innovation – is taking hold in healthcare. It means giving patients tools to track, understand and maintain their health, and meeting their demand for easy access to their doctors and personal health information. Empowering patients in this way could lead to big changes in our healthcare system.
As a patient, I sat in the exam room awaiting the results of my labs and tests. From my perspective, there was a great deal on the line – my personal health and possibly my longevity.
I sat alone — waiting for the nurse to come in to begin the initial check-in phase — taking in the sterile room, its beach-themed art and the blank flat-screen monitor near me on the counter.
After several minutes alone, pondering my fate and driving myself further into a place of stress, the nurse finally entered the room.
We exchanged pleasantries. Hellos and how are yous.
With that, she turned from her back to me, keyed in a few strokes and began to enter data into the practice’s EHR.
Guest post by Jaye Connolly is CEO of PathCentral.
For all of its sophistication, digital pathology turns on just a few basic value propositions: images must be consistent, persistent and efficient, enabling them to be used at anytime and from anywhere. We need to get the right slide on the right patient to the right pathologist at the right time – what eminent pathologist and blogger Keith Kaplan, MD, calls “the 4R’s of digital pathology.”
When these four requirements are met, good things happen: teleconsultation and image analysis can be performed by the right pathologist on the right slide on the right patient at the right time. With this capability, pathology is moving from near real-time diagnoses to real-time diagnoses without regard to geographic boundaries.
