News 9/30/15

Top News

The AMA hosts a Town Hall meeting in Waltham, MA with the Massachusetts Medical Society, offering physicians a chance to vent their frustrations with EHRs, Meaningful Use, vendors, audits … the list could go on and on. Massachusetts physician concerns are warranted, given that over 80 percent use EHRs but only 25 percent have achieved Stage 2 of Meaningful Use. AMA President Steven Stack, MD was enthusiastic in his cry for postponement of Stage 3, echoing a letter the AMA and 41 other medical societies sent to HHS earlier this month. The meeting, held just a few months after a similar gathering in Atlanta, is part of the association’s Break the Red Tape awareness campaign. 

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

If you’re a HIStalk Practice, HIStalk, or HIStalk Connect sponsor exhibiting at MGMA, complete this form and we’ll include your company in our attendee guide. I’ll be reporting from Nashville during the event (assuming my press pass gets the ok), which kicks off October 11.

Webinars

October 7 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Develop Your Analysts and They’ll Pay for Themselves.” Sponsored by Health Catalyst. Presenters: Peter Monaco, senior business intelligence developer, Health Catalyst; Russ Stahli, VP, Health Catalyst. It takes years for analysts to develop the skills they need to build reports and dashboards that turn data into valuable insights. This webinar will describe how to cultivate those analytical skills, including technical prowess and adaptive leadership. Leaders will learn how to develop a culture that fosters improvement, how to encourage analysts to develop the right skills, and ways to remove the barriers that stand in their way.

Contact Lorre for webinar services.

Announcements and Implementations

On3Health, developer of the Lifestyle Health Record for chronic care management, joins the Greenway Health Marketplace of value-added partners. In related news, Greenway names genomic decision-support company ActX its Marketplace Partner of the Month.

Healthwise adds a lung cancer screening decision aid to its library of shared decision-making solutions.

PrecisionBI launches a more affordable and customizable version of its enterprise analytics solution for physician practices using GE Healthcare’s Centricity Practice Solution.

Intelligent Medical Objects offers a free trial of IMO Anywhere, an iOS or Android app that allows clinicians to document from any location with ICD-10 drill-down capability and 460,000 terms.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Advertising, marketing and branding firm Grey Healthcare Group acquires a minority interest in OptimizeRx, a Rochester, MI-based technology company that enables pharmaceutical companies to provide services at the point of care via EHR.

Research and Innovation

The latest edition of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Physician Practice Environment Index likely fueled the fire of many who attended the AMA town hall event yesterday. The latest statistics put the state’s practitioners behind many of their national counterparts, and highlights the challenges they’ll have to overcome to keep up including the cost of doing business, housing expenses, and comparatively lower physician salaries. MMS President Dennis Dimitri, MD pointed out that the index doesn’t even address the “growing burdens of administrative, regulatory, and legislative requirements and mandates, all of which rob physicians of the valuable time necessary for caring for patients.”

People

Nightingale elects David Atkins (Actra Fraternal Benefit Society) chairman of the board.

Wanda Filer, MD moves from president-elect to president of the AAFP.

Government and Politics

Congressional calls for the delay of various stages of Meaningful Use have become hard to keep up with. The latest example: Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) of the Senate’s HELP Committee ask the administration to immediately delay implementation of Meaningful Use Stage 2 to at least January 1, 2017 and then a phase in of Stage 3 based on provider readiness. They join a 116-member bipartisan group asking for the same delay.

Telemedicine

A Kalorama report shows that telemedicine apps account for 40 percent of all healthcare app sales – a market worth $489 million.

Other

A California dermatology practice notifies patients that its document scanner was inadvertently exposing their records on the Internet.

Robots may be taking over certain parts of healthcare, but it seems they won’t hack their way to assembling Ikea furniture anytime soon. Researchers in Singapore put a robot through its furniture-assembling paces, only to discover that Ikea’s pesky little wooden dowels pose a pretty big problem, resulting in the robot “looking like two inebriated humans trying to put the furniture together in slow motion.” 

Eric Topol, MD pitches the benefits of digital health (and his book) on CNBC’s Mad Money with Jim Cramer.

It might be too late to prepare for ICD-10, but it’s never too late to laugh your way through it.

