5 Questions with Unaiza Hayat, MD CEO and CMO, Avecinia Wellness Center

Unaiza Hayat, MD is CEO and chief medical officer of Avecinia Wellness Center, which provides primary care, aesthetics, and alternative therapies at its facility in Clovis, CA. The center’s name is derived from Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in the west), the 10^th century Persian physician known for bringing together medical sciences from various regions. The center employs three clinicians – each of which sees 20 patients a day, a massage therapist and esthetician, six administrative staff, and six instructors for its various classes.

The center transitioned in 2010 from an eHealthCare practice management system and Prognosis EHR to athenahealth solutions, citing complexity and poor customer service as reasons for the switch. Avecinia is currently using athenahealth’s EHR, practice management, and patient communication services. Over the next six to 12 months, it will consider implementing a tablet-based patient check-in service that integrates with athenaNet software, and look at working with a mobile health app to help with medication adherence. It has met Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements and is now working to exceed its core and selected criteria as part of patient workflow.

Why do you think only 458 eligible doctors have met Stage 2 MU requirements thus far? What challenges did Avecinia face in preparing to attest?
The numbers speak for themselves. If nearly 60 percent of those meeting Stage 2 MU work with one EHR, then it probably has a lot to do with the EHR being used. We noticed that a particular type of provider ends up using athenahealth versus other EHRs. These providers tend to be forward thinking, understand what they know and what they don’t, and appreciate the role of technology as a tool in providing superior patient care. One of the reasons we selected athenahealth was the forward-thinking vision they are driven by, which aligns with our vision. By creating a partnership where we can focus on providing patient care and athenahealth can focus on the tasks best suited to its expertise, we have been able to easily complete something that many other providers find difficult, confusing, and time consuming. We didn’t face any challenges since the requirements are organic to our workflow.

As you alluded to, nearly 60 percent of those that have attested are athenahealth customers. How important was your relationship with them during the attestation process?
See above. If and when there is ever a hiccup, athenahealth has the resources to assist the practice in overcoming those challenges. There is also a robust user group where users exchange best practices and ideas on how to use the technology to its maximum capabilities.

Based on your experience, what advice would you give other physicians looking to attest for MU? What should they be looking for (or be wary of) in an EHR vendor or consultant?
We have a saying: “Meaningful Use is only as good as the meaning we give to it.” By working with an EHR that works the MU requirements seamlessly into our workflow, we were able to give Meaningful Use meaning. For example, by helping us identify at the point of care if someone needs a flu shot or TDAP, or if it has been more than a year since their last preventive visit, we can make sure our patients get the care they need, and that we capture the revenue opportunity.

Our advice would be to see how the vendor incorporates MU into the patient workflow. Does it assist in providing better care? Who is responsible for collecting the data, making sure you are staying on track and submitting the data on your behalf? If the vendor is going to do it, and has a track record of being successful, then that’s probably the vendor you should choose. You aren’t going to save money by trying to hire the necessary staff and spending clinic time to do the work necessary to attest on your own.

How receptive have your patients been to your patient engagement efforts, such as the patient portal?
They have been very receptive. We believe our relationship with our patients goes beyond the four walls of the clinic and so have made a committed effort to engage with them and the community through social media (our Facebook page has 2,300 fans and we are also on Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn), community activism, and philanthropy. We use those opportunities to help shape the conversation around healthcare and well-being. Our patient portal has also been a successful part of our patient engagement. We have an over-50-percent adoption rate, and the patients find it a convenient and useful tool in managing their healthcare. Athenahealth’s communication suite goes beyond being a portal, though. The appointment and order reminder system is integral in keeping our no-show rate at 2 percent, and helping our patients stay actively involved in their healthcare.

You have received numerous accolades for being a top leader and businesswoman in your community. How important is leadership before, during, and after a healthcare IT implementation?
Thank you for noticing that. Leadership is crucial throughout healthcare IT implementations because, like any project, it requires buy-in, teamwork, guidance, accountability, and humility. We have found that when leadership takes on the role of being a coach/mentor, the group is more successful in reaching its goals. Most importantly, it engages the group and encourages them to also develop leadership skills.

