MidMichigan Health to go-live with $55 million Epic Systems EHR on April 1

After consuming more than a year of preparing, MidMichigan Health has decided a date for its go-live with an Epic Systems EHR that will link 5 of its six medical centers, doctors’ offices and outpatient care facilities.

MidMichigan Health, which is associated with the institute of University of Michigan, pegged the cost of the project at $55 million and officials pointed out that the new EHR would replace multiple vendor systems that needed maintaining several custom interfaces, which had become unsustainable. As such, registration, scheduling and billing will also be on the similar Epic platform.

“When we go live on the day of April 1, we will have more than 750 staff designated as super users who’ll offer support to those using the new system,” MidMichigan Health CIO Dan Waltz stated in a statement. “Our earlier system indicated us that we had a real opportunity to transform the way patient care is delivered. We have analyzed and incorporated best practices into the design of the system and have no doubt this EMR will give our sufferers all that they deserve and more.”

Waltz claimed more than 160 MidMichigan and Epic staff “worked around the clock” preparing for the rollout.

“The advantages of the new EMR to our sufferers are numerous,” Pankaj Jandwani, MD, chief medical information officer at MidMichigan Health, added. “Anywhere the sufferer goes within our system, a MidMichigan provider will have access to their complete medical record.

Jandwani added that the latest EHR would enable patients to do many more things electronically, like schedule appointments online, self-check-in from home or at on-site kiosks, take benefit of virtual care options like telemedicine and e-visits, and view and pay all MidMichigan Health bills from one account.

A second phase of the rollout will link MidMichigan Medical Center in Alpena, Mich. in the month of September 2017, and MidMichigan Home Care in the time period of spring 2018.

 

Information Builders Upgrades Health Care Data Management Level

Omni-Patient gives a 360-degree view of mastered subjects, their origin from source records and their background over time.

Business intelligence and analytics specialist Information Builders declared an upgrade of its Omni-Patient offering, an information management solution that integrates and cleanses disparate sets of health care data, involving various electronic medical records (EMRs) as well as economical and HR systems.

The platform also involves views over that repository to serve business intelligence and analytical utilization of the data.

"Even with all of the health technology out there, healthcare agencies attempt to get a single view of their sufferers," Jake Freivald, vice president of product marketing for Information Builders, told eWEEK."Maybe there is more than one EMR included, or they cannot get visibility into outpatient or community care, or they cannot link the dots between their EMRs and other business systems. Sometimes they have a quite great view of individual sufferers, but they cannot effectively relate that to overall population health, costs, reimbursements, or results."

Reduction in Depression Treatment Linked to EMR Use

Patients with multiple chronic conditions are significantly less likely to receive treatment for depression at primary care practices that use electronic medical records (EMRs) compared with practices that do not use EMRs, new research shows.

Researchers at the University of Florida hypothesized that practices using EMRs would be particularly beneficial for complex patients with chronic conditions who are in need of depression treatment, offering greater efficiency in information sharing and delivery of care than those not using EMRs.

But the study of 3467 primary care practice visits by patients aged 18 years and older who were identified as having depression, which used data from the 2006 to 2008 National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys, showed an opposite effect.

Although the use of EMRs did not affect depression treatment, defined as antidepressant prescription, referral to counselling, or both, in patients with 2 or fewer chronic conditions, the odds of receiving the treatment were significantly lower among patients with 3 or more chronic conditions (odds ratio [OR], 0.50; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.36 - 0.70; P > .001).

"We had been doing some research on the effect of health information technology on the delivery of care, and we expected use of EMRs would improve depression care by perhaps sending reminders of screening or treatment or help coordinate care," lead investigator Jeffrey S. Harman, PhD, at the University of Florida's College of Public Health and Health Professions, in Gainesville, told Medscape Medical News.

"We thought EMRs would be even more beneficial for patients who were complex with multiple conditions, but when we ran the analysis, we found the opposite of that."

The study is published in the August issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Learning Curve

The authors speculated that several factors could explain why a system designed to improve care could paradoxically be associated with as much as a 50% reduction in treatment.

For one thing, some research suggests that EMRs tend to have a heavier focus on biomedical information, as opposed to mental health issues. Other studies suggest that the use of EMRs can have the effect of interfering with psychosocial exchange, with the doctor spending more time interacting with the computer than the patient.

"We thought those 2 things might explain why we saw what we did, but to be clear, we have no way to know what caused the results we found, based on this data."

Psychiatrist Gabrielle Beaubrun, MD, whose work at Kaiser Permanente South Bay Medical Center, in Harbor City, California, focuses on integrating depression care into primary care, speculated that a diminished psychosocial exchange related to EMR use may have indeed factored into the findings, but that may have reflected the fact that the data came from the period 2006 to 2008, when many practices were only beginning to transition to EMRs.

