News 3/24/15

Top News

HHS, CMS, and ONC publish proposed rules for Meaningful Use Stage 3 and 2015 Edition EHR certification criteria, alerting their email subscribers at 4:20 pm on Friday afternoon. The Stage 3 rule is here and 2015 certification criteria here. Lt. Dan provides a concise write up of patient engagement key criteria here, while the comments of several passionate HIStalk readers can be found here. Given my interest in physician practices, I reached out to Jim Morrow, MD of Morrow Family Medicine (GA) to gauge his reaction:

“In a nutshell, I am concerned about anything that is out of my hands. I can’t control which patients decide to use the portal or how many. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, ‘If patients don’t want to use the portal, who’s going to stop them?’

That’s my biggest concern. The other is that in order to be able to report on secure messaging, and specific topics as well, vendors will have to spend a great deal of time and money writing all this new code when they could be making the entire EHR better for everyone.

I was a huge proponent of Meaningful Use at the start, and I still believe in it at its foundation, but adding more and more work for vendors and doctors will not make for better care. We need to let these technological wizards work their magic on their solutions in ways that can make patients’ lives, and their care, better. What I have seen of Stage 3 to this point will not do that.”

I’d love to hear the opinions of other physicians on how this next phase of MU will impact patient care and business models. Share your thoughts via the comments section below.

Webinars

March 31 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Best Practices for Increasing Patient Collections.” Sponsored by MedData. Presenter: Jason Bird, director of client operations, MedData. Healthcare is perhaps the last major industry where the consumer does not generally have access to what they owe and how they can pay for their services. Collecting from patients is estimated to cost up to four times more than collecting from payers and patient pay responsibility is projected to climb to 50 percent of the healthcare dollar by the end of the decade. Learn how creating a consumer-focused culture, one that emphasizes patient satisfaction over collections, can streamline your revenue cycle process and directly impact your bottom line.

Announcements and Implementations

Allscripts will market and resell NoteSwift 2.0 for Allscripts Professional EHR. Speech-recognition technology vendor NoteSwift has similar partnerships with Amazing Charts and Aprima.

The Physician Alliance (MI) expands its use of Wellcentive’s population health management solution by adding end users, implementing care management technology, and adopting the company’s quality data management services.

Canada-based Nightingale Informatix Corp. releases version 10 of its EHR product to U.S. physicians using its Medium PM technology. It will be made available to all U.S. and Canadian customers this summer.

Hot on the heels of the MUS3 announcement comes Athenahealth’s  proclamation that nearly 93 percent of physicians using athenaOne services successfully attested for Meaningful Use Stage 2 in 2014. The company also announced expansion of its Guarantee Program to include value-based reimbursement for the Physician Quality Reporting System and Medicare Shared Savings Program.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

A local newspaper interviews several Iowa-based physicians about the pressures of moving to hospital employment and value-based business models. “Most of us are not trained to run a business or do HR or do payroll,” says Mercycare-employed Timothy Sagers, MD. “When those core functions are delivered on a system level, it frees me up to be a doctor. I want to do medicine not run a business. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re going in the right direction. But it’s costly to adapt.”

IBM invests an undisclosed amount in Modernizing Medicine, which is working on Watson-powered ambulatory clinical decision support.

Population health management system vendor ZeOmega acquires HealthUnity, which offers private and public HIE, MPI, referral management, and patient consent interoperability solutions. Mr. H interviewed ZeOmega EVP and Chief Strategy Officer Nandini Rangaswamy about the acquisition here.

Government and Politics

The IRS takes a cue from Healthcare.gov and attempts to push the majority of its customer service interactions online via tools like Where’s My Refund? The agency, which has answered just 43 percent of taxpayers’ phone calls this tax season (many no doubt having to do with insurance subsidies, penalties, and exemptions), is well aware of the need to take its digital services one step further, but is stymied by lack of funding. 

Meanwhile, Healthcare.gov CEO Kevin Counihan suggests that tax payers with errors on their 1095-A healthcare tax forms call the agency’s 1-800 number for assistance. Hopefully more than 43 percent of those phone calls will get answered.

