News 2/4/10

Twenty New York medical practices leverage their city-funded EMRs to identify and contact patients needing follow-up care. The Panel Management Program is privately funded with $1.5 million from Pfizer.

McKesson offers special financing programs for physicians adding its PM or EHR solutions, including Practice Partner, Lytec MD and Medisoft. Options include 0% interest for 12 months with 25% down or a $1000 rebate for the first provider and $500 for each additional provider in the practice. McKesson also announces its new interoperability platform,  Practice Partner Connect, which is part of Version 9.3.3 of the Practice Partner EHR/PM solution.

Maine politicians debate passing a $10 million bond to help establish low-interest loans for physicians switching to EMRs. Republican opponents say they don’t want to pass any bond initiatives this year, preferring to defer the decision until 2011 when a new governor and Legislature come on board. One legislator says, “If it’s a good idea now, it can certainly be a good idea next January with the next governor and the next Legislature taking a look at what we should be responsibly borrowing for.” Besides, once the doctors get the money it will take them no time at all to purchase an EMR, implement it, and achieve meaningful use in time to qualify for stimulus funds.

Capario partners with AdminHealth and EHR Live to promote Capario’s revenue cycle management services. AminHealth is a provider of PM and EHR software, while EHR offers an open source EHR.

Diverse Technologies will provide sales representation for Pulse Systems in 10 Western states.

The 79-physician Twin Cities Orthopedics (MN) selects Identityware’s Indigo MD to provide secure identity management and SSO. The solution includes the use of a biometric device that works with the Identityware software.

MacPractice is ready to move several applications to the iPad, including the MacPractice Interface for iPad. The interface sounds like a tweaked version of MacPractice’s existing iPhone application that takes advantage of the iPad’s larger screen. Also on tap: MacPractice Kiosk for iPad and MacPractice Web Interface for iPad. MacPractice is also working on an iPad EMR/EHR application to integrate with its MacPractice MD application.

The folks at EHR Scope blog did an awesome job of summarizing our recent EHR executives series on the proposed meaningful use criteria. If you missed the series, the EHR Scope article succinctly outlines the bottom line opinion of each executive to each question. It’s interesting to see what vendors share similar philosophies on certain topics and who provided the more unique perspectives.

If you are on the fence about employing voice recognition, you might want to check out CMIO magazine’s overview of different options and potential benefits. The common themes are faster turn-around and better workflow. If you follow HIStalk you might have seen that Mr. H is a new Dragon Naturally Speaking convert and is trying to convince me it’s worth the $70 to get on board. Heck, I need faster turn-around times and better workflows as much as anyone so maybe I should pony up.

If you are still not convinced about speak recognition, Dr. Steven Schiff provides a compelling argument for employing EHR, along with voice recognition software:

It’s only by joining electronic health record technology with voice recognition that we can ensure patients are able to fully understand and participate in the digital care process. Moreover, this coupling will allow physicians full access to a patient’s story and enable them to base their decisions on both their knowledge of medicine and on the history of that specific individual.

In Haiti, Dr. Elizabeth Cote of Harvard Humane Initiative, demonstrates how volunteer physicians and nurses are using mobile technology to help patients. In this clip Dr. Cote inputs patient data using an iPhone and an digital medical assistant application called iCharts by Caretools.

The ONC wants to learn more about how EHRs affect patient satisfaction with their medical care and will solicit opinions from 1,700 patients. The ONC will survey patients from 84 primary care practices using EMRs.

E-mail Inga.