Archive for April, 2009
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0 Clouds of Uncertainty Surround EHRs and The Stimulus
Apr 28, 2009. Spotlight.The numbers for incentives available to physicians for EHR adoption in the HITECH act have been quoted anywhere from 17 billion to 19 billion. Two weeks into the reign of the current Healthcare IT Czar, Dr. David Blumenthal – no one is really sure what defines “meaningful use” of an EHR system – or who the official certifying body for federally recognized EHRs will be.
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5 EHRs, Swine Flu, and Infectious Disease Control
Apr 27, 2009. Today.After an unexplained outbreak of Swine Flu in Mexico City that claimed hundreds of victims, and several confirmed cases throughout the U.S., the NIH and the CDC declared a “national health emergency” on April 26th. Twenty cases of Swine Flue have been confirmed so far in the United States, spanning New York, Kansas, California, Texas and Ohio. Many of those who contracted the illness had recently visited Mexico.
President Obama said the declaration was “precautionary” and represented no need for alarm.
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0 Is ASP the answer?
Apr 24, 2009. Insight.In the current arena, most physicians and healthcare facilities large and small – still point to cost as the major roadblock to an EHR implementation. There is growing concern not only over the initial upfront costs of EHR adoption, but the down line costs of security, operation, and maintenance.
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0 Survey Says Most Americans in Favor of EHRs
Apr 23, 2009. Implementation.A new survey conducted by National Public Radio, in conjunction with The Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard school of Public Health, found that the majority of Americans are in favor of Electronic Health Records and believe that they will improve the state of healthcare. However, the survey also revealed that privacy and security of EHRs remain the biggest concern among those Americans likely to adopt them.
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0 “Usability" Trumps Certification
Apr 23, 2009. Today.Blogs like this one and start-ups such as EHRtv, which offers “comprehensive video analysis of the EHR and PHR industry”, were created with one purpose in mind – to help physicians and healthcare administrators compare and contrast EHR solutions.
As an industry still in its infancy, that is about to explode thanks to the stimulus, vendors and end users alike are clamoring for valid methods for direct comparison between solutions.
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1 Dragon Medical Accelerates Transition to EHR
Apr 22, 2009. Dragon Medical.CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), a leading supplier of speech solutions, today announced results from a new study that shows how Nuance’s Dragon Medical® software, the healthcare industry’s most widely used real-time speech recognition software, can significantly accelerate the transition to, and utilization of electronic health records (EHRs).
As EHRs have risen to the forefront of the healthcare information technology (HIT) agenda at the physician, provider organization, government and consumer levels, Dragon Medical software is increasingly recognized as an essential component to successful EHR rollout. According to a survey completed by 1,255 physicians who have adopted Nuance’s Dragon Medical software:
- 83 percent said that it improved the quality of their electronic patient notes;
- 81 percent said that it significantly reduced transcription spending; and,
- 69 percent said it made their EHR faster and easier to use.
Despite strong endorsements for EHRs, their adoption is lagging. Today, less than two percent of U.S. hospitals have fully switched to EHRs, according to a study from the New England Journal of Medicine that was released on March 25, 2009, and a third of the 3,000 hospitals surveyed cited reluctance among doctors to change work habits as a leading hurdle. To facilitate EHR migration further, Nuance is collaborating with leading EHR vendors, such as Allscripts, to launch the Dragon Medical EHR Certification Program. While Dragon Medical software already works “out-of-the-box” with more than 150 EHR systems, the Certification Program is designed to optimize clinician use of EHRs by introducing a new standard of speech recognition interoperability.
“Our physician clients have embraced Dragon Medical as the primary and best means of speech-enabling their electronic health records, because Dragon Medical helps them to quickly and easily create high-quality, real-time patient documentation,” said Glen Tullman, chief executive officer of Allscripts. “Speech is a key component of the electronic healthcare revolution, and Nuance’s certification program will ensure that physicians have a reliable list of electronic health records that will optimize their use of this vital clinical capability.”
As part of the Dragon Medical EHR Certification Program, EHR vendors complete a Nuance-managed evaluation during which they work with Nuance engineers to further optimize The Dragon Medical software’s interoperability with their EHR. By adding this additional layer of interoperability, physicians and healthcare organizations can confidently make their EHR migration, knowing speech recognition is not only possible, but has been pre-tested and optimized for utmost clinician efficiency.