"It's important to remember that back then, as psychiatrists, we were initially devastated by the idea of the electronic record," she told Medscape Medical News.

"We felt we were going to lose eye contact with the patient, and at first you do, but you have to get it back. You have to learn to let the patient interact with the machine."

"In our department, we demanded that our computers be set up on wheels so we could easily spin the screen around to show the patient what we're doing and to see what their graph looks like."

Patients, as well as physicians, have also been subject to a learning curve in the new age of EMRs, Dr. Beaubrun noted, "particularly the psychiatric patient, who is a bit wary of all of this stuff going into a computer, but they are gradually gaining comfort with it."

Time a Factor?

Whether or not EMRs are used, the idea of biomedical issues taking priority over mental health issues in primary care is an ongoing concern, but the fact that the patients in the study were diagnosed with depression indicates that clinicians at least got as far as spotting the problem.

The failure to take the next steps and offer treatment, particularly when there are 3 or more chronic conditions to address, may simply come down to a matter of time, Dr. Beaubrun noted.

"Primary care physicians, especially if they are contending with various other conditions, tend to view depression treatment as somewhat of a Pandora's box," she said.

"They may feel like, 'Oh no, I can't get into that whole antidepressant side-effects discussion.' Due to time constraints, they may just not want to go there."

A key solution, she says, is collaboration.

"The physician needs to work collaboratively with other healthcare workers and delegate someone to follow through on these types of things."

"You have to make delivering the right care easy. For instance, if the doctor needs to treat, go ahead and treat, and ideally, that can be accomplished with something like 1 click. Then someone else can do the 'Pandora's box' part of discussing the side effects with the patient."

Whereas clinicians may be inclined to believe that addressing the chronic conditions may, in itself, treat the depression, the assumption is risky, and the opposite can sometimes be the case.

"In psychiatry, we do encounter the idea from both patients and doctors that depression is a normal response to chronic illnesses, so why treat it, but in fact, clinical depression is not a normal response, and it does need to be treated," Dr. Beaubrun said.

"Ironically, the depression can be the lynchpin as to why so many other chronic conditions are happening," she added. "Treating the depression can in fact be central to getting the other conditions under control."

The authors and Dr. Beaubrun have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

J Gen Intern Med. 2012;27:962-967. Abstract

Avoid Medicare eRx Penalties: CMS Gives Second Chance

Did you miss the June 30 deadline for implementing e-Prescribing (eRx)? If so, you were to receive a 1% penalty on all Medicare payments in 2012. It is too late to code 10 visits with G8553, attesting to eRx for those patient encounters.

However, CMS will give you a second chance. If you implement and attest to meaningful use of an EMR in 2011, then you may avoid the penalties altogether. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed just such a revision to the eRx portion of the Medicare EHR Incentive Program. If adopted, as is fully expected, then you need full implementation of an EMR certified for Meaningful Use before October 1, 2011. This benefit is in addition to the $44,000 per physician in the EHR Stimulus program.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has been among the medical organizations that have been requesting changes to the eRx program - a program with even more stringent requirements than Meaningful Use that many physicians are struggling to meet.

"Eliminating unreasonable penalties and burdensome requirements and providing physicians with more flexibility through an exemption process will help ensure more physicians are able to successfully participate in the e-prescribing incentive program," said AMA President Cecil B. Wilson, MD, in an interview with American Medical News. "The AMA has continually stressed to CMS that these changes were essential and is pleased to see them become a reality in a rule that will be finalized later this summer."

CMS will accept comments on the proposed changes through July 25. Comments can be submitted:

• Online at www.regulations.gov . Enter keyword CMS-3248-P for the document file code.


• By mail to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Dept. of Health and Human Services, Attn: CMS-3248-P, P.O. Box 8013, Baltimore, MD 21244-8013.

Click here to read the CMS Fact Sheet on the proposed rule.

Advantages of Electronic Medical Records

By Shrinivas Kanade

Do you think 24 hour accessibility to your patients’ data is one of the advantages of electronic medical records? Yes! To know more about the advantages of electronic medical records,

Read on…

One of the main advantages of electronic medical records is that it helps in centralizing the data of your patient. Not long in the past, a receptionist working in a clinical practice could leave for the day, only after finding and arranging the records, that are committed to the papers of the patients on the next day’s appointments’ list. If she failed to do so, or if she failed to turn up on time due to some kind of emergency, then what would rule the medical practice.

Confusion! She is the one who knew, precisely, which stack of records contains the bunch of papers that represents so and so patient. The use of electronic medical records gets over this problem. Let’s go over the other electronic medical records benefits.

What are the Advantages of Electronic Medical Records?

