According to Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is a “model or philosophy of primary care that is patient-centered, comprehensive, team-based, coordinated, accessible, and focused on quality and safety.” PCMHs power business and clinical processes by using clinical decision support tools to connect patients with members of their healthcare team to improve both the patients’ and the providers’ experience of care. This coordination encourages a stronger physician-patient relationship, leading to better care delivery, more involved and engaged patients and reduced avoidable costs. According to the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), these models are “transforming primary care practices into what patients want, focusing on patients themselves and all of their healthcare needs. They also are foundations for a healthcare system that gives more value by achieving the ‘triple aim’ of better quality, experience and cost.”
The NCQA recognizes over 10 percent of U.S. primary care practices as patient-centered medical homes. In order to be recognized by the NCQA, these primary care practices must offer access both afterhours and online, allowing patients to receive care when and where they need it. They work with patients to make treatment decisions based on individual preferences and help patients engage in their own health. The practice as a whole works as a team to coordinate care from other providers and community resources to maximize efficiency. Additionally, PCMHs focus on preventive care and the management of chronic conditions to prevent complications and emergencies.
In this series, we are featuring some of the thousands of vendors who will be participating in the HIMSS15 conference and trade show. Through it, we hope to offer readers a closer look at some of the solution providers who will either be in attendance – with a booth showcasing and displaying key products and offerings – or that will have a presence of some kind at the show – key executives in attendance or presenting, for example.
Hopefully this series will give you a bit more useful information about the companies that help make this event, and the industry as a whole, so exciting.
Elevator Pitch Allscripts is a leader in healthcare information technology solutions that advance clinical, financial and operational results. Our innovative solutions connect people, places and data across an Open, Connected Community of Health. Connectivity empowers caregivers to make better decisions and deliver better care for healthier populations.
Market Opportunity
Allscripts is one of the largest public companies focused exclusively on healthcare information technology and does business in eleven countries. Our full suite of population health solutions build on the power of our robust suite of Clinical and Revenue Cycle core products. We deliver the portfolio flexibility to work with all major EHR applications in the market today and enable our clients to deliver better outcomes. Allscripts differentiates itself through a comprehensive focus on connectivity, collaboration and innovation.
Services Offered
With our extensive community-powered network of caregivers and organizations, our unique Open architecture connects both clinical and financial data across every setting: from the provider to the hospital to post-acute settings and even the patient’s home. Our healthcare technology innovations connect caregivers across the spectrum with information and insights, resulting in better outcomes.
Girish Navani is CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks, an electronic health record company exceeding in the B2B field since 1999. Under the leadership and foresight of Navani, the company is expanding its services to B2C with the launch of healow – an app for patients to easily find new doctors, schedule appointments online and access their personal health records.
Here, Navani speaks about his path to eClinicalWorks, he offers his expert insight on EHRs and their benefits to healthcare, and he speak of likely trends that will continue to change the healthcare landscape.
Tell me your story. About how you got here, how you developed your technology and the reasoning for a private company set up?
We wanted to use technology as a way to completely transform the healthcare delivery model to streamline processes, prevent errors and provide easily accessible information to both providers and patients. Not only was our primary goal to make doctors’ jobs easier by providing them with a way to operate more efficiently, but we also wanted to improve the patient experience.
I’m a strong believer in keeping my company private and concentrating on building a solid product. Selling shares and depending on investors means that they will always have a say in how we conduct our business. We use our profits to continue building our company and our products.
What about the leadership inside the company? Is it true the no employees have titles? What’s the reasoning?
I have an open-door policy, which allows the opportunity for anybody to approach me to ask questions and brainstorm ideas. Over time, I’ve learned to listen more. I’m okay with second guessing my own decisions and receiving feedback from my colleagues, even if what they say is “no.”
Yes, our employees do not have titles, but instead, the whole company is team-based with team leaders being the only leadership position. Employees’ careers grow with bigger projects. I think titles are self-fulfilling and short-term objectives that people quickly get tired of. With a team-based structure, employees can work together to achieve successful results instead of individuals striving for the next title.
What drew you to healthcare? Why does it stand out for you?
I have always worked in technology, and in 1999, I heard a lecture in Geneva about using wireless computing in healthcare and the idea of “connected healthcare” really stuck with me. I loved the idea of a doctor and patient sitting in the doctor’s office reviewing charts on a tablet instead of pieces of paper, so I wanted to build a technology that connects all parties involved in healthcare, including the doctor, patient and insurance company.
Dr. Sol Lizerbram has been co-founder and chairman of the board of HealthFusion since its inception in 1998. HealthFusion develops web-based, cloud computing software for physicians, hospitals and medical billing services. HealthFusion’s fully integrated solution includes MediTouch EHR and MediTouch PM. Dr. Lizerbram was a co-founder of a national physician practice management company, and served as chairman of its board of Directors from 1986 through July 1998. Dr. Lizerbram has been in the healthcare industry for more than 35 years, received a degree in pharmacy in 1970 from Long Island University, School of Pharmacy, and was licensed as a registered pharmacist in the states of New York and Pennsylvania. He obtained a medical degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1977.