Acting VA CIO Stephen Warren says that even though the DoD is shopping for a commercial EHR, the VA will stick with VistA because it was developed for patient care rather than built around billing as were commercial systems. 

HCentive will offer state-based health insurance exchange marketplaces for "lease" in an effort to help those states who intend to move from Healthcare.gov to a state-run HIX. The company’s WebInsure State Exchange product has been tested by CMS and includes a Federally Facilitated Marketplace Data Migration Toolkit.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper creates the State Innovation Model Office to to coordinate primary care and behavioral health care throughout the state. Vatsala Pathy, director of the new office, believes that “[t]his is an extraordinary opportunity to engage in dialogue and provide solutions for population health and consumer engagement, workforce development, health information technology and data measures, payers, policy and evaluation as well as service delivery and practice transformation for healthcare in Colorado.”

People

Telerent Leasing Corporation, parent company of TeleHealth Services and Avidex, promotes Joel Harris to president and CEO.

Galen Healthcare Solutions promotes Jason Carmichael to CEO, Mike Dow to CIO, Erin Sain to COO, Justin Campbell to vice president of marketing, and Ray Lape to director of technical services.

Research and Innovation

A National Health Council study finds that over one-third of consumers with chronic conditions had a hard time finding information about covered providers and medications on health insurance exchange websites. An overwhelming majority of respondents noted they’d like exchanges to offer a standardized list of covered providers and drugs, and a calculator to assist with determining potential out-of-pocket costs.

A PNC Healthcare study finds that Millenials and Gen-Xers far prefer retail and acute-care clinics over primary care practices, while nearly half of that combined age group use online reviews from sites like Yelp and Healthgrades to help determine which physician to see. Results like these serve to emphasize the seismic shift traditional physician practices are undergoing as they struggle to keep up with burgeoning corner-shop care models and hyper-connected consumers who, in the typical American fashion, want high-quality care 10 minutes ago for next to nothing.

Telemedicine

Nextech integrates health data from Iagnosis teledermatology visits into its patient portal and EHR.

Bill H.B. 1747 dies in the Arkansas House of Representatives, precluding telemedicine companies from practicing in the state. A similar bill is pending before the Senate.

The Saucon Valley School district in Pennsylvania considers paying $21,660 to give its employees access to SwiftMD’s telemedicine services on an annual basis. School board members seemed receptive to the idea, especially when told that the average ER visit costs the district $986 a visit, urgent care $290, and primary care $155.

Other

TAG Heuer announces at the Baselworld watch expo that it will partner with Google and Intel to create a luxury smart watch. TAG will handle design and manufacture, while Intel will provide an SoC platform and Google will offer its Android Wear platform and software-development skills. The watch will launch by the end of the year at a yet-to-be-named price point.

Mental Floss highlights the trials and tribulations of working as a lone physician in some of the world’s most isolated places. “It takes a really broad skill set,” says Scott Parazynski, MD former astronaut and CMO of the National Science Foundation’s U.S. Antarctic Program. “I call it MacGyver medicine. What can you do to diagnose and treat conditions in a really remote environment when the chips are down? You have to invent solutions on the fly.”

Target agrees to pay $10 million to settle a class-action lawsuit related to its 2013 data breach, which may have compromised the credit cards of as many as 110 million people. Settlement terms also require that the company appoint a chief information security officer and maintain a written information security program. It will be interesting to see if the Anthem class-action lawsuit brought in February eventually settles for similar terms.

Sponsor Updates

• E-MDs will exhibit at American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons 2015 March 24 in Las Vegas.
• Healthwise will exhibit at the World Health Care Congress March 22-25 in Orlando.
• NVoq offers how to “Avoid Those ‘Few Extra Clicks’ and Improve EMR Workflow.”
• Nordic releases the second episode of its HIT Breakdown podcast entitled, “What does a great population health program look like?”