In its digital form, the electronic medical records offer you an opportunity to run a clean and paperless clinic. If you decide to go digital, you may find that there are two options available to you.

Standalone Software

The first option is to ask a computer programmer to develop a standalone software for you, which you could install in the computer in your office. In this case, your patients’ data, in its electronic form, will be stored on the computer system in your office. You will have to take care of the data. The data safety, proper backing of the data to protect it from getting lost and virus problems will be the responsibility of your clinic, since the data is present at your end.

Online Software

Else, you could use an online EMR software. If you choose this option, your patients’ data will be stored on the Internet. It will be stored in the computers maintained by the IT company which is providing their online software to you, naturally for a monthly fee. This IT company and the computer experts employed by it, will take care of the data and deal with your problems while using it.

Electronic Medical Records

Electronic medical records, which are also referred to as EMR, contains private and medical data related to your patients. It may also contain information, such as their past medical history, substances or drugs they are allergic to, the treatments or medical procedures they underwent in the past. The data may also inform you which medications the patient is currently on and the transcription notes etc. Comprehensiveness in the patients’ data is one of the advantages of electronic medical records.

Speed of Retrieval of Electronic Medical Records

You can retrieve your patient’s records within a few seconds. All you have to do, is to type his or her name in the form that the EMR software has presented to you. Bingo! the records are right in front of you within no time. And the most important thing is that you are not struggling to decipher someone else’s handwriting, in order to read what kind of therapy or treatment your patient underwent in the past. The availability of your patient’s medical records in one place, which can be viewed in detail, is also one of the advantages of electronic medical records.

If you decide to go for online EMR software, you will find that you can access your patient’s data not only by sitting at your office but from anywhere in the world through the Internet. Of course, you must provide it with proper passwords and identify yourself. You can download electronic medical records to your PDA or palmtop and can refer to it as and when it suits you.

Safety

Your patient’s data is important and you have every right to worry about it. Will it be safe in its digital format? Yes, it will be. You must have heard about the computer system crashes and the computer viruses causing damage to the data. These may have made you suspicious about the reliability and safety of the electronic medical records. With proper backup systems and latest anti-virus, you can overcome this obstacle.

Data Format

When you use papers to commit your patients records on it, you do so in the fixed format. The format that is printed on the paper. It is not the case with the electronic medical records. You can key in data in one format and can retrieve it in another, in a form more suitable to you.

Integration and EMR Software

You can digital form of your patients data to the reference information which can be stored on your computer or on the Internet. The EMR software can help you by providing additional information about a drug, such as dosages for children and adults. Which drugs are contraindicated in which conditions and so on. The EMR software can not only help you out with your patient’s data but it can also provide information on the ICD.9, HIPAA, HCFA 1500, and the latest CPT code books. It may also help you in studying a condition by producing a 3-D images for you, by taking input of 2-D images that are already present in your patient’s data. The software also handles the medical transcription notes, as well as SOAP notes, which you can use to your own advantage. The customer support to medical billing services can also be made available to you and your patient by the EMR software. This may result in the speedy settlement of medical billing and claims for you because of the proper co-ordination with the insurance companies over medical insurance. In short, the ability of EMR software helps you centralize your resources can be counted as one of the advantages of electronic medical records.

Electronic Data and EMR Software

Electronic data generated by the systems monitoring your patient, is processed and analyzed for errors by the the EMR software. This software can sound or raise an alert, if it comes across an event needing immediate medical intervention. It can transmit the relevant data in the form of an email or warn you by sending a message to your pager or mobile. It can also accept data from the laboratory analyzer in a electronic form directly and thus, avoiding the chance of erroneous data being fed to it by a computer operator. In case of online EMR software, which you will use the database to store your patients’ data in, and support to it will be provided by the IT company.

Primarily, it is you who is going to benefit by converting to electronic medical records. It will help your staff to be more efficient by saving their time. Your patients’ data in its digital form will always be at your fingertips and not be dependent on the mindless activity of searching for it every day. It seems that the benefits of an electronic medical record (EMR) are nothing but a bag of goodies. But, are they real for you? The decision is yours. With the world going digital, it is up to you to decide, whether to take heed of the advantages of electronic medical records.

Above article published on http://www.buzzle.com/articles/advantages-of-electronic-medical-records.html

Impact of EHR on Revenue Cycle Management

The innovation of electronic claims processing has raised the benchmark on what can be done to improve patient care, reduce costs, increase productivity, and reduce the time between reimbursements. Revenue cycle management has evolved to bridge the gap between the clinical side of electronic medical records and the billing side. Some electronic medical record software has integrated this process for a seamless patient flow - making the revenue cycle management process start as soon as a patient is registered. For physician services, revenue cycle management is one of the biggest parts of how a practice is paid. The revenue cycle begins when the patient is scheduled for an encounter and ends when payment for all services and procedures provided during the encounter is received.