Bonus Question: What coordinated care initiatives are currently underway?
We meet the criteria to be a Level 3 Patient-Centered Medical Home but have not applied for it because the application process is costly and there is no revenue benefit in Fresno/Central Valley for doing so. Neither private insurance nor Medicare recognize those programs here. We are also interested in establishing an ACO because we have already laid the foundation, but the hospital systems and other providers in Fresno have a long way to go to catch up to us. We have approached Medicare and private insurance companies with no luck. It is really unfortunate because the population in Fresno and the Central Valley has some of the highest rates of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic conditions that could benefit from the ACO model.

In the meantime, we have been asked by the newly established Central Valley Health Information Exchange to help lead the efforts in getting other private physician groups to, at the very least, register with the exchange. We are open to working with any organization that is willing to lead the way with us in adopting and promoting new, engaging models of healthcare delivery.

Thank you for the opportunity to share our success with HISTalk!

Contacts

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

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News 6/26/14

Top News

Verizon launches Virtual Visits, a video-conferencing app that enables patients with acute conditions to see physicians via smartphone, tablet or computer. The solution is billed as a carrier-agnostic, enterprise-class platform for health systems, health plans, and employers to meet the needs of their patient populations. Verizon appears to be the first major telecommunications company to enter the telemedicine market, meaning it certainly won’t be the last. Two things give me pause about this sort of offering. First, physician groups and health systems can sign up to use the app to consult patients, while employers can use clinicians provided by Verizon. No mention is made of how a telecom company vets its clinicians. Second, encrypted patient information is stored in Verizon’s HIPAA-compliant cloud. This likely includes financial data, since the app is capable of processing co-pays. The company is no doubt well-versed in encryption, but you have to wonder how patient data will be communicated from the app back to a provider’s EHR without making itself vulnerable to hacks.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Mobile and online clinical resources and solutions provider Physicians Interactive acquires MedHelp, an online health community and health application site. The companies hope their combined resources will “make a significant impact on patient adherence to drug therapy regimens …." The acquisition was financed by Merck Global Health Innovation.

The Mid-States Consortium of Health Information Organizations announces the addition of six new members including the Illinois Health Information Exchange, Lewis and Clark Information Exchange, Michiana Health Information Network, Tiger Institute Health Alliance, Utah Health Information Network, and the Wisconsin Statewide Health Information Network. The consortium was formed earlier this year to facilitate data exchange amongst its members, who now total 23 organizations spanning 18 states in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions.

Availity and emids announce plans to establish an Availity technology center in downtown Nashville, TN using the existing emids location. The expanded emids delivery center will establish a base of operations for Availity in the area, enabling it to accelerate product development efforts. The companies anticipate hiring 60 additional employees.

Navicure launches BillingBetter.com, an online directory of billing companies specific to a practice’s geographic location, claim types processed, and specialties served. Additional resources include webinars, tip sheets, and white papers.

Practice Fusion and Emdeon team up to offer automated health plan eligibility checks in the Practice Fusion EHR. Physician practices will now be able to verify a patient’s health plan information electronically via the Emdeon network, eliminating the need to call individual payers to check coverage.

Announcements and Implementations

Maine Primary Care Association implements the i2iTracks population health management program from i2iSystems after attempting unsuccessfully to build its own data warehouse. MPCA currently uses the program at seven of its health centers and expects to add another four facilities by year’s end.

The local paper profiles the results Southwest Medical Associates (NV) has seen thus far with OptumHealth’s NowClinic telemedicine technology. Six months in, SMA has enrolled 10,000 of the 325,000 eligible Health Plan of Nevada members and treated 1,500 patients. SMA Medical Director Eugene Somphone notes there is “tremendous potential for growth. Like any new technology, it takes time. Amazon didn’t become a success overnight, and patients are getting used to this. As they get comfortable, it will be a major avenue for patient care and has huge potential not just in Nevada but across the country.”

Telemedicine patients in Nevada may have a leg up on those in other parts of the country, given that construction is underway on the Nevada Broadband Telemedicine Initiative. The project, a result of the collaboration between e-Care Nevada and the Nevada Hospital Association, is the only all-fiber, public-use network of its kind to link Las Vegas and Reno. The network will link rural healthcare facilities with next-generation telemedicine applications while serving rural communications companies, education centers, and government organizations.