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
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DOCtalk with Dr. Gregg 3/24/15

Change EHRs? I’ Been Busy

No matter what, if you’re a practicing physician, you can honestly state – at any given moment in time – “I’ been busy.”

Whether it’s actually providing patient care (a much smaller percentage of your work day than ever) or attending to administrative chores (a MUCH larger chunk of your day now) or messing around learning about silly stuff like advances in medicine and healthcare, your day is never one of “oh, not much, what are you doing?” Is it any surprise then that physicians are reluctant to make changes to the digital tools they employ?

Sure, there’s a lot of hubbub about EHR swaps and disgruntlement with first-choice systems. Docs and CIO-types are finding that all their so-called “due diligence” has yielded a system that met Meaningful Use requirements sufficiently to obtain MU dough, but that are oh-so-woefully lacking when it comes to meaningful day-to-day use. Disgruntled docs are dutifully documenting their discouragement with difficult data entry devices and systems on blogs and other fun physician forums. But change EHRs? EHR swaps are not for the faint of heart … nor for the busy.

Sure, if you’ve got nothing better to do, you can spend even more time looking even more deeply into even more EHRs and EMRs than you spent the last time (during your scurry to access MU opportunities and dollars). You can do the demo dance with vendors, dialogue with other docs about their documentation dilemmas, and dig down into digital details that you never really cared about from the get go.

You can ask about data migration. (Good luck on that one!) You can ask about data ownership. (Better read the fine print.) You can listen to the extolled virtues of “cloud-iness” versus local hosting. (Remember to calculate support costs.) You can even find some vendors that will let you use their system for a time without ponying up any payment. (Playing around with fake patients to explore an EHR system – what could sound like more fun in all your spare moments?)

Of course, if you’ve been “institutionalized” or otherwise absorbed by some medical Borgian amalgam, you may not have much say in your EHR choice. Your next system may be thrust upon you just as unceremoniously as was the first. You might, then, even count yourself lucky on this since you don’t have to worry about all the new system search suffering. (You just have to suffer its actual implementation and use.)

But, if you’re still independent or part of a smaller group, or if you’re in charge of seeking out a new, better system for a larger group AND you still actually see patients on a fairly full-time basis, you know how easy it is to just keep using a clunky system. Even an EHR that does documentation with all the simplicity and ease of Fred Flintstone’s flint rock tablet is better than the angst and anguish of change.

There are better systems out there, to be sure. There are EHRs and EMRs that actually make documenting easier. (Honest! Really. It’s true.) But the problem is that finding them, and finding the one that’s right for you and/or your group is about as time-consuming as looking for a new case of smallpox, maybe more so (and perhaps just as fruitful). And then there’s the whole workflow and business processes change thing. Oy.

Poor systems and workflows that may not be the most efficient are nevertheless paying your bills and getting you home sometime before last call (usually). Searching for and living through the transition to your next EHR surely threatens your current homeostasis, even if the potential for improvement – after all is said and done – is real.

It’s tough to think about going through all those process changes again … especially when it’s so true, and so much easier to say, “I’ been busy.”

From the trenches…

“In the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there’s no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

Dr. Gregg Alexander, a grunt in the trenches pediatrician at Madison Pediatrics, is Chief Medical Officer for Health Nuts Media, an HIT and marketing consultant, and sits on the board of directors of the Ohio Health Information Partnership.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 3/19/15

Top News

HHS reports that 16.4 million uninsured adults have gained insurance coverage since the implementation of the ACA.

Webinars

March 31 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Best Practices for Increasing Patient Collections.” Sponsored by MedData. Presenter: Jason Bird, director of client operations, MedData. Healthcare is perhaps the last major industry where the consumer does not generally have access to what they owe and how they can pay for their services. Collecting from patients is estimated to cost up to four times more than collecting from payers and patient pay responsibility is projected to climb to 50 percent of the healthcare dollar by the end of the decade. Learn how creating a consumer-focused culture, one that emphasizes patient satisfaction over collections, can streamline your revenue cycle process and directly impact your bottom line.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

IBM and Twitter launch developer tools and cloud-based data analysis services that mine Twitter data five months after announcing their non-exclusive partnership. The data services run on IBM’s Watson technology and its BigInsights version of Hadoop. The developer tools will enable users to create tools that pull in Twitter data, a concept that has already provided itself useful in the area of population health.

