HIT Vendor Executives on Helping Doctors Qualify for Meaningful Use

We asked several HIT vendor executives the following question:

A recent survey shows that 45% of doctors expect their vendors to help them qualify for Meaningful Use money. Do you think that’s reasonable? What help to you think they need and what do you plan to offer?

Eric Morgan, President & CEO, AdvancedMD

This is a very important question about which vendors and physicians should be clear.

AdvancedMD has been successfully helping smaller physician offices to automate and optimize their operations for years through our cloud (SaaS) based applications. The requirements of this market segment are particularly unique in part due to the fact that most offices do not have substantial resources, so they rely upon their software provider to be a true partner.

Certainly it is the vendor’s responsibility to provide an ONC Meaningful Use certified product that is easy to use. In addition to solid implementation assistance and ongoing support, it is necessary to provide the reporting tools that doctors can use to comply via the attestation process. We believe many practices will need help navigating the process of qualifying for stimulus funds and this is something we expect to help guide clients through.

EHR implementations, as with all important technology deployments, require that the clients (providers) embrace the changes required to be successful and fully leverage the capabilities of the technology. This partnership between the vendor and client will provide a basis for overcoming the inevitable challenges that may arise and will allow the doctors to achieve their goals.

Dan Michelson, Chief Marketing Officer, Allscripts

We help our clients qualify for ARRA incentives with a simple, straightforward path to Meaningful Use:

1. Understand the Stimulus: To get started, we encourage providers to visit Stimulus Central, an easy-to-understand guide to Meaningful Use (ROI calculator, FAQs, etc).
2. Assess Gaps: We then analyze gaps to ensure efficient planning and resource allocation.
3. Design New Workflows: Often, changes are needed in workflow and we provide services to redesign clinical and operational workflows.
4. Implementing a Stimulus-Ready EHR: We guarantee our EHRs will be ARRA-certified. For providers that don’t have an EHR today, we provide a no-payments-for-six-months financing option that bridges the gap until Stimulus funding is received.
5. Rapid Rollout: We provide accelerated deployment solutions in both the Ambulatory and Acute Care Settings.
6. Stage 1 requires 90 consecutive days of EHR use in order to demonstrate compliance. Our built-in reporting tools help providers track and identify changes in behavior needed to ensure they demonstrate Meaningful Use before, during and after those 90 days.
7. Report and Claim Incentives: Our ARRA-certified EHRs provide the clinical quality reporting required as well as additional capabilities that extend the power of our EHRs far beyond Meaningful Use to achieve what we call “Meaningful Value”

Michael Nissenbaum, CEO and President, Aprima Medical Software, Inc.

Keeping with our philosophy of “Hugging the Physician”, Aprima Medical Software will support our entire install base in qualifying for the stimulus dollars. Creating the software to meet the Meaningful Use requirements is only half of the equation. Empowering our clients to realize the financial benefits, as we have with eRX and PQRI, completes the commitment. The support will come technically and personally.

• Embedded in the PRM 2011 is a Meaningful Use Dashboard, apprising the provider of their status as to compliance.
• The Aprima Learning Management System (online training) is being updated and enhanced to walk the practice and the individual participant through the workflows required to meet Meaningful Use. The system is available 24/7.
• The computer-based training modules embedded in our software are being updated to address the requirements, by task and function, so users will meet Meaningful Use requirements.
• A comprehensive organization of Trainer-On-Call (TOC) will be available as requested, either in a one-to-many, or on a one-on-one basis, as required.
• With many of our larger practices, they have contracted for services on an as-needed basis.

As always, Aprima stands-by to assure the success of our physicians!

Jonathan Bush, Chairman and CEO, athenahealth

You know, we were the guys who actually polled this question through a post we did in Sermo recently. So naturally I’d love to respond to the results.

First, to be exact, the question actually asked, "Which resource will you lean on the most?" and 47% said their vendor, which was the highest response — followed by a stalwart 33% (God bless them) who said they’d go it alone.

