Guest post by Jeff Urban is the Area Vice President of MedSys Group.
With the introduction of the affordable care act, the ubiquitous feeding frenzy for HIT talent began in 2009, and has yet to slow down. As the shortage of individuals escalates, pay has accelerated to levels unseen. Hiring full-time employees by hospitals has become less commonplace, as the demand and upside of consulting is too lucrative for talent to turn down.
Prices are increasing, and the current model is becoming unsustainable. As competition becomes fiercer and decisions are being made faster and without adequate time for proper due diligence, many hospitals and staff augmentation firms feel they have found a way out. The belief that a pure information technology individual, once trained, can fill the role of a healthcare IT subject matter expert (SME) is becoming more widely accepted, and if perpetuated, has the chance to create more issues than it solves.
Because I’m fascinated with the lack of information surrounding pricing of various electronic health records and because I admire the work of AmericanEHR Partners, I thought it relevant to shine a little light on another interesting piece of information from the organization.
As this seems to be the year of the big EHR switch, and because seemingly the folks at AmericanEHR hear as much as I do about the lack of transparency in the pricing structure of these solutions, I thought I’d publish some guidance for what to consider when making the transition to EHRs. In my research on the subject – I’m developing a piece on the subject of EHR pricing – I came across this piece, compiled by the AmericanEHR from the Maryland Health Care Commission.
Wondering why ACO’s are necessary has become somewhat of a routine task, but there’s really very little question about the validity of the concept in that is does put the patient first. As we know, the goal of an ACO is to achieve cost and quality improvements, and a better approach to coordinated care on all levels.
There’s no doubt the majority of the responsibility for a successful implementation of an ACO lies with physicians. If adopted as a model, physicians are forced to lead us forward; however, the details depicted in the image below (thanks to Healthcare IT Connect for compiling it) tell a much broader and deeper story that clearly paints a picture of troubling times ahead unless something is done about this trend.
Breaking news hits the wires from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), which has responded to a recent query by a group of six Republican senators who are hell bent on slowing down the meaningful use program to ensure its operating efficiently and not just handing out money to everyone claiming they’ve met Stage 1 (and eventually the other stages).
What’s remarkable about the news, though, is that CHIME actually issues a letter calling for a one-year extension of meaningful use Stage 2. According to CHIME’s letter, as reported by Healthcare Informatics,
For several years, the market and its insiders have pontificated about when the vendor landscape is going to suddenly change and contract. With countless hundreds of EHR vendors in the space in some capacity, the annual trade publication trend pieces that run in December and January often predict the year we’re about the enter as the year in which the market with change and a great many vendors will disappear.
Last year this was the case. This year is no different. Next year will be the same.
In his July 2012 piece, “Why the EHR market is on the brink of mass consolidation,” Dr. Robert Rowley writes in Government Health IT that given that 70 percent of users on the top 12 systems out of about 600 that these market forces will lead to consolidation.
A recent Ovum study showed that almost 60 percent of employees bring some type of mobile device into the workplace. There are a few names for this, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), Bring Your Own PC (BYOPC), Bring Your Own Phone (BYOP), User Introduces Unsecure Device onto My Network and Then Loses My Secure Data (UIUDOMNTLMSD).
Alright, so I made that last one up, but that is how most IT managers feel when the discussion is started about BYOD. An end user bringing a device to work is both a gift and a curse for any sized company. We see an increase in productivity but also the increased threat of data being lost or stolen. Having a strong mobile device management (MDM) strategy can help companies reap the benefits of BYOD while limiting the consequences.
When I worked with Sage Healthcare, one of the tenants of our marketing campaign was ensuring the market and those we served were well aware of the length of time our product had been used in ambulatory practice and its worth to countless physicians during that time.
Thirty years is a long time, especially for the ever changing world of software and technology; perhaps too long.
But I digress. Certainly, a product with three decades of service deserves to be recognized as one of the market’s leaders. After all, it is in the Smithsonian as the first practice management system in use commercially.