NRAD Medical Associates (NY) begins notifying 97,000 patients that “an employee radiologist accessed and acquired protected health information from NRAD’s billing system without authorization.” Breached information included names and addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and health insurance information including diagnosis and procedure codes.

Government and Politics

The State of Montana starts notifying 1.3 million people — more than the entire population of the state — that hackers got into a state health department server containing their medical information. A surprising amount of medical information was stored on the server, including “health assessments, diagnoses, treatment, prescriptions, and insurance.” Also on the same server: the bank account information of 3,100 department employees and contractors, and 50 years’ worth of birth and death certificate information.

Research and Innovation

This study highlights the overall framework of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Outpatient Safety Net Program. OSNP uses EHRs and a proactive clinical culture to look for potential quality improvement opportunities and interventions to improve ambulatory patient care. Examples cited include use of conflicting medications that could lead to drug interactions or the need for follow-up tests.

People

Athenahealth names Kristi Matus (Aetna) to the newly created role of EVP/chief financial and administrative officer.

DoctorsManagement appoints Frank Cohen Director of Analytics and Business Intelligence.

Elsevier promotes Peter Edelstein, MD to the newly created position of chief medical officer, Elsevier Clinical Solutions.

Other

Medical bill reviewing company CoPatient completes a $3.6 million round of Series A funding led by .406 Ventures. Returning investors include athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush and Cambia Health Solutions. Employers and organizations such as AARP utilize CoPatient’s technology to offer their members access to medical billing experts who comb through bills spotting errors, and then offer users free or paid options to rectify the mistakes.

Contacts

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

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News 6/24/14

Top News

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell announces several management changes, including the appointment of Andy Slavitt (Optum) as CMS principal deputy administrator. Slavitt certainly fits the bill, as Optum helped fix Healthcare.gov after its disastrous rollout. Burwell also intends to hire a Healthcare.gov CEO and CTO in time to better handle the marketplace’s next open-enrollment period in November. Burwell was quicker than her colleague, National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD to usher in leadership changes. DeSalvo took nearly six months to reshuffle ONC personnel while Burwell took just two weeks. 

Emdeon announces it will acquire healthcare technology company Capario for $115 million in cash. The acquisition will enable Emdeon to offer the CaparioOne revenue cycle management platform to its Intelligent Healthcare Network, which reaches 700,000 physicians and 600 hospitals, among other entities. Each company will continue to operate independently until the deal closes in the third quarter of 2014.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Thanks to Mr. H for the kind introduction last week. It’s nice to get back to my journalism roots, covering an industry that shows no signs of slowing down in its attempts to achieve the triple aim. Coincidentally, HIStalk launched 11 years ago, just about the time (give or take a year) I graduated from journalism school.

This particular edition of HIStalk Practice comes to you from the home of the Blue Angels, as well as Baptist Health Care and its five-year-old network of Baptist Medical Group physicians, both of which use NextGen’s EHR and practice management solutions. I had the pleasure of meeting Baptist CIO Steve Sarros at an iHT2 Summit earlier this year, and he was kind enough to fill me in on the Blues’ practice and performance schedule.

Speaking of CIOs, The CIO’s Role in Consumer Health (7/2) is just one of the webinars HIStalk has scheduled in the coming weeks. Additional presentations include Cloud is Not (Always) the Answer (6/25), and the Role of Identity Management in Protecting Patient Health Information (6/26).

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Physician-led Arizona Priority Care and Walgreens enter into a care collaboration agreement whereby Walgreens will provide coordinated, expanded services for AzPC Medicare Advantage and ACO members. Services will include medication management, health risk assessments and testing, immunizations, and patient education and wellness services. This arrangement makes me wonder if Farzad Mostashari’s new venture for independent physicians will seek out retail clinics as potential ACO partners.

NextGen offers 3M’s online ICD-10 Education Program. The subscription service comprises 22 training modules based on medical specialty that include self-assessments, practice questions, tests, and progress and completion reports.

Athenahealth announces that its users account for 59 percent of the 485 providers who have attested for Stage 2 of Meaningful Use, even though its market share is less than 3 percent. The company seems to have taken its recent stock drubbing in stride. As a recent Forbes article says on the subject, “Maybe it helps to say cloud.”