To be honest, I’m not surprised fewer than half are going to rely on their vendors. Why should they?! Most vendors sold these doctors expensive software and have long since moved on to the next sale. Sure, they’ll get their EHRs MU certified, but the poor docs are still going to be left to do all the heavy lifting of managing enrollment, making submissions, and tracking payments — just to bank their incentive dollars.

How about we vendors stick our necks out a little further and actually guarantee that if they qualify they will get their check? athenahealth is sort of the loner guy in the room who is doing this through our MU guarantee program. We’ve got skin in the game, sharing the investment with our providers. Others should, too.

The vendor who thinks their job is done by dumping software onto a doctor’s server or just basic Web-hosting is soooo … 2000. In this clinical environment, where doctors are being told to move away from systems they are comfortable with to systems that are foreign — and oh, by the way, might slow them down or lose them money — the vendor has to be working alongside the doctors every day, navigating them through every day, shifting the onus off their shoulders. Because tomorrow this meaningful use thing will be a different-looking beast that requires a different set of rules and the static nature of software can’t keep up.

So you ask — is 47% reasonable? No!! In the perfect world, it’d be a lot higher so the docs could stay focused on patient care. But it’s not surprising. Thirty-three percent in this survey have obviously run the numbers and have unfortunately decided they’d rather go it alone for real than hire a vendor … just to find themselves still going it alone.

Shellee K. Spring, Senior Vice President, Cerner Ambulatory

At Cerner, we deliver solutions, tools, education, and coaching to help you qualify for Meaningful Use funding. Our goal is to simplify the process of achieving Meaningful Use. We walk our clients through an easy scenario to demonstrate how many Meaningful Use requirements are met as a byproduct of their normal clinic activities. Eleven of the core requirements for Stage 1 and four of the menu requirements are part of the natural visit workflow. The remainder of the requirements can be addressed through population management and communications between patients and healthcare entities.

More than 18,000 ambulatory providers are on the path to Meaningful Use with Cerner solutions. Our dashboards allow physicians to view their patient performance and overall clinic success against Meaningful Use, PQRI and Medical Home measures. Standard reports also show how a provider progresses against functional thresholds such as usage of medication and problem lists. Our popular Meaningful Use package includes the EHR, practice management, patient portal, and reporting. Practices can also take advantage of our ASP model with full-service application hosting (ranked #1 by KLAS), training, consulting, and support — all the resources and tools necessary to enable Meaningful Use and more. Check out Cerner Ambulatory.

Girish Kumar Navani, CEO and Co-Founder, eClinicalWorks

eClinicalWorks feels strongly that as an EMR vendor, we should provide innovative tools and the training required for all eligible professionals to achieve Meaningful Use objectives.

We recently announced MAQ dashboards (MU, Adoption, Quality), which will allow providers real-time access to a dashboard for assessing usage based on MU measures and objectives at no extra cost. In addition, we announced eClinicalWorks V9.0, which simplifies patient-provider communication with tools for securely providing visit summaries, education material, and more to patients online with the new Patient Portal –  www.100millionpatients.com.

We are committed to providing an array of resources to assist providers use eCW in a meaningful way:

• Webinars on application features required for Meaningful Use
• Meaningful Use RoadShow – interactive  educational sessions throughout the country
• User Guides and documentation
• Meaningful Use educational resources at www.eclinicalworks.com and at https://my.eclinicalworks.com
• Remote assessment of the practice’s progress toward MU goals
• On-site evaluation and remediation as needed.

Michael Stearns, MD, CPC, President and Chief Executive Officer, e-MDs, Inc.

It is clearly in the best interest of the vendors to help their providers attain Meaningful Use and subsequent incentive payments. This is an unprecedented opportunity for providers to supplement their income while demonstrating the value of EHRs in their offices. e-MDs has gone to significant efforts to enhance the MU related features of our current EHR.  We feel that the MU Stage I criteria are relatively straightforward for users of our ONC-certified EHR.

To supplement this process, we are working with HIT Regional Extension Centers (RECs) to create local outreach, education, HIT workforce development programs, and training programs that will assist with REC enrollments and implementations. e-MDs is also providing free Webinars, MU-specific videos, MU-specific certification for trainers and providers, expanded phone support, and MU-specific online and on-site training, and we are hiring local trainers throughout the country. We are also providing, supporting, and co-hosting an expanding number of regional user group meetings focused on MU and optimal use of technology in provider practices.

A growing number of our users would like to be amongst the first providers to receive the ARRA EHR incentive payments in the country and we find this encouraging.  2011 is going to be an exciting year for our company and for the HIT industry in general. We feel MU will serve as a catalyst that will stimulate providers to use HIT in ways that will lead to even greater care benefits for their patients.

Vishal Wanchoo, President and Chief Executive Officer, GE Healthcare IT

 

At GE, we were surprised that number wasn’t higher.  We believe physicians and hospitals should expect collaboration from their EMR vendor in preparation for demonstrating Meaningful Use. We do this because we believe the ARRA incentives are about improving patient care and the effectiveness and efficiency of health care professionals and organizations. The entire GE company is committed helping our customers drive business performance while delivering clinical excellence.

We know customers are, primarily, asking for three things.

1) “Help me ensure that your company and your product will be ready.”

We’ve got this covered for our EMR customers. We are proud that we were among the first to achieve HHS certification, with three of our products now certified and more soon to come.

2) “Help me ensure my organization is ready, too.”

Since the HITECH Act passed, we’ve been educating our customers on the key elements, what it means to them and how they can take the next steps toward preparing for and demonstrating Meaningful Use. From webinars to white papers, from user groups to training classes, we’ve sought to meet the variety of needs that exist. A full list of options is available here. In addition, we’re embedding dashboards in our products to help customers track their progress toward meeting Meaningful Use and easily document it for CMS. We’re also actively working with Regional Extension Centers because, in driving toward the successful implementation and reimbursement processes, we share a common goal.

3) “Help me get ahead of what’s next.”

Our eyes, like everyone else’s, are focused on stage 1, but we also know that the journey does not end there. We’re working on the technologies to enable stage 2 and 3 readiness as only a company of GE’s breadth and depth can.

Though the overall percentage of surveyed doctors isn’t higher, we believe a significant majority of GE’s customers are looking to us for guidance. Whether it’s helping them meet Meaningful Use, or any of their other patient care or practice goals, GE’s commitment to partnership extends far beyond our specific products.

Tee Green, President and CEO, Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc.

At Greenway, we’ve believed since the advent of the HITECH provisions within ARRA that it was our duty to prepare customers for Meaningful Use. Really the process and the assurance of reporting functionality success is no different from a traditional PrimeSUITE implementation we undertake daily, and with so much at stake, not just in terms of individual practice incentives capture, but for the future of a smarter and more sustainable healthcare system, practices need our technological expertise in understanding the right solutions and best practices tailored for their workflows and specialties.

For our customers, we are providing a Meaningful Use dashboard solution that enables them to access and track compliance on a daily basis and coinciding incentives achieved. And speaking directly to aiding their understanding of Meaningful Use stages and workflow, we are also providing a series of regional training sessions with hands-on demonstrations in Atlanta, Dallas, Washington DC, Las Vegas, Orlando, and other cities.

Greenway considers the qualification of Meaningful Use to be just the beginning of the process, and again like with original implementations, it is done with the future in mind. Not just of Meaningful Use stages, but toward Accountable Care programs, the Patient Centered Medical Homes, PQRI and all of opportunities arising in healthcare’s future that need to be coordinated with an understanding of how each patient encounter can benefit outcomes and contribute to a better healthcare system.

Steve Tolle, Senior Vice President, Physician Solutions, Ingenix

If the Sermo findings are surprising, it’s because more doctors didn’t say they expect health IT companies to help them demonstrate Meaningful Use and qualify for the stimulus incentives.

It’s reasonable for every physician to expect full support from implementation to documenting fulfillment of Meaningful Use requirements to applying for the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.

Remember, cost and fear of disruption to their practice are the top two reasons why doctors haven’t yet implemented electronic health record (EHR) systems. While the HITECH Act reduces doctors’ out-of-pocket expenses, it’s up to health IT vendors to make the transition easy.

To help, Ingenix is sharing expertise with the Regional Extension Centers and providing Ingenix CareTracker users with detailed instructions how to achieve Meaningful Use using the system. Our users have already received roadmaps detailing specific Meaningful Use measures and have access to training on best practices for capturing data and documenting their activities.

Ingenix CareTracker will also soon feature an integrated, real-time dashboard that charts progress toward meeting Meaningful Use requirements, and Ingenix will help physician office staff complete and submit the necessary documentation.

Physician practice modernization is essential to achieving national priorities for health care. To that end, a lot will be asked of doctors in the coming years. It’s Ingenix’s mission to make their transition to health IT simpler, so that they can be more successful.

David Henriksen SVP/GM Physician Practice Solutions, McKesson

We intend to help our customers qualify for federal incentives for Meaningful Use. If you are a partner, and not just a vendor, then you must invest the time and energy every day to help your customers continue to thrive. However, it has to be about more than just software.

For example, we recently traveled throughout the US to help educate customers and prospects about all aspects of Meaningful Use. We heard a need to rethink how physicians are running their offices and getting paid.  So, we spent time with physicians discussing ideas around improving both charge capture and data capture, so physicians can increase revenue received for services provided.

We’ve also helped many physician practices achieve designation as a patient-centered medical home (PCMH), a model of care that strengthens the physician-patient relationship by enabling coordinated care, making it more personalized, effective and efficient.

The success or failure of meaningful use will rest on improving the efficiency and quality of patient care.  As a partner, our obligation is to help physicians focus on patient care while also enabling the business of the practice to continue to flourish.

Vendors will have to provide a certain amount of support to clients to meet MU.

1.  Become ONC-Certified for Meaningful Use as either a complete EHR or an EHR module

2.  Provide documentation and training for Best Practices regarding how to use the product(s) in order to attest to MU

3.  Provide the reports that accurately attest to MU

Vendors need to set the expectations that they provide the tools and the providers do the work.

Richard Mahoney, VP of Healthcare Information Solutions, Quest Diagnostics and President, MedPlus

For a physician practice that is just beginning to implement an EHR solution, working with a vendor that does not assist the practice in the transition process to qualify for meaningful use incentives is like trying to drive a car without gas in the tank.

Collaboration with physicians to qualify for meaningful use is the linchpin of the vendor/physician relationship, and physicians should expect their EHR vendor to guide them through the process of implementation. A significant step in this direction is providing an electronic report of the practice’s level of compliance with the measures necessary to qualify for meaningful use.

All of the physician partners who implement our Care360 EHR solution have access to both personalized and virtual training to achieve meaningful use milestones. In addition, we provide both written and online documentation that will guide clients through the steps necessary to achieve meaningful use and report progress and results to CMS. This training streamlines both the process of transitioning to an EHR for physicians and administrators, as well as seamlessly incorporating meaningful use functionality and reporting into their day-to-day workflow.

Charles W. Jarvis, FACHE Vice President, Healthcare Services & Government Relations, NextGen Healthcare

It’s absolutely reasonable for providers to expect their vendors to help them qualify as meaningful users. Providers’ needs range broadly from help in understanding the nuances of each measure, to acquiring the right technology, to adopting the correct reporting procedures. We believe that it’s our responsibility to arm clients with the best certified technology and as much insight as possible to help them navigate the path to Meaningful Use.

NextGen Healthcare just wrapped up its annual Users Group Meeting, where one of our keynote speakers, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, Deputy National Coordinator for Programs & Policy with the ONC, asked the audience who was planning to apply for Meaningful Use incentives in 2011 and 2012. Nearly the entire audience raised their hands. We wouldn’t think twice about supporting our clients in these efforts. In fact, their investments should not just be effective securing incentives today, but also for continued care improvements in the future.

We dedicated multiple sessions at the Users Group Meeting to helping clients understand the Meaningful Use criteria and exactly how to use our products to achieve their goals. We also continue to offer public and client-only Webinars, in-person training seminars, a dedicated e-mail address for Meaningful Use questions, and most importantly, the NextGen Path to Meaningful Use. The Path outlines each NextGen product/service required or recommended for clients to leverage in their Meaningful Use strategy, giving them much needed guidance at this critical time.

Betty Otter-Nickerson, President, Sage Healthcare Division

Not only is it a reasonable expectation that vendors help their doctor clients attain meaningful use, it’s required of a successful solution provider and leader in this market. In fact, I’m surprised that only 45 percent of doctors expect as much from their vendors.

Physicians are in the business of practicing medicine; we’re in the business of providing software solutions, offering guidance and expertise related to making the most of these solutions and reducing obstacles for our clients so they can produce more efficient practices, improve healthcare outcomes and realize the greatest return on their investment.

Our customers expect us to provide them with guidance, advice, education, leadership, tools and assistance from the moment we begin to support their needs. Doing anything less can not be considered support. Just as their patients expect them to apply all the tools, education and clinical knowledge at their disposal to their practice and care, our clients rely on our industry expertise.

As we engage with customers and provide them with meaningful use support, we are finding that our physician clients, in most cases, are already meeting a number of the criteria they need to qualify. Most of our customers see meaningful use as a positive and want to do more with their EHR to continue improving efficiency and care while they create and enhance practice experiences for themselves and their patients. We see clients wanting product-specific guidance such as how to use a system or feature to meet a specific requirement. We respond to each client’s individual business need, and focus on improving practice workflows in a time when the healthcare economy is transitioning from fee-for-service to pay-for-performance.

Evan Steele, CEO, SRSsoft

The Meaningful Use regulations are extremely complex, as evidenced by the sheer length of the Final Rule (864 pages) and the 106 questions already on CMS’s FAQ website. Physicians cannot possibly be expected to read the rule in its entirety, yet critical information is buried in the lengthy text supporting the summary of the 25 Stage1 Meaningful Use measures.

Clearly, it is in the interests of vendors — who want their clients to be successful — to assist them in understanding what is required. Vendors also have an obligation to protect their physicians from the disappointment experienced with the PQRI program — where, despite time-consuming and sincere efforts, only half of the participants were deemed to have successfully met the requirements, and many received considerably less money than anticipated. The Meaningful Use regulations do not spell out some important details, and physicians will be looking to vendors to fill in the gaps.

The SRS Government Affairs department has pored over the Final Rule, and attended or followed all the meetings leading up to its creation. Consequently, we have an understanding of not only the program details, but also the government’s intent, which enables us to answer the many questions physicians are asking.

We have also analyzed in depth the implications of participation and provide physicians with the tools to make informed decisions regarding this voluntary program: is participation right for their practice now, or under what set of circumstances might it be right in the future?

Since EHR incentives are primary-care focused, our predominantly specialist physicians look to us for insight into how the program applies to them — information that is not as generally available as it is for primary-care physicians. SRS is providing this guidance.

News 11/16/10

iHealth Alliance, a non-profit coalition of medical societies and medical liability insurance carriers, announces the EHRevent EHR safety reporting system. Providers will be able report EHR patient safety issues to a centralized repository for analysis, including that of the FDA. EHRevent is also working directly with RECs and EHR vendors to educate physicians on the importance of event reporting. The system sounds like it has great potential — I hope it succeeds.

Texas Professional Healthcare Alliance endorses Allscripts MyWay EHR for its 250 IPA member physicians. Veridian Strategies will provide implementation and training services.

Aprima Medical Software says sales bookings for the quarter ending September 30th were up 105% over the same period last year. Aprima also grew its revenue backlog to an all-time high.

The 140-provider Marquette General Medical Group (MI) deploys Phytel’s Proactive Patient Outreach to aid in care coordination and population health management.

MedPlus says it is collaborating with multiple RECs across the country, both as a preferred EHR vendor and as an implementation and optimization organization.

If you are a physician working in a private practice, please a take a moment to participate in our new poll to your right and answer the following: which of the following do you expect to engage to help you reach Meaningful Use? Your choices include vendor, consultant, regional extension center, or internal resources.

Later this week, by the way, you will be able to read some specifics on what a dozen or so of the top ambulatory EHR companies are doing to help providers achieve Meaningful Use objectives. Our newest HIT Vendor Executives question and answers will likely publish tomorrow. Which reminds me: if you aren’t signed up for our e-mail updates, take five seconds right now to register under the Instant Update box at the top right-hand corner of this page.

Alpine Hematology Oncology (NV) chooses the Rabbit Healthcare Systems EHR/LIS/PM system for its three-provider practice.

David Blumenthal and other ONC staffers are informing specialists of the many exceptions they could claim in the Meaningful Use qualification process. Blumenthal has recently appeared at a number of functions for non-primary care physicians and is spreading the word that providers have many ways to meet Meaningful Use guidelines without having to comply with requirements that are irrelevant to their specialty. For example, when choosing “menu set” objectives, if a particular objective does apply to a provider, the provider is able to “count” that objective towards one of his or her five “met” objectives. It’s a bit confusing, but worth checking into for specialists.

Rather than pay big dollars, hospitals are looking for creative alternatives to attract physicians and buy their practices. Establishing physician networks that provide EMRs and interoperability with the hospital and other providers may often be a sufficient draw in many cases. Other physicians want influence and decision-making power around how they’re going to be managed, while some are negotiating for more flexibility in their schedules and workloads.

New term alert: Desktop medicine is a new approach to medicine, as defined by Jason Karlawish, MD of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Desktop medicine involves clinicians continuously gathering risk factor information from a patient’s medical history or EHR and combining it with clinical studies about disease risk. Based on the data gathered, risk can be assessed and a physician can provide intervention to prevent the onset of a disease, rather than treat the disease once it is fully developed. Karlawish believes the implications of desktop medicine are big and will impact how doctors ought to be educated, trained, and practice medicine.

 E-mail Inga.

Intelligent Healthcare Information Integration 11/14/10

Oh…So, That’s Cool…

After my last set of whines and gripes, I have been gifted with a wonderful slew of wake-up slaps to the face. There are — thank you, Jesus — some pretty cool new developments in the world of EHRs. I feel as if I have been given a Moses-ian view of the EHR Promised Land and the view up here is pretty pleasant, much brighter than my first assessment may have perceived.

I’ve gotten demos and descriptions of some EHR 2.0- to 4.0-ness that are flat-out encouraging. CEOs and development VPs and idea men and sales folks have all shared some very cool new approaches and system enhancements which have me feeling almost giddy with possibility.

I said I wanted to see apps: apps there are a’poppin’. I mentioned my new iPad love (even though as a PC guy from way back it feels almost illicit): there’s more iPad approaches a’brewin’ than I a’knew. I noted WebOS moves so smartly: some EHRs are now a’hoppin’. And, though my desire for EHR “beauty” may still be more a part of the “Promised” than the current “Land,” the scenery is showing some springtime buds a’bloomin’.

So, now that my bipolar swinging is apparent, I have to admit that my prior gripes may have been somewhat stilted, probably secondary to my exogenously-induced IEDD: Impending-EHR-Death Depression. (By the way, if it isn’t yet, I hereby suggest a new DSM-IV entry of just such a disorder; I am certain we’ll see many more such cases in the coming years. Successful treatment of IEDD – for which Xanax helps, I should add – is primarily dependent upon a fast bolus of Innovation and Value: an “IV bolus.” I am blatantly pilfering this term for the new IEDD rehab center I’m founding.)

As I move higher into my mania, I’m almost moved to a mental meltdown by the mention of a not-so-minor bit of minutia: the dreadful awareness of “you can’t have it all.”

Smart pieces and parts from here or there all swim within my mental imagery of the world of EHR possibilities which are upon us. They dance and dodge about in my mind as the number of demos mounts and the differences among them melt into one gigantic “what could be” mélange. I can see the future, the EHR Promised Land, but as many a pioneer’s dissuaders have portended, “You can’t get there from here.” I can see little snippets of the path to the land of EHR Shangri-la, but I can’t see how to tie them together into one consistent path. The road to HIT nirvana is still hit AND miss.

I didn’t want to have to change systems, but now that I’ve been blessed with a deeper view of what’s been cooking on EHR stoves all about – much of it still percolating under boiling pan lids – I’m starting to get a little bit excited about what functionalities and innovations my next system might provide. In fact, I’d place my order right now, if I could P.F. Chang it – you know: one from column A, two from column B, one from column C…

From the curiously intrigued trenches…

“We want the world and we want it now.” – Joey Ramone

Dr. Gregg Alexander, a grunt in the trenches pediatrician, directs the “Pediatric Office of the Future” exhibit for the American Academy of Pediatrics and is a member of the Professional Advisory Council for ModernMedicine.com. More of his blather…er, writings…can be found at hisblog, practice web site or directly from doc@madisonpediatric.com.

News 11/11/10

Practice Fusion contends it now serves 50,000 medical professionals and five million patients, making it the third largest EMR community behind the VA and Kaiser. Wow. I’d love to see an audit of those numbers. Or perhaps just a definition of “serves.”

NextGen says its partnership with 25 RECs has allowed it to add more small practices to its client base. More details on NextGen’s REC initiatives here.

The five-provider Forest Hill Family Health Associates (NJ) selects RCM technology from PatientPort to provide real-times claims adjudication and calculate patient-responsible monies at the time of service.

HealthPoint Medical Group (FL) will implement McKesson’s Practice Partner EHR for its 118 employed physicians. HealthPoint, which is part of the BayCare Health System, will also offer Practice Partner to affiliated physicians.

No surprise here: medical practices aren’t as sophisticated as hospitals when it comes to data security, according to a HIMSS security survey. Practices are less like to conduct formal risk analysis, less likely to have security tools in place, and less likely to analyze data from audit logs. One logical explanation is that practices lack the internal IT staff to handle security issues.

Epocrates launches a mobile and online CME platform in partnership with RealCME. The CME courses are free for providers who use Epocrates.

Fairview Health Services contracts with Accretive Health to provide Fairview physicians access to clinical care coordination tools.

Ophthalmic Imaging Systems issues its third quarter financial results: net revenue of $4.9 million, up 25% from 2009; net loss of $466,788 (.02/share) compared to last year’s net income of $85,656 ($.00/share.) The company offers an EHR/PM solution as well as digital imaging systems. I have to wonder how long unprofitable niche vendors like Ophthalmic will be able to compete with the bigger EHR players.

EHRtv has added several interviews from MGMA, including ones with Scott Decker (NextGen), Dan Michelson (Allscripts), Robert Tennant (MGMA), and Jonathan Bush (athenahealth). All are fast paced and fun with good questions. Worth a peek.

Almost half of hospitals report having very good or outstanding relationships with employed physicians, though only 26% say the same about relationships with independent physicians. Almost all