Patient relationship management platform company Conversa Health closes a $2.5 million seed round with a group of unnamed healthcare angel investors.

Electronic Health Network accepts $200,000 from the SCRA Technology Ventures SC Launch program, which the health information exchange company joined in June 2014.

Zobreus Medical Corp. takes preorders for its Patient-Oriented Electronic Medical Record via Kickstarter at no cost aside from a one-time pledge. The company is looking to raise $50,000 by April 16.

Diabetes management app vendor Glooko raises $16.5 million in a Series B round.

Seattle-area Premera Blue Cross discovers that hackers have had access to the demographic, clinical, and claims information of 11 million people going back to May 2014. The FBI is investigating.

Announcements and Implementations

Migrant Health Center (PR) selects the eClinicalWorks EHR for implementation at its eight locations.

Genesis Medical Associates (PA) implements Treatspace’s interface tool for patient referrals to medical specialists. GMA formed the Keystone Clinical Partners ACO with nearby Preferred Primary Care Physicians in January, and no doubt hopes the new technology will help it drive down communication costs.

HealthPoint (WA) implements IOD’s Prism Connect Provider communications tool at its 13 clinics.

Telemedicine

The California Skin Institute partners with Iagnosis to launch teledermatology services for its patients. The practice, the largest of its kind in the state, also hopes to offer the new Derm On Call service to employers in the area.

The State of Idaho comes one step closer to passing telemedicine legislation after approval in both the House and Senate. Now awaiting the governor’s signature, the proposed bill would give the state’s licensing boards the task of setting their own rules and oversight on what medical services could be accessed via telemedicine.

Botswana is delivering broadband and telemedicine services to remote areas via unassigned TV band frequencies.

Government and Politics

Lawmakers explore EHR adoption progress during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, paying particular attention to the financial burden felt by many small practices struggling to keep up with Meaningful Use. AAFP President Robert Wergin, MD told the committee he wants to see Congress delay MU penalties for non-attesting physicians until interoperability is achieved.

CMS releases its physician referral data sets.

The House is finalizing a permanent SGR Medicare payment fix at a cost of $200 billion over 10 years, with taxpayers paying $140 billion and high-income seniors paying $60 billion in new Medicare costs.

The Obama administration achieves the dubious distinction of again setting a record for censoring government files or denying access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. HHS, however, was lauded for disclosing data about the Ebola outbreak and immigrant children caught illegally crossing U.S. borders.

People

Ebola survivor Rick Sacra, MD is named Family Physician of the Year by the Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians.

Larry Ponemon (The Ponemon Institute) joins the advisory board of Immune-Secure, an Independent Security Evaluators-sponsored research study on security improvements in healthcare.

Research and Innovation

A PwC reports on the impact the Affordable Care Act has had on the healthcare industry five years after its passage, identifying primary care as the fulcrum between expanding insurance coverage and encouraging alternative payment models for care delivery. It also concludes that, while the ACA helped to kick start telemedicine services within physician practices, the use of virtual consultations will need to become more widespread if physicians hope to remain competitive in the new world of value-based service.

The Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare finds that transitioning from manual to electronic processes for claims submission, status inquiry, and payment; plus eligibility and benefit verification, prior authorization, and remittance advice could save healthcare providers and payers over $8 million a year. While not as sexy as digital health, these areas seem ripe for startup opportunity.

A survey of 500 healthcare professionals finds that 46 percent plan to introduce mobile apps into their practices within the next five years. A similar percentage believes apps will increase the efficiency of patient treatment. I’d like to see numbers on how these physicians plan to incorporate this new data into their daily workflows and EHRs, not to mention how they foresee being reimbursed for the time it takes to digest the data. 

Other

Interior Design magazine profiles the life and passing of iconic architect and consumer goods designer Michael Graves. I was not aware that he put his unique spin on walking sticks, signage for the visually impaired, and wheelchairs.

