Introducing an electronic medical records system into the practice helps the physicians and staff provide more efficient healthcare by making medical records more accessible to all health care team members. It also brings some risks. In this two-part article, CAP Risk Management and Patient Safety identifies 10 areas of risk exposure and provides some brief recommendations in each area.
EMR or EHR
Know your system. Electronic Medical Record is the term most often used for the electronic system now holding the medical records of the physician’s patients. If patients’ medical data is shared electronically with other facilities, locations, caregivers, and/or billers, the term Electronic Health Record is more accurate. The terms are often used interchangeably. Most articles are using the words “Electronic Health Record.”
Provide updated/additional training periodically, especially after software updates and enhancements.
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.
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.
Even given the news that the majority of practices and hospitals have made the change to EHR, this continues to be a tumultuous time in the land of electronic health records. In fact, several entities have proclaimed 2013 the year of the great EHR switch.
With that, and because I am not brand loyal, I think it’s a great idea to keep an open mind and acquire as much information as possible in the event a change is needed or you’re one of the few practices to not make the transition to electronic records.
There are no shortage of quality sources with excellent tips and information available, but I think there’s always room for more. I recently came across a white paper from Tech Target that intrigued me. The topic: 10 Critical Steps for Selecting an EHR.
Recently, Datamark, a provider of digital mailroom, data entry and document processing services, sponsored a webinar hosted by Creative Healthcare, a provider of performance improvement solutions including Six Sigma, Lean and ISO 9001, who gathered together several healthcare leaders to discuss data management and the use of electronic health records and how those systems are changing the way their hospitals practice and administer care.
Though the group shared a variety of experiences about the use of EHRs, the comments – both good and bad – seemed to reach a consensus among the group. As such, each of the comments about ease of use and even innovation are hard to ignore. Nor can we dismiss the fact that the issues shared by this group are not experienced by many of their colleagues at hospitals throughout the country.
However, there were some surprising candor from the participants of the roundtable. One of the most surprising opinions expressed was by Shawn Shianna, MD of FHN Healthcare, of Freeport, Ill.: “Most of us feel we’re being forced to this (implement and use EHRs).”
So, we’ve finally done it – we’ve reached the sticking point in the battle of electronic health records. Apparently, as of April 2013, more than half of all office-based physicians and other eligible professionals received their meaningful use incentive payments for successfully using and adopting EHRs.
Which means … you guessed it – more than 50 percent of eligible professionals successfully used a certified EHR (of course the number is higher if you calculate the number of physicians not using a certified system).
According to Modern Healthcare, in April 191,305 physicians and EPs received EHR incentive payments from Medicare, and 88,903 have received payments from Medicaid and 11,117 from Medicare Advantage under programs created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