Sponsor Updates

• Aprima Medical Software will exhibit at the Texas Pediatric Society annual meeting October 1-2 in Sugarland.
• Billian’s HealthData interviews David Sindelar, CEO, St. Anthony’s Medical Center.

Blog Posts

• Strategies to enhance your scheduling process, steps 4-5 (AdvancedMD)
• Bulletproofing Your Finances against ICD-10 (Greenway Health)

HIStalk Practice sponsors exhibiting at the AAFP FMX Annual Meeting September 29-October 3 in Denver:

• Aprima Medical Software
• EClinicalWorks
• E-MDs
• Greenway Health

Contacts

Jennifer,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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5 Questions with Alix Goss, Executive Director, Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Authority

Alix Goss is executive director of the Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Authority, which works to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes across the state via the secure exchange of electronic health data. The authority announced late last month that it would provide at least $10 million in onboarding grants to help connect practices and hospitals to its Pennsylvania Patient & Provider Network HIE.

How does the Authority work with physician practices?
The Authority’s certified participants provide services directly to providers, including physician practices. Providers and other end-users of electronic health information exchange (eHIE) connect to private-sector health information organizations (HIOs), who then connect to the Authority’s PA Patient & Provider Network (P3N).

Why did the Authority decide the time was right to announce additional funding to help connect providers to the P3N?
Programs that help HIOs to connect providers to the P3N will help to incentivize both the providers and the HIOs to join P3N and accelerate the build towards a critical mass of participation. However, Authority grant programs are predicated on the Authority’s ability to identify funding from private-sector donors, other agencies, and/or federal sources. The current announcement is based on proposed funding from CMS. Awards to the HIOs are contingent on actual awards by CMS. One of the challenges with the previous grant opportunities was the compressed performance period. We are announcing the grant in advance of the actual award to give us a head start on accepting and processing applications from the HIOs, so as to afford the HIOs the maximum possible time to perform the work of connecting providers to their networks using the grant funds.

Where are Pennsylvania’s physician practices in terms of connectivity to P3N and other HIEs within the state?
Measuring connections by physician practices is more complicated than it might seem. While some practices are connecting to the P3N via direct connections with HIOs, many more may be connected by virtue of their participation in integrated delivery networks (IDNs) anchored by a hospital system that is connected. In the past, not all HIOs have collected information about these subsidiary connections. We are working with the HIOs to develop measurement techniques and practices that will provide the Authority with consistent information across the various network participants. We anticipate this data will be available in early 2016.

Does the Authority have any measurable goals when it comes to connecting physician practices to the P3N?
Our goals for calendar year 2015 involved getting the HIOs connected to the P3N. We anticipate that all four existing HIOs currently operating in the Commonwealth will be connected by December or, at the latest, in early 2016, with any other HIOs that emerge in the coming years to join as soon as practical. We anticipate working aggressively to accelerate hospital connections to the P3N-participating HIOs at least through September 2016, with a stretch goal of connecting at least 90 percent of the facilities that are eligible under proposed Authority grant programs (approximately 125 facilities). Currently, about 27 percent of these eligible facilities are affiliated with a HIO. Also in 2016, we will work with the HIOs and their connected facilities to better understand affiliations between other facilities and physician offices with the grant-eligible facilities, which will in turn allow us to set goals and focus outreach efforts for connections with those who are not affiliated.

How have you seen physician practice adoption of P3N increase and impact patient outcomes since it was launched?
As noted above, and due to the nature of our partnership with the private-sector HIOs in advancing eHIE in Pennsylvania, the Authority does not yet have concrete information regarding growth in physician practice participation in the HIOs. The HIOs will be obligated to provide this information to the Authority only once they are connected to the network. Part of our strategic plans calls for the Authority to undertake surveys of the facilities and physician practices after they are connected to the HIOs, and then the P3N, to gather evidence of changes in patient outcomes deriving from eHIE. We anticipate the first of these surveys in mid- to late 2016, with results published towards the end of the year. In the meantime, the Authority continues to facilitate efforts across the HIOs and with input from other stakeholders to help ensure that the network we are mutually building is focused on supporting improved quality of care and better patient outcomes.