Sponsor Updates

• PerfectServe posts “Real-time healthcare: Preventing the need for immediacy from eroding quality.”
• Culbert Healthcare Solutions will exhibit at AMGA 2015 Annual Conference March 24-26 in Las Vegas.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
Contact us online.

From the Consultant’s Corner 3/18/15

Technology: A Key Element in Physician Recruitment and Retention

Although physician practice success depends on many factors, one could argue that the commitment of an organization’s physicians is a chief determinant of future progress and viability.

More specifically, when physicians are happy, engaged, and involved, a practice is better able to attract and retain patients, participate in collaborative care models, achieve quality outcomes, and grow financially. In fact, organizations that strive to recruit and retain loyal physicians stand a greater chance of effectively navigating the ever-changing healthcare landscape.

How can organizations give themselves a leg up when it comes to capturing physician commitment? One answer is to embrace technology. By having robust hardware and software in place, a practice can be more appealing to physicians, helping with both recruitment and retention.

Why Technology is Important
There are several reasons why technology can boost physician enthusiasm and allegiance. To start, automated solutions improve efficiency, enabling physicians to perform key tasks faster and more accurately. In all candor, there is a minority of providers who feel that technology places greater burdens on productivity. But the majority are committed to using these advanced tools to allow them to focus their full attention on patient care, which increases both physician and patient satisfaction.

Furthermore, technology encourages better communication by allowing physicians to more effectively share information, faster. This enables meaningful patient interactions as well as heightened collaboration with other providers.

Investing in clinical technology can help physicians stay on the forefront of their field, supporting new and emerging procedures that improve care delivery and drive positive patient outcomes. Automated solutions can even reduce risk and prevent error, ensuring that the care provided is safe and appropriate.

Technology also allows physicians to work at the top of their license, bringing their considerable expertise to the patient encounter in ways that make the most sense. Ultimately, this is what physicians want — to fully practice medicine and spend as little time as possible on administrative or non-clinical tasks.

By regularly investing in technology, a practice can realize the aforementioned benefits. Moreover, this type of investment communicates that a practice is committed to its physicians and willing to financially invest in a dynamic and responsive workplace.

Key Technology Solutions to Have
The technology options available to practices are many, and it can be challenging to narrow down which are the most essential. In my experience, the following solutions are vital for long-term success:

• An EHR that supports interoperability. This promotes more collaborative care across the continuum, facilitating smoother information sharing and consultation with colleagues. It also reduces the risk of mismatched or duplicative therapies, which can preserve patient safety and elevate outcomes. As organizations begin pursuing value-driven reimbursement, a robust EHR will become even more essential.
• Portal technology. Designed to foster better patient communication and engagement, portals can nurture physician-patient relationships by facilitating meaningful interactions. When patients use the portal, they may communicate routine information with providers. The portal can also optimize the on-site visit so physicians can focus more on direct patient care.
• Mobile solutions. As physicians increasingly rely on smartphones and tablets in their personal lives, they are looking to use similar technology during the work day. Not only do these tools enable more efficient information sharing, they can offer physicians flexibility in where they perform certain functions, which can enhance physician quality of life.
• Software that communicates performance data, such as tools to create dashboards. These encourage greater transparency with physicians about their performance, allowing them to see how they compare with peers. Additionally, these tools can highlight potential trends that warrant physician attention.
• Clinical equipment. Healthcare is constantly changing, and practices should stay up-to-date with the latest clinical solutions to remain competitive over time.

Key Considerations When Contemplating Possible Technology Options
Before jumping headlong into onboarding various technologies, practices should take a step back and commit to thinking strategically. Technology for technology sake is not helpful; it needs to be part of a larger plan. For example, decisions should take into account the cost-benefit ratio and how well the solution fits with the practice’s long-term strategic goals. The purchase decision must also consider how the potential acquisition integrates with the practice’s other systems, such as the existing EHR, the practice management tool and so on. Ultimately the investment must provide value to the practice in terms of either improved patient care or a better financial bottom line. Ideally, the technology will facilitate the practice realizing both these outcomes.