He is board certified in family practice and is licensed as an osteopathic physician and surgeon in the states of Pennsylvania and California. Dr. Lizerbram was recognized by NASDAQ/Ernst & Young as the 1996 Entrepreneur of the Year in the healthcare industry. He was a trustee of the US Olympic Committee and is active as a committee member in the Jewish National Fund. Dr. Lizerbram was appointed by the California Insurance Commissioner to the Governing Committee of the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, and appointed by the California Governor as a Commissioner to the Health Policy and Data Advisory Commission.
Here, he discusses HealthFusion, the technology he helps develop and how it’s being used by physicians, the future of health IT, interoperability and the rise of consumerism and the cloud, the survival of EHR companies.
Tell me more about yourself and your background. Why healthcare?
I was a pharmacist prior to attending medical school in Philadelphia. After completion of my medical training I moved to San Diego, where I practiced as a board certified family physician. After several years in practice, I was appointed as the medical director of Prudential PruCare in San Diego. Soon after, I began to see the need for software that would assist doctors in improving the health of our population.
In 1998 I helped to found HealthFusion with Dr. Seth Flam, our CEO and a fellow family physician, to make the practice of medicine simpler for physicians and their staff by finding novel methods of utilizing the Internet.
Our job is to create the software tools used by physicians to further the health of their patients. We are honored that each day thousands of providers use our healthcare software to help make someone’s life a little better.
I come from a family with a strong healthcare orientation; my brother and six cousins are all physicians. As a result, I had an interest in helping people with their healthcare needs and found it very interesting.
What do you see as the sector’s biggest issues and, technologically, how can we solve them?
One of the biggest issues in healthcare right now is interoperability, the ability to seamlessly exchange patient data between physicians, hospitals, diagnostics centers, etc. This communication has been a challenge in healthcare because it needs to be accomplished between disparate systems, but it’s vital to garnering full value from digital healthcare information for patients, and for improving population health.
I’m glad to say that we are already accomplishing this with HealthFusion’s MediTouch; as an example, we provide data exchange successfully between Miami Children’s Hospital systems and MediTouch in the community doctors’ offices.
The little spacecraft that flew for 10 years crossing millions of miles in space, bounced on a comet hurtling 84,000 mph, transmits tons of data for 64 hours, finally tells its handlers that it needs to take a nap. Hitting any kind of target after 10 years in space is an amazing feat by itself, but this project had many hurdles and changes since its inception.
Healthcare is transforming at a rapid pace. In the past 10 years that the Rosetta orbiter traveled with the Philae lander strapped to its side, electronic health records have been implemented, meaningful use instituted, the diverse and multiple roads of interoperability have been examined, but progress has been slow.
The Rosetta project had to plan for executing tasks 10 years in advance. The team also had to anticipate the problems that it would find when Philae did something that had never been done before—landing on a comet. Nearly all projects on Earth have been done before but the nature of a project’s progression varies.
Here are three events that occurred on the Rosetta project that analogous Earth-bound healthcare projects also face.
Major change pre-launch. A problem was discovered that caused the launch to be delayed. This in turn caused the chosen comet to be abandoned because the orbit window was missed. Another comet whose gravity and other differences were not accounted for in the design of Philae was selected. Would the lander survive the descent? The craft would need to be put in a 3-year hibernation to conserve energy on the new flight plan.
Response: Adjust to the change. A large health insurance company discovered a security flaw in a new application to enroll customers during dry run tests. The problem would have caused multiple HIPAA violations and the company would be subject to expensive fines. The project had to be delayed until a fix was in place in spite of publicity of the go live date.
Major changes prior to the launch of a project are best addressed immediately. There is much better control in the early stages of a project. Changes may affect scheduled milestones, but it is better to adjust dates early in the project and explain changes to executive supporters.
Guest post by David Cooper, CEO and co-founder, Medical Mime.
As most of us involved in the healthcare industry already know, the Affordable Care Act calls for providers to adopt secure, confidential, electronic health information systems. Why? Because most experts agree that by using these electronic health records, we can collectively reduce paperwork and administrative burdens, cut costs, reduce medical errors and, most importantly, improve healthcare outcomes. But reality has had a funny way of challenging those expectations.
Yes, financial incentives have motivated doctors to get on the bandwagon, and many – if not most – office-based physicians have adopted some form of electronic health records. A study published in the journal Health Affairs reported that 78 percent of doctors working in office-based environments had implemented an electronic health record.
However, only about 48 percent of doctors had an EHR system with advanced functionality, according to the same source. Only 39 percent reported they had used their system to share medical data with other providers, and a stark 14 percent reported sharing data with providers outside their own practice. In short, the adoption of EHRs has not resulted in the promised integration of patient data that we hoped for. In fact, the use of electronic medical records – so far – may actually be having a negative impact on the quality of care doctors deliver.