Bonus question: As Meaningful Use winds down, how do you foresee HIE increasing in relevance when it comes to creating true interoperability amongst providers?
A major advantage of the public-private partnership that is the basis of the P3N is that the HIOs are not merely building capabilities to satisfy Meaningful Use requirements, but rather building networks that deliver broader value-added services to providers. Likewise, features of the P3N go beyond minimal Meaningful Use requirements to ensure that the P3N has long-term relevance. For example, the design of the public health gateway, a single point of connection to enable reporting from providers to a variety of government agencies and registries, has long-term efficiency advantages both to the Commonwealth government (thus saving taxpayer money) and to the private-sector organizations who contribute data to these important public health initiatives.

While it is true that the EHR Incentive Program and Meaningful Use have accelerated adoption of both EHR and eHIE technology, the opportunities that these technologies have made possible (i.e. better coordination and transitions of care) are foundational to emerging population health-based care reform models such as accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes. The momentum behind these cost-saving and quality improvement efforts, and the commitment to them by national leaders such as CMS now seems quite likely to outlast Meaningful Use. While not certain, this seems to bode well for not only the continued relevance of eHIE, but the continued evolution of eHIE as an integral part of 21^st century standards of care and support for precision medicine.

Contacts

Jennifer,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 9/29/15

Top News

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell awards $685 million to 39 regional and national healthcare networks (including medical group practices) as part of the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative – one of the federal government’s largest investments into the support of clinicians across all 50 states. The funds will enable awardees to make improvements in a number of areas related to healthcare technology including patient communication via email and other IT tools; real-time notification alerts for providers caring for high-risk patients; centralized data reporting; and technical assistance with quality improvement targets. 

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

There’s still time to celebrate! Check out this list of deals and freebies from local roaster and national retailers. I’m celebrating from my home office with an extra cup of half-caff in my almost-vintage HIStalk mug. I switched to the less buzzy version a few years ago in order to justify drinking more throughout the day. My cup will runneth over with the real stuff soon enough: I can’t seem to get through healthcare events like the upcoming MGMA conference without copious amounts of java from the press room.

Webinars

October 7 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Develop Your Analysts and They’ll Pay for Themselves.” Sponsored by Health Catalyst. Presenters: Peter Monaco, senior business intelligence developer, Health Catalyst; Russ Stahli, VP, Health Catalyst. It takes years for analysts to develop the skills they need to build reports and dashboards that turn data into valuable insights. This webinar will describe how to cultivate those analytical skills, including technical prowess and adaptive leadership. Leaders will learn how to develop a culture that fosters improvement, how to encourage analysts to develop the right skills, and ways to remove the barriers that stand in their way.

Contact Lorre for webinar services.

Announcements and Implementations

Claims clearinghouse vendor ClaimRemedi develops a Web-based client portal with improved workflow, data analytics, and reporting.

Chronic Care Management launches a suite of software tools to assist physicians with chronic care planning and management. Most intriguing (and refreshing) to me is the My Wishes, My Words feature, which gives patients the ability to document their healthcare goals so that physicians can better integrate them into care plans.

Panorama Orthopedic & Spine Center implements Skywriter MD’s virtual EHR assistance technology at its three locations in Denver.

Meditab Software integrates CoverMyMeds electronic prior authorization technology into its Intelligent Medical Software platform.

SourceMedical Solutions adds DrFirst’s e-medication management software to its software, analytics, and RCM tools for ambulatory surgical centers and rehabilitation centers.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

EClinicalWorks opens an office in Austin, TX that will employ 50 and include a training facility. The company is also expanding its Westborough, MA headquarters with the $21.5 million purchase of a 193,230 square-foot property five minutes from its current location. CEO Girish Navani plans to invest an additional $30 million to build it out over the next 12 months to accommodate 1,000 new employees.

People

Harbin Clinic (GA) promotes Kenna Stock to CEO. She is the first non-physician, and the first woman, to hold the position since the multispecialty group was founded in the late 1800s.

Telemedicine

The local news highlights the positive impact telemedicine services from Doc On are having at the Open Door Mission in Omaha, NE. The mission’s clinic now sees 200 patients a week via the virtual service. “It doesn’t compare to anything,” explains shelter resident Justin James. “When you’re down and out, you need places like this.”