Announcements and Implementations

The local paper announces the creation of the Great Lakes Health Connect HIE. Formed through the merger of the Great Lakes HIE in East Lansing and Michigan Health Connect in Grand Rapids, the new HIE will cover 80 percent of the state’s total licensed beds with 120 member hospitals, 20,000 physicians, and 3,000 clinics and offices. Great Lakes Health Connect will have a consolidated revenue of $8 million, though no mention has been made of how it will continue to generate that kind of money. It’s an interesting twist on the evolving sustainability saga surrounding HIEs, not to mention another example of the greater healthcare market consolidation trend that shows no signs of slowing down.

Wilmington Health (NC) officials prepare to switch from a 10-year-old Allscripts EHR to a NextGen solution in an effort to “enhance coordination of patient care between providers, securely store patient information, and manage population health,” among other benefits. The 70-physician, multi-specialty practice has been working on the EHR conversion for the past 18 months, and expects to go live by July 1.

Primary Care Partners (CO) and St. Mary’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center (CO and UT) announce plans to form a clinically integrated network that will enable them to care for patients collaboratively while remaining separate business entities. The arrangement is contingent on a number of factors, including the establishment of “computer connectivity.” Navigant Consulting has been tapped to guide the organizations through CIN development, the first phase of which is expected to take six months. It will be interesting to see how they fare in establishing some type of connectivity, given that St. Mary’s is on Epic and PCP is on Allscripts.

Government and Politics

ONC will present a webinar on Thursday, June 27 at 1:00 ET on how to implement digital privacy notices on websites. PatientPrivilege won ONC’s contest to create compelling, easy to implement online NPPs – its example shows how one might look.

In other ONC news, the office announces that the Blue Button consumer campaign will launch this fall, with public service announcements scheduled to run between September 15 and October 6 (conveniently coinciding with National Health IT Week). Eleven organizations have committed to running PSAs in an effort to educate the public about the importance of being able to access their health data. Lygeia Ricciardi, director of ONC’s office of consumer eHealth, alluded to this campaign at a brief Blue Button session at HIMSS 14, during which she likened it to the Energy Star brand so many of us are now familiar with.

Research and Innovation

A new study shows that practices in Nashville, TN are on par with the national average when it comes to EHR adoption. Seventy-four percent of the area’s practices have implemented solutions from four of the nation’s top five vendors including eClinicalWorks, Practice Fusion, NextGen, and Allscripts. The town bucks the trend when it comes to national favorite Epic, which Nashville providers have shied away from thus far due to a “reputation for high costs.”

The Institute for Alternative Futures publishes a report that offers scenarios, recommendations, and strategies for the future of public health. The scenario of “Community-Driven Health and Equity” peaks my interest the most. Futurists predict that public health agencies, partners, and local health improvement initiatives come together via technology and social media to form a national web of health-enhancing networks, which will help communities exchange innovations and best practices, and leverage the expertise of public health agencies.

Other

Ted Roberto, DPM, of New Jersey Foot and Ankle Specialists,  tells the local paper that transitioning to an EHR has been a “constant struggle and a huge stress,” especially for older physicians who have been paper-based for decades. Roberto, who championed the transition to an EHR at a previous practice, now finds himself documenting in the EHR at home for a few hours each night so as to maximize time with patients each day. He is toying with the idea of hiring a scribe despite the added cost.

datascience@berkley publishes an infographic showing the difference between EMRs and EHRs, which states and practices have adopted electronic systems, and what the future of the digital health industry looks like. Interestingly enough, New Jersey is in the bottom five states when it comes to EHR adoption.

Sponsor Updates  

• Kareo offers medical practices a guide for registering for the VA’s “Accelerating Access to Care Initiative,” which allows them to serve VA patients who can’t get appointments for primary or specialty care.
• PerfectServe announces new webinars as part of its thought leadership webinar series.
• Aprima offers dashboardMD’s performance management and BI reporting tools in a browser-agnostic and mobile-friendly suite of solutions.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
Contact us online.