When reviewing different solutions, practices should involve physicians in the process to ensure systems are user friendly and meet their needs. Not only will this increase physician adoption but it will also encourage greater engagement with the technology once it goes live. If a practice does not seek physician input, the organization can inadvertently communicate that it does not value physician preference — a great source of dissatisfaction for physicians and possibly a precursor to flight.

It’s important to note that providing access to technology doesn’t always mean buying it. For instance, a group might receive access through a strategic relationship with a health system. Such an affiliation might provide the opportunity to use the technology (patient portals, EHRs, etc.) at little or no cost. This allows physician practices to preserve their autonomy while still offering cutting edge services.

Enhancing Recruitment and Retention
In today’s competitive healthcare marketplace, physician practices should be constantly looking for ways to attract and retain physicians. Pursuing technology solutions that improve clinical care, financial performance, and efficiency can be a valuable method for engaging physicians and keeping them committed long term, serving as a significant component of a robust recruitment and retention strategy.

Jerry Broderick is an executive management consultant at Culbert Healthcare Solutions.

News 3/17/15

Top News

Healthcare.gov will reopen this Sunday to give nearly 4 million people facing a tax penalty one last chance to sign up for health insurance. The new sign-up period is for the 37 states served by the federal insurance exchange, and will end on April 30.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Spring seems to finally have sprung in my part of the world. While the seasons won’t technically change until Friday, March 20, the warming temperatures, tax-return preparations, and shrinking New Year’s resolution crowds at my local Y all signal that Winter is indeed nearing an end. St. Patrick’s Day celebrations also help to usher in a new equinox. While the days of green beer are behind me, I do fancy Shamrock Shakes. The full-fat concoction peddled by McDonald’s has nothing on the healthier version pictured here.

Webinars

March 31 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Best Practices for Increasing Patient Collections.” Sponsored by MedData. Presenter: Jason Bird, director of client operations, MedData. Healthcare is perhaps the last major industry where the consumer does not generally have access to what they owe and how they can pay for their services. Collecting from patients is estimated to cost up to four times more than collecting from payers and patient pay responsibility is projected to climb to 50 percent of the healthcare dollar by the end of the decade. Learn how creating a consumer-focused culture, one that emphasizes patient satisfaction over collections, can streamline your revenue cycle process and directly impact your bottom line.

Here is the video of last Thursday’s webinar by West Corporation titled “Turn Your Contact Center into a Patient-Centered Access Center.” I’ve created a Storify recap for those with shorter attention spans.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Data center operator ByteGrid Holdings acquires Sidus BioData, a managed hosting and IT consulting company specializing in biotech, pharma, medical devices, and healthcare IT, for an undisclosed sum. Sidus CEO Jason Silva will become a ByteGrid executive once the acquisition is final.

The local tech news outlet profiles Aptible, a venture-backed startup with roots in the Y Combinator accelerator program and experience with Rock Health Capital. The fledgling company, now based in Brooklyn, helps cloud-based healthcare IT startups navigate the often tricky waters of security and HIPAA.

Eko Devices receives $2 million in new funding and will begin clinical trials at UCSF of its Eko Core digital extension for analog stethoscopes.

Announcements and Implementations

Mettrum Health Corp., a Canada-based medical marijuana producer and distributor, launches an online portal to help physicians register, review, and renew patient medical documents, recommend specific strains, and monitor the quantities and strains patients are purchasing.

EHNAC releases final criteria for the Practice Management System Accreditation Program. Developed in collaboration with WEDI, the program evaluates PM vendors on privacy, security, mandated standards and operating rules, and ICD-10 implementation and support.

Presagia Sports partners with neurobiological training and technology company CogniSens to enhance its EHR with performance and concussion management tools.

Government and Politics

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signs legislation delaying the state’s mandatory electronic prescribing law for one year to March 27, 2016, the same bill he giddily approved in 2012.