American Well partners with workers’ compensation company CorVel Corp. to offer on-demand physician evaluations via telemedicine for employees with workplace injuries.

Research and Innovation

An 18-month home blood pressure-monitoring pilot project conducted by AMGA and Withings finds that blood pressure control rates of 150 patients improved from 38.6 percent to 70 percent between the first and last recordings using the Withings Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor. The project, part of AMGA’s Measure Up/Pressure Down hypertension campaign, also helped to establish best practices for home blood pressure monitors in ambulatory care settings, such as patient recruitment, enrollment, and engagement; care process and therapy modifications; and patient and provider satisfaction.

Other

The AAFP’s annual Congress of Delegates policy meeting convenes in Denver to cover a wide range of issues affecting family medicine. The always intertwined issues of physician burnout and EHR dissatisfaction seem to be hot topics thus far.

Contacts

Jennifer,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
Contact us online.
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News 9/28/15

Top News

The clamor for HHS to postpone Stage 3 of Meaningful Use continues, with over 100 members of Congress writing to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and OMB Directive Shaun Donovan with just such a directive. Congressional leaders including Reps. Renee Ellmers (R-NC), Tom Price (R-GA), and David Scott (D-GA) want to tweak the program to “incentivize technology that enables interoperability and improved health outcomes rather than incentivizing technology that counts how many times a provider performs an activity.” Their letter comes less than a week after AMA and dozens of other trade groups penned a similar plea.

Webinars

October 7 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Develop Your Analysts and They’ll Pay for Themselves.” Sponsored by Health Catalyst. Presenters: Peter Monaco, senior business intelligence developer, Health Catalyst; Russ Stahli, VP, Health Catalyst. It takes years for analysts to develop the skills they need to build reports and dashboards that turn data into valuable insights. This webinar will describe how to cultivate those analytical skills, including technical prowess and adaptive leadership. Leaders will learn how to develop a culture that fosters improvement, how to encourage analysts to develop the right skills, and ways to remove the barriers that stand in their way.

Contact Lorre for webinar services.

People

Kaiser Permanente promotes Rahul Rastogi, MD to COO of Northwestern Permanente.

Government and Politics

The World Health Organization, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and World Bank establish the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative to better enable countries to monitor, track, and share key performance data for primary care. The initiative will track 25 performance indicators across 135 countries to help global health policy makers and workers better understand primary care outcomes. “We know that better measurement can guide smarter, more effective planning and action,” says Bill Gates. “It’s time to get serious about tracking and measuring primary health care performance, so that countries have the data they need to efficiently direct resources to improve the health of their citizens, especially women and children.”

NIST and the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence extend the deadline to submit public comments on their guide to securing EHRs on mobile devices to October 23.

The ACP calls out four shortcomings in ONC’s Federal Health IT Strategic Plan:

• Lack of prioritization around health IT’s role in reducing unnecessary administrative burdens;
• Disregard for the documentation burden caused by legacy billing systems;
• Lack of reconciliation between the plan’s goal of establishing a responsive health IT infrastructure with what Stage 3 of Meaningful Use will likely bring – “a fixed infrastructure that is impervious to the future findings of the learning health and healthcare system.”
• A need for health IT to sometimes be obtrusive, especially in cases related to medication safety.

Announcements and Implementations

Nuance launches the Dragon Medical Advisor computer-assisted physician documentation tool, which automatically provides physicians real-time quality feedback during patient-encounter documentation.

Affinity Billing releases the ClinicMind GEMs Plus ICD-10 code-selection tool for mental health practices.

Houston-based Pediatric Consultants, PA implements DocsInk’s mobile charge-capture and secure messaging platform to better enable its on-call physicians to avoid lost charges.

The MitoCanada Foundation partners with RelayHealth to launch a personalized portal for patients suffering from mitochondrial disease. The Web-based portal will offer patients access to their EHRs and secure storage of personal health data, including appointment history and test results.