5 Questions with Greg Wolverton, CIO, ARcare/KentuckyCare

Greg Wolverton, FHIMSS is CIO of ARcare/KentuckyCare, a non-profit that provides medical and dental care to residents in rural Arkansas and Kentucky (where it is known as KentuckyCare). Its 406 staff members typically care for between 900 and 1,000 patients each day across 37 clinics, all of which are Joint Commission Accredited. It is currently National Committee for Quality Assurance Level 3 for 34 of its locations, and is a Joint Commission Primary Care Medical Home.

The organization recently received the HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 Ambulatory Award for attaining the highest level of EMR adoption. ARcare physicians, who undergo three weeks of EHR training, have demonstrated 99-percent CPOE and 100-percent documentation in structured forms. The organization moved from an eClinicalWorks EHR in January 2013 to Greenway Health’s SuccessEHS, and plans to attest for Stage 2 of Meaningful Use this August. It is currently in transition from Google Enterprise Apps to Microsoft Office 365.

ARcare is the first FQHC to receive the Stage 7 distinction. What specific challenges do FQHCs face when it comes to implementing and effectively using EHRs?

• Rural communications access
• Necessary monies
• HIT Leadership

Your business model seems to be very agile, which no doubt enabled you to advance EHR utilization quickly. Why go with this type of model? How has it affected patient care, quality, and cost?
With the number of locations we have, we had to become very lean and agile. We are currently virtualized in our server space as well as 90-percent deployed in the desktop space. By becoming lean and managing lean, savings can be passed along to provide patient services.

Do you anticipate adding more clinics/facilities in the near future? Will your current EHR be able to handle future growth?
We absolutely plan on growing in the future. We have averaged a 14-percent growth rate over the last five years and plan to continue that pace. We are currently scheduled to open four more locations in 2014. Time will tell if SuccessEHS will be able to keep up the pace; however, my current experience tells me they are in for the ride.

How did your physicians react to the three weeks of mandatory EHR training? How did this play into the overall success of EHR adoption throughout ARcare’s facilities?
For the most part they appreciated the extra training. There were some that pushed back, but it is important that we give everyone the tools they need to do their job and that includes proper training. Like it or not,  we train.

Why did ARcare choose to become a part of the Blue Button initiative? Have patients utilized it?
I thought the Blue Button would be an excellent marketing piece to “brand” the patient experience when looking for how to get their information and view, download, or transmit it. It is working, however slowly, but I think patients will begin to settle in with this. Just like ATMs were 30 years ago, my children do not know what it would be like to NOT have an ATM.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
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News 6/19/14

Top News

Former National Coordinator Farzad Mostashari, MD, MSc announces the launch of Aledade, a new company that will help independent physicians form ACOs by offering services that include on-site clinical support, EHR optimization, implementation of an integrated data and technology platform, quality reporting, provider benchmarking, real-time ADT notification, identification of high-opportunity patients, and patient outreach. The company, which is not tied to any hospital or health plan, says it has initiated partnerships in four targeted areas – Delaware, Arkansas, Maryland, and New York City – and will use that experience to create a replicable model that will allow it to expand rapidly over the next year. Mostashari will serve as Aledade’s CEO. His co-founders are EVP Mat Kendall, formerly ONC’s Director of the Office of Provider Adoption Support, and CTO Edwin Miller, formerly VP of product management for CareCloud. If Mostashari and his team bring half the enthusiasm to this endeavor that he did to his efforts at ONC (not to mention his connections), than this company just might survive its start up growing pains.

Several media outlets report that Nuance may be discussing sale of the company with Samsung, with shares rising nearly 10 percent earlier this week on the rumor. Mr. H suggests that the recent addition of two of Carl Icahn’s people on Nuance’s board may have heightened the money-losing company’s interest in finding a buyer. Samsung already uses Nuance’s voice technology in its devices (as does its arch nemesis Apple, for which Nuance provides Siri), but would probably have little interest in Nuance’s considerable healthcare businesses that include Dragon speech recognition, transcription, clinical documentation and coding, and image sharing. It will be interesting to see whether cash-rich Apple will be threatened enough by the rumored Samsung interest to make overtures of its own for the $6 billion market cap Nuance or perhaps part of it if Nuance is willing to break it up.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