Most practices understand the importance of ensuring third party payment is appropriate and that the full amount due is received in a timely fashion. Practices understand that failure to ensure that insurance payments are appropriate and accurate can negatively impact the total payment received as well as the amount the patient will ultimately pay. With revenue cycle management designed to work with the EMR seamlessly, practices are able to streamline and automate many of the processes that occur. Additionally, revenue cycle management integrated with an EMR eliminates many of the common issues which affects physician offices on a daily basis.

Daily reconciliation is handled with a click of a button for office staff to monitor the flow of patients to payouts. Physician offices which outsource their billing also have the option to allow their billing company to utilize their software - maintaining a transparent view of the work performed by the billing vendor. As the delivery of patient care changes, so will the technology that enhances it.

Practices which use an electronic medical record understand that revenue cycle management and clinical information need to work smoothly in order for a practice to run efficiently. Physicians shouldn't have to worry about the business side of practicing medicine so they can have more time to spend delivering the best care to their patients.

EHR Adoption

The biggest challenge to adopt technology to provide patient care.

By: Atif G. Memon
Healthcare IT Consultant

Adopting a technology is never been so easy for any of the industry. With the advancement of today’s world 2010 played a vital role. US healthcare market made a remarkable achievement while making lots of problems for those who are not aware with this technology. In this regards, I made a survey “EMR VS EHR”, in order to gain the knowledge from healthcare providers and IT professionals. I was amazed that instead of such a huge advancement in the market, there is no any proper reason to adopt EMR technology. Some of the providers want EMR because of the incentives; some of them want to avoid any penalty by the Government. On the other hand EMR vendors are making such technology which is based on complicated system, making lots of problems for those caregivers who are already unaware about this system. In last months of 2010, there were conducted lots of seminars, webinars and conferences to understand the use of EMR but it never been into the right direction. While being into the market, I always use to find a solution and try to make ideas that how to make providers to facilitate in adoption of EMR, while they understand it to use. An EMR should be a self-dependent, that don’t need any further EMR Experts to use it. EMR should also be used as a secure asset of patient information that should only be shared between Caregiver and patient. I would prefer that if Healthcare IT Professionals works to minimize the complexity of EMR rather than making a hybrid solution, which would be easier to adopt for the providers. This will not only be helpful for the Industry but also for Caregivers to adopt this Technology.

Statistics

According to research at Navinet, Inc. Statistics is given below for Barriers to EMR Adoption.

                                                                2009                       2010

We do not need it                                21%                       27%

Cost                                                        41%                       49%

It cannot integrate into our             7%                         13%

existing system

Our workflow does not support      9%                        20%

EMR implementation

Do not see ROI for our office         16%                       26%

Our Physician is not ready to         N/A                         46%

pursue

A New approach to EMR

Key Challenges in EMR

§Physician offices lack the appropriate policies and procedures to support proper usage of EMRs

§There is a huge staff overhead cost of using an EMR

§EMRs take a long implementation time and often fail before the project is completed

§There is lack of usage since frustrated physicians and staff ‘give up’

§There is a lack of data quality and integrity

 Our Solution

§Physician offices continue with their current operations and scan/fax or dictate their notes to the EMR hosted servers

§We leverage their processes to translate the paper notes and voice and enter it into the EMR available for access by the office

§The operation is overseen by HIPAA certified and experienced healthcare professionals

The solution is cost effective and works!

REMEMBER;

We Implement Solution, not features

Our best endorsement for our services is your testimonial.  The greatest honor to our business is your referral.

For more Information contact healthinformatrix@gmail.com 

UNIQUE SELLING POINTS FOR EMR SERVICES:

·         Logging into real time system.

·         Accessibility to view billing aspects at anytime.

·         Patient balance on front desk.

·         Increase in collections guaranteed by 60%

·         Patient balances at front desk.

·         Printing options of patient balances.

·         Printing options of Superbills.

·         Online integration of Insurance Eligibility Verification with click of mouse.

·         Availability of toll-free number.

·         Virtual Front Desk Officer Availability for Customer Support.

·         100% Paperless work.

·         Documentation in DVD format to send to providers which is even printable.

·         Free EMR / Lower cost of EMR.

·         Multiple server location.

·         Totally HIPAA compliant.

·         24/7 Support to client.

·         Follow-up process.

·         Enhanced reporting structure.

·         Billing Executives available to answer any query of patient as well provider regarding to billing questions.

·         Strong communication process, which also enables call routing facility towards doctors and billing office.

·         Log maintenance for every call with executive name, date and time.

·         Log maintenance for every activity of billing process.