According to a Northwestern University study published in the spring of 2014 in the International Journal of Medical Information, doctors who use electronic health records in their exam rooms spend one-third of their time looking at their computer screens. By comparison, physicians who rely on paper charting spend about 9 percent of their time looking at a patient’s records during an encounter. The study also asserts that because physicians spend so much time looking at their EHRs, they miss out on nonverbal communication cues from patients, thus affecting the quality of the care they’re delivering.
Guest post by Stephen Cobb, senior security researcher, ESET.
Stephen Cobb
Whatever you thought of President Obama’s penultimate State of the Union address, you have to admit it set some sort of record for the most words devoted to issues of data privacy and security (198 by my count). Furthermore, those words alluded to a raft of statements and announcements on these topics that were published in the days leading up to the speech. In short, it is clear that this President wants to make some changes with respect to cybersecurity and data privacy. What is not yet clear is how those changes will affect healthcare IT and the management of electronic health records. Will breach notification requirements change? Will penalties for breaches be increased?
The answers are not entirely clear at the moment. For a start, the President is a Democrat, but Republicans control the House and Senate. In other words, it is hard to know which of his proposals will be enacted. That said, it is better to look at them now and ask questions, engaging in the debates they are bound to provoke rather than wait and see what new laws finally emerge. For example, the President proposes to erect a single national 30-day data breach notification law in place of the scores of different state data laws that companies currently have to comply with. How will that affect electronic health records?
The answer may be “very little” and that could be good news for electronic health records and health IT. In its current form, the proposed Personal Data Notification & Protection Act does not disrupt existing federal notification requirements related to health data breaches. The draft legislation does not apply to HIPAA covered entities and business associates, nor the FTC covered vendors of personal health records. Here is a boiled down version of the current language which I have put in quotes to show it comes from the bill: “Nothing in this Act shall apply to business entities to the extent that they act as covered entities and business associates subject to the HITECH act (section 17932 of title 42), including the data breach notification requirements and implementing regulations of that act. Nor will it apply to business entities to the extent that they act as vendors of personal health records and third party service providers subject to the HITECH act.”
If the law were to be passed with that language intact, it would leave in place what many of us still think of as the HIPAA 60-day notification deadline, as well as the FTC 30/60-day PHR regime. And when you’re trying to comply with a regulatory regime, a lack of change can be good. Another way of looking at the breach notification issue is that the healthcare sector, while often maligned for leaking data, is actually a pioneer in notification. The HIPAA privacy and security requirements were in play even before California passed the first of the state breach notification laws, which now exist in some form in more than 40 states (creating the patchwork regulatory nightmare that the President’s unified federal law seeks to dissolve).
Guest post by Mitchell Goldburgh, cloud clinical archive product manager, Dell.
Stage 2 meaningful use criteria require providers to make diagnostic reports and associated images accessible through a certified electronic health record. That presents a difficult hurdle for many hospitals, especially community hospitals that are not connected to a large health system. And with the plethora of EHRs in use across healthcare, the task may be difficult for some multi-hospital systems.
This is a watershed moment for many imaging practices, and Stage 2 requirements may be the factor that sends most imaging files to a vendor-neutral archive (VNA).
Knowing that Stage 2 will require facilities to integrate their medical images with EHRs, the best VNA providers have in place automated tools that can integrate these files with all of the major EHRs and with many of the smaller EHR vendors. The value of a VNA comes from local and remote content brought to EHRs with a consistent presentation of results and images at the point of clinical care. VNA solutions offer a global viewer with a common toolset to navigate documents and imaging content, thus simplifying the access and freeing users from the need to learn multiple application navigations.
As technology in imaging increases the complexity of data, the presentation of information consistently for non-imaging specialists within the accountable care group becomes crucial to “customer” satisfaction with the imaging services. But VNA software is only a part of the solution – an integrated model that simplifies delivery of content can best be achieved with a service delivery model enabled with cloud content management.
Archiving-as-a-serviceis the model for the future
So what does this model entail? A good vendor-neutral archiving solution enters the scenario once a clinical exam is reported. At that point, the job of the PACS is done. The exam file is transmitted to an on-site server (supported by your archiving service provider) that transforms it into a vendor-neutral format. Current files are stored on site for fast access and also uploaded to a secure cloud platform. At this point content notification occurs, informing external systems that the report and clinical imaging data are available. In this model clinicians can view content anywhere, from any device, either as a stand-alone application from the VNA or through the web-enabled EHR accessing the VNA.
Allscripts is a leader in healthcare information technology solutions that advance clinical, financial and operational results. Our innovative solutions connect people, places and data across an Open, Connected Community of Health. Connectivity empowers caregivers to make better decisions and deliver better care for healthier populations.