It’s time to say goodbye to Inga, who has moved on to greener pastures after seven years of contributing to HIStalk Practice and HIStalk. She finished working on the sites in April and has finally tied up her last loose ends. Rumors that she is launching a healthcare shoe division of Christian Louboutin may or may not be unfounded, but we will wish her well in any case. Jennifer Dennard took over writing HIStalk Practice several weeks ago, while Lorre is happily handling the non-writing HIStalk chores. In helping HIStalk Practice turn over a new leaf, Jennifer has tweaked the site a bit for easier reading, put a spotlight on upcoming HIStalk webinars, and launched a new “5 Questions with …” interview series. If you know of an independent or small practice physician with a compelling healthcare IT experience to share, feel free to send her an email with all the details.

Upcoming Webinars

June 24 (Tuesday) noon ET. Innovations in Radiology Workflow Through Cloud-Based Speech Recognition. Sponsored by nVoq. Presenters: David Cohen, MD, medical director, Teleradiology Specialists; Chad Hiner, RN, MS, director of healthcare industry solutions, nVoq. Radiologists – teleradiologists in particular – must navigate multiple complex RIS and PACS applications while maintaining high throughput. Dr. Cohen will describe how his practice is using voice-enabled workflow to improve provider efficiency, productivity, and satisfaction and how the technology will impact evolving telehealth specialties such as telecardiology.

June 24 (Tuesday) 2:00 p.m. ET. Share the Road: Driving EHR Contracts to Good Compromises. Sponsored by HIStalk. Presenter: Steve Blumenthal, business and corporate law attorney, Bone McAllester Norton PLLC of Nashville, TN. We think of EHR contracts like buying a car. The metaphor has is shortcomings, but at least make sure your contract isn’t equivalent to buying four wheels, an engine, and a frame that don’t work together. Steve will describe key EHR contract provisions in plain English from the viewpoint of both the vendor and customer.

June 25 (Wednesday) 2:00 p.m. ET. Cloud Is Not (Always) The Answer. Sponsored by Logicworks. Presenter: Jason Deck, VP of strategic development, Logicworks. No healthcare organization needs a cloud – they need compliant, highly available solutions that help them deploy and grow key applications. This webinar will explain why public clouds, private clouds, and bare metal infrastructure are all good options, just for different circumstances. We’ll review the best practices we’ve learned from building infrastructure for clinical applications, HIEs, HIXs, and analytics platforms. We will also review the benefit of DevOps in improving reliability and security.

June 26 (Thursday) 1:00 p.m. ET. The Role of Identity Management in Protecting Patient Health Information. Sponsored by Caradigm. Presenter: Mac McMillan, FHIMSS, CISM, co-founder and CEO of CynergisTek. Identity and access management challenges will increase as environments become more complex, users create and manage larger amounts of sensitive information, and providers become more mobile. Learn how an identity and access management program can support regulatory compliance, aid in conducting audits and investigations, and help meet user workflow requirements.

July 2 (Wednesday) noon ET. The CIO’s Role in Consumer Health. Sponsored by HIStalk. Presenter: David Chou, CIO, University Of Mississippi Medical Center. We are moving towards an era where the consumer is searching for value. Healthcare is finally catching up with other industries and this is forcing healthcare providers and health plans to rethink their "business model" as consumers test new decision-making skills and demand higher quality and better value. Technology can provide value in this space as we move towards digital healthcare.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The California Telehealth Network selects HealthFusion’s Meditouch EHR as its first EHR partner, meaning the cloud-based solution is available to CTN members at a discount and with “special benefits.” CTN is working to connect over 800 California healthcare providers in underserved areas to a state- and nation-wide broadband network dedicated to healthcare.

The Doctors Company, a physician-owned medical malpractice insurer, acquires the Medical Advantage Group, a healthcare consulting and management firm. The Doctors Company owned a large stake in MAG prior to the acquisition.

The relatively new Health Analytics and Informatics Division of Anthelio Healthcare Solutions offers the CodeGenie physician documentation feedback solution, which enables coders, clinical documentation specialists and compliance auditors to provide real-time feedback to physicians in order to meet coding specificity requirements.

VivaCare upgrades The Health Library, a suite of patient education materials that includes patient handouts, videos, and other resources that can be printed, viewed on a mobile device or displayed on a practice’s website. New additions include better search functionality, a more mobile-friendly design, and expanded content offerings. 

