One of the ways that HITECH Answers is different from other media sites is the sense of community. The thought leaders in our community are good about sharing their thought on the issues of today. We publish at least eleven guest posts a week now, on our three sites. In case you missed some, here are the top ten read and shared guest posts of the month. You can also read previous month’s Top Ten Lists. Thank you for contributing and reading.
Preparing for Integrating Patient-Generated Data into an EHR
By William van Doornik, RHIA, MS, Executive Consultant, Advisory Services, Beacon Partners
Patient portals, mobile apps, secure text messaging, and email are increasing collaboration between providers and patients in new ways. Meaningful Use Stage 3 proposed requirements will likely be a driving force in determining how patient generated data (PGD) will be interpreted, used, and integrated into electronic health records (EHRs). Considering that 70 to 90 percent of diagnoses can be determined by a health history alone, innovations that encourage use of PGD will continue to emerge as organizations focus on achieving high quality care outcomes to obtain reimbursement. Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…
More Time Saved Equals More Lives Saved
By Morris Panner, CEO, DICOM Grid
As the global population continues to face inevitable disease outbreaks – think Ebola and measles – healthcare technology is playing an increasingly important role in awareness and prevention. Technology innovations, in fact, are key in preventing the spread of infectious diseases, particularly in developing nations. Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…
Transitions of Care: Are We All Talking About the Same Thing?
By Kelli Cochrane, Senior Consultant, Santa Rosa Consulting
Not long ago, I was working with a colleague on documenting a Transitions of Care workflow loop between the acute care setting and ambulatory care setting. We had reached the point where we wanted feedback from others and invited a group of peers to listen to our presentation. We eagerly set out explaining our workflow diagram and emphasizing the key areas we were focusing on. We talked about Transitions of Care, the opportunities for care coordination and discussed the patient centered focus of our work. To our chagrin and a little bit to our surprise, the first question we received was “What is the definition of Transitions of Care?” Continue reading on HIEAnswers.net…
Chronic Care Management with Telehealth Part I
By Sarianne Gruber
On October 31, 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Final Rule for the 2015 Physician Fee Schedule, the annual 1,100 page list of what the Federal Government pays physicians for Medicare patient visits and services. Let’s take a closer look at the changes and what they may mean for clinicians interested in using telehealth and digital health technology in their day-to-day practice. And thank you, Donna, for providing us with comprehensive and applicable information on the submitted questions. Continue reading on RCMAnswers.net…
Training: A Necessary and Essential Part of HIPAA Compliance
By Matt Fisher, Attorney and chair of the Health Law Group at Mirick, O’Connell, DeMallie & Lougee, LLP.
The increased focus on HIPAA compliance and anticipated second round of audits makes clear the necessity for an organization to develop and implement comprehensive policies and procedures. The many settlement and breach announcements demonstrate that many issues occur because individuals do not fully understand what HIPAA is or what it does. A lack of knowledge, however, can be combatted though with good training. Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…
EHRs Improve Mortality Rate and Increase Patient Satisfaction
By Melissa Salm, Writer, Bisk Education, University of South Florida
Electronic health records (EHRs) have been adopted by thousands of hospitals. HealthIT.gov reported that nine out of 10 of all eligible hospitals achieved meaningful use through December 2014. Once hospital staff members and physicians became accustomed to EHR technology, they and their patients reaped the many benefits offered by switching from paper to digital health records, including: Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…
Embracing Security Challenges
By Eric Venn-Watson MD, MBA, SVP – Clinical Transformation at AirStrip
Over the past year, the perception of mobile technology in healthcare has changed dramatically. mHealth is now being recognized as a tool that can help address the challenges our healthcare system is facing, including a shortage of caregivers, an influx of newly insured patients, decreased reimbursements and readmission penalties. Historically, there have always been barriers that kept hospitals from making the leap to mobility – lack of infrastructure, costs, or the fear of security breaches, among other reasons. Yet as mobile technology becomes deeply ingrained in our day-to-day work and social lives, healthcare is following suit and migrating toward mobility as a component of care delivery. Continue reading on HIEAnswers.net…
Verification and Validation
By William A. Hyman, Professor Emeritus, Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University
There has been much discussion about EHRs not meeting user’s needs. This often involves complaints of cumbersome data entry and/or data extraction, even within a single product and before ever getting to information exchange. Added to this is EHR prompts (or is it advice?) from Clinical Decision Support systems and associated prompt fatigue. In such criticism the software is usually not generating actual errors (eg mixing up data and patients), it is just that it is user unfriendly or perhaps even user hostile. Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…
Eligible Hospitals See a Wave of Pre-Payment Meaningful Use Audits
By Jim Tate, EMR Advocate, Meaningful Use Audit Expert
What is would be like to open your inbox and find 33 separate CMS EHR Incentive audits? That is the exact experience one of our client hospitals experienced several week ago. Only forethought by the administration and diligent work by the staff is turning what could have been a nightmare into just a time consuming inconvenience. It could have been worse, much worse, but they were well prepared. Continue reading on HITECHAnswers.net…
ICD-10: “What to leave in, what to leave out”
By Coalition for ICD-10
This lyric from Bob Seger’s song Against the Wind sums up a basic dilemma debated at the February 11th U. S. House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the implementation of ICD-10. On the one hand, it was argued that the additional clinical detail in ICD-10 would be an overwhelming documentation burden that would put some small physician offices out of business. On the other hand, physician specialty societies have been unrelenting in requesting that even more detail be added to ICD-10. Indeed, over the past three years there have been requests for 1,402 new ICD-10 codes from the major physician specialty societies. Although ICD-10 substantially increases the level of specificity compared to ICD-9, the medical societies are saying that this increased level of specificity is not enough and even more specificity is needed to keep pace with medical knowledge and innovation. Continue reading on RCMAnswers.net…
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