Research and Innovation

A WEDI survey finds that awareness of the Blue Button PHR interoperability initiative among industry stakeholders has decreased overall since 2013, while provider awareness has remained flat. Somewhat disappointing  (but not surprising given the industry’s current slog towards interoperability) was the finding that the top three communication priorities for respondents continue to be email, text messages, and direct mail.

Hot on the heels of the AMA’s decision to open an Interaction Studio within Matter Chicago’s offices comes news of Washington, D.C.-based AHIP opening a 26,000 square-foot Innovation Lab in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. The lab will house healthcare professionals working on issues like chronic care management, population health, big data, fraud and abuse, and telemedicine. GE Healthcare, Accenture, and Amgen have formally announced their support.

Telemedicine

NASA selects VSee’s telemedicine platform for astronauts to use on board the International Space Station. The new tool will enable astronauts to video chat with doctors and family, collaborate with other scientists, and engage in public outreach with school children. Galactic news like this makes me wonder how long it will take for the issues of reimbursement and physician licensing to get sorted out here in the states. If the ISS can figure it out …

After a successful pilot program with Techstars Austin, CirrusMD partners with Austin Regional Clinic (TX) to offer its eMD Access service to local employers. The telemedicine tool will enable employees to virtually connect with ARC physicians after an initial in-person visit to review health history.

Online doctor visit service HealthTap launches RateRx, which lets its member doctors rate the effectiveness of individual drugs and treatments.

People

The Indiana HIE promotes John Kansky to president and CEO.

PDR appoints former Surescripts President and CEO Harry Totonis as an independent director.

HHS names Mary Wakefield (HRSA) acting deputy secretary.

Other

Kudos to Jamee Steen, MD who opened a new primary care practice within the same building as the YMCA, courtesy of landlord Palmetto Health (SC). “I would make recommendations on lifestyle changes all the time, and I wouldn’t know until I see [my patients] again if they had followed them,” Steen told the local paper. “Now, we’ll physically walk them over and attach them to a resource.” Patients won’t even need a way-finding app to navigate from door to door. This type of nascent business model is a perfect example of letting IT take a backseat to simpler, more user-friendly solutions. Now, if only the Y and local physicians could figure out a way to reward healthy lifestyle choices with discounts at each other’s establishments.

Pediatrician Chris Magryta, MD outlines his disdain for EHRs in the local paper’s Op/Ed, chronicling his frustrations with digital charting from his days at Emory University’s School of Medicine to present-day practice pressures associated with Meaningful Use and lack of interoperability:

“What we need is one system that traverses the entire medical community and is not used until it has proven to enhance medical care and be efficient. This does not exist in today’s medical practice. Patients are now treated to a physician who is busy staring at a screen in order to check all of the required boxes in order to meet the insurance companies and the governments desires for a quality visit, so called bullet points. Let me be very clear. This has in no way improved the quality of care that I deliver. I reiterate that I am on average 20–30 percent less efficient in my daily visits. As a healer I am irritated that this obstacle impedes my ability to see more patients. I find myself apologizing to my patients for the computer time and my lack of eye contact at times. I find myself constantly trying to catch up and be on time with my visits. Remember that I used to see more people, chart and have more time to teach and educate each patient. That was quality care.”

It’s official: “Password1” is the worst possible password, according to Popular Science. Strings of consecutive numbers like the ever-popular “123456” don’t fall far behind. In light of John Gomez’s eye-opening Readers Write on hacking healthcare conferences, it might be worth revisiting all the passwords you’ve accumulated over the years to determine whether they fall into the “easily hackable” category.

Sponsor Updates

• Medicity publishes “The Challenges and Benefits of Interoperability.”
• Nordic leads off its “HIT Breakdown” podcast series with an episode on population health and adds a new video in its series on Epic conversion planning.
• Healthwise commemorates Patient Safety Awareness Week with “Why Safety is Personal When it Comes to Medical Care.”
• Greenway Health is named one of the Top 10 Innovative Technology Companies in Georgia by the Technology Association of Georgia.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
Contact us online.