Announcements and Implementations

Genesis Physicians Group (TX) and Healthways form GenHealth, an organization that will support independent physicians with population health management tools. GPG affiliate Genesis Accountable Physician Network has signed on as GenHealth’s first clinically integrated physician network customer to better enable its ACO efforts.

The Brown Clinic (SD) tells patients, “This will only hurt a little bit,” when it announces a planned closure to accommodate the implementation of its new EHR, BrownClinic+.

Community Valley Community Health (WA) implements Access Passport Web-based forms in its clinical and HR settings. A CVCH representative notes that, “This process ensures we have the signed paperwork for each patient, which protects them and reduces our liability risk. Plus, there’s no paper to deal with.”

Government and Politics

In preparation for the National ACO Summit taking place this week in Washington, D.C., the Brookings Institution highlights the top eight Medicare ACO challenges, two of which include supporting clinical transformation, and developing bonus payments and other incentives to participate. Farzad is scheduled to keynote on day two of the Summit, which seems to have a more interesting lineup of speakers than day one. If you’re attending and would like to share your impressions with fellow HIStalk Practice readers, drop me a note.

The local paper highlights the “people problem” the state of Virginia (and likely many other states) and its healthcare stakeholders have encountered as HIEs go live across the region, including an unwillingness on the part of competing hospitals and payers to share information, as well as the cannibalizing efforts of smaller exchanges. Proponents have high hopes for the new HeaLiXVA HIE, which, as a physician-led effort, “will be free of the bias that comes with a health system-led or insurer-led exchange.”

Innovation and Research

An ongoing survey finds that there is continuing clinician demand for mobile access to patient data in the ambulatory setting. While the survey sample at this point is only 400 physicians, it is interesting to note that the majority of them access their EHRs via desktop, followed to a lesser degree by laptops, and to a much lesser degree by tablets. The findings certainly reflect the wants and needs of my family’s physicians. Those new to laptops seem to enjoy the ease of access over desktops, while those that carry laptops would love to upgrade to tablets.

A separate study with a sample size more than three times as large finds that demand for mobile access to EHRs has leveled off, most likely due to a push to implement EHRs (done via desktops) in time to meet 2013 Meaningful Use deadlines. Perhaps the following finding serves as the common denominator between the two analyses: Most respondents viewed traditional EHRs as time-consuming interferences and longed for more user-friendly and efficient options.

People

Practice Fusion names Robert Park (Chegg) CFO.

Arnold Relman, MD passes away at 91. Known for his outspokenness regarding the dangers of for-profit medicine, Relman led the New England Journal of Medicine for 13 years, and was professor emeritus of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Mary Milroy, MD, the new president of the South Dakota State Medical Association says EHRs add an hour of busy work to a doctor’s day, adding that, “The systems we use are cumbersome, designed by IT people and not medical people. The huge problem is they don’t communicate.” Her clinic uses NextGen, another practice she covers uses Epic, and the local hospitals use Epic and Meditech. She says none of them talk to each other.

Other

Tech-savvy physicians may be excited to learn that Amazon has unveiled its first mobile phone, complete with 3-D graphics (no glasses required). Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos seems the most likely successor to the reign of Steve Jobs over product announcement hoopla.

The North American Flame Retardant Alliance issues a letter to Kaiser Permanente urging it to rethink its decision to stop buying furniture treated with chemical flame retardants linked to cancer and brain damage in children. The letter-writing campaign comes as no surprise, given that Kaiser spends $30 million a year on furniture, and has 600 medical office buildings and 38 hospitals in eight states. The NAFRA contends that, “Their use has helped the healthcare industry achieve a low incidence of fire-related deaths and injuries, despite the fact that an estimated 6,240 fires (about 17 fires per day) occur in healthcare facilities annually.”

Sponsor Updates

• RelayHealth announces that RelayHealth Financial has bolstered RelayAssurance Plus 5.0, providing transparency into the claims lifecycle.
• McKesson launches Benchmark Analytics service to provide custom reports and consultation to optimize performance.
• Kareo and Falcon EHR partner to provide cloud solutions to nephrology practices.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
Contact us online.