Telemedicine

Fort Lauderale, FL-based ScribeAmerica acquires eScribe for an undisclosed amount. Both companies specialize in providing medical scribes to hospitals, specialty physician practices, and urgent care facilities. ScribeAmerica will fold eScribe’s virtual scribe program into its TeleScribe service for physicians in rural areas and/or smaller practices. The acquisition marks the second for ScribeAmerica this year: It acquired Medical Scribe Systems in April.

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield partners with Greenwood Village, CO-based Script Adviser to offer members in Colorado access to infectious disease specialists via telemedicine.

Research and Innovation

MGMA’s latest cost and revenue survey finds that physician-owned multispecialty practices spent close to an average of $21,000 more than the previous year for healthcare IT – an increase of nearly 12 percent. Practice spending on technology has increased 34 percent since 2010. I wonder how spending figures correlate with exhibitor sign-ups and hall foot traffic at MGMA’s annual conference. This year’s event kicks off October 11 in Nashville.

Selecting and implementing new technology are at the bottom of physician to-do lists, according to a Kareo and AAPP survey of 862 providers representing insurance-based practices and concierge/direct-pay practices. Physicians who have jumped into new business models rank patient recruitment and financial viability as top priorities, while more traditional physicians focus on financial viability and hiring and keeping qualified staff.

A Surescripts patient experience survey reveals a majority of patients have more love for DMV license renewal than they do for the process of becoming a new patient, largely due to missing or incomplete medical records (not to mention the inability to transfer records from one provider to another without hassle). This lack of interoperability has led to some surprising patient revelations: 61 percent said their physician isn’t aware of their allergies; 49 percent indicated their physician has no idea what prescriptions they’re taking; and 40 percent say their physicians aren’t aware of their existing medical conditions. While Surescripts has a vested interest in promoting the need for interoperability (the company launched a record locator and exchange service in May), these results highlight a pretty basic lack of patient/provider communication, and a continued need for patient education and health literacy resources. 

Other

Polish medical students learn to empathize with their elderly patients after donning suits that simulate the effects of geriatric ailments related to joints, mobility, and vision.

Good news for occasional or constant fidgeters, particularly those that sit at desks for the majority of their work day: Research shows that fidgeting may prevent ailments associated with sitting too much, including diabetes, heart disease, and premature death. Non-fidgeters have a 30-percent higher risk of death when sitting for seven more hours per day, regardless of exercise.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic posts video highlights from its open house during Epic’s user group meeting. It was brilliant – they worked with a local brewery to create a custom beer, distributed it to 14 bars and restaurants, and donated $1 for every pint poured to The Road Home Program for veterans. I was trying to figure out ways to shamelessly steal their idea for the HIMSS conference.

Blog Posts

• Your Peers Think You Should Go the VUE – Here’s Why (Versus Technology)

Contacts

Jennifer,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.

Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 9/27/15

Symphony Technology Group subsidiary Evidera launches a real-time analytics platform for a variety of data sources including claims, EHRs, and registries. Analysis Apps are included for such areas as drug safety, epidemiology, health economics, and comparative effectiveness.

Seattle-based data analytics firm Atigeo raises $18.4 million in a funding round led by a super-angel investor, with contributions from Ascension Ventures and other private investors. The company, which markets its XPatterns software to providers looking to jump to value-based business models, plans to double its staff over the next year.

Summit Medical Group (TN) selects Athenahealth’s AthenaCommunicator Enterprise solution to advance population health management initiatives across its 54 locations in 12 East Tennessee counties. Management services organization Summit Strategic Solutions will handle the implementation.

John Muir Health (CA) chooses Health Catalyst’s enterprise data warehouse and analytics platform.

The National Governors Association offers states advice on how to use data to better serve healthcare super users and big spenders, highlighting the success several have seen with sharing data via HIE. (I was amused to see that even the NGA lets “HER” slip into official reports.)

Genesis Accountable Physician Network and University of Texas Southwestern Clinically Affiliated Physicians partner to form the UT Southwestern Accountable Care Network in an effort to better align primary and specialty care across providers and payers. The network, made up of UT faculty physicians and independent physicians, will offer its members access to technologies for population risk stratification, predictive modeling, sophisticated disease registries, point-of-care management, and automated appointment reminders.

Contacts

Jennifer,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
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