Dragon Medical and the EHR, Accelerating the Transition
“The biggest challenge facing the roll-out of electronic medical records contemplated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is achieving meaningful use without adding to physicians’ documentation burden. This can be accomplished by closely coordinating voice entry with structured notes, rather than treating voice and structured entry as an ‘either-or’ proposition,” said Wes Rishel, vice president and analyst in Gartner’s healthcare provider research practice.
As the Health and Human Services Department works to define “meaningful use” of an EHR, Nuance believes that Dragon Medical software can help physicians and organizations move toward complying with what will ultimately be considered “meaningful” EHR use, by ensuring that clinicians actually utilize the EHR and that the physician narrative is not lost during the documentation process. As proven by the more than 100,000 physicians already using Dragon Medical software to dictate the narrative component of their patient visits, speech-driven clinical documentation is available in real-time, notes are more complete and patient care is improved.
“Today, more than 20 percent of all physicians in North America use speech solutions from Nuance to generate over 800 million electronic medical records a year,” said Peter Durlach, senior vice president of marketing and product strategy, Nuance Healthcare. “Dragon Medical is increasingly recognized as an essential component to EHR rollout as healthcare provider organizations work to implement, and effectively utilize EHR systems to comply with the federal government’s five-year adoption goal, as well as earn their fair share of incentive payments from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
Dragon Medical software is proven to make clinicians up to 25 percent more efficient with an EHR when compared to using a non voice-enabled system. And, as supported by a May 2007 report issued by KLAS, 76 percent of clinicians using “desktop” speech recognition – to directly control an EHR system – report faster medical report turn-around time, better service to patients, sharply reduced costs and increased productivity. Benefits for healthcare organizations that provide physicians with a speech-enabled EHR include:
- Reduced Transcription Costs – By enabling clinicians to dictate directly into the EHR system with real-time speech recognition, healthcare provider organizations can eliminate significant operating costs associated with traditional manual transcription.
- Faster Medical Report Creation - Using speech, physicians can create patient documents at the point of care, resulting in faster turn-around times and more accurate, thorough patient records.
- More Detailed Documentation - According to physicians, the narrative is the most important part of a patient note. A medical record that combines point-and-click EHR templates with dictated physician narrative promotes ongoing higher quality care.
- Increased Overall User Productivity and Satisfaction – By using speech recognition to navigate and dictate directly into the EHR system, clinicians can eliminate hours of typing, clicking and scrolling, allowing them to spend more time providing high quality patient care and increasing their satisfaction with the entire documentation process.
For more information on the Dragon Medical EHR Certification Program or Dragon Medical software visit http://www.nuance.com/CertifiedEHRs.
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0 Family Healthcare Network Selects InteGreat EHR
Apr 22, 2009. Implementation.PITTSBURGH, April 22 /PRNewswire/ — MED3OOO Group, Inc., a privately held national healthcare management and technology company, recently entered into an agreement to implement and deploy InteGreat EHR, a true browser-based electronic health record (EHR) application, within the Family HealthCare Network (FHCN) community-based clinics throughout Tulare and Kings Counties in California. The installation of InteGreat EHR is designed to improve patient care within the 11 ambulatory clinics with intuitive workflows and clinical decision support, while minimizing bandwidth requirements and improving FHCN’s long-term operations.
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1 San Diego Medical Group Goes Live With EHR/PM Solution
Apr 20, 2009. Implementation.San Diego’s Sharp Community Medical Group joins the growing list of facilities nationwide to “Go Live” with an integrated Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Practice Management (PM) solution.
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1 Portable PHRs
Apr 18, 2009. PHR.When Congress passed HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, “portability” referred to the right to transfer your health insurance and health records – not necessarily just carrying them around with you in your pocket. However, thanks to remarkable new Personal Health Record (PHR) technology, that is exactly what is becoming possible.
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0 EHRs and Going Green
Apr 17, 2009. Opinion.Between iPhones, iPods, Blackberries, et al, it may seem America is growing more “wireless” everyday, and yet we are far from a “paperless” society. Even with all of the advances in digital technology, the average office worker in a typical business, still consumes nearly 50 sheets of paper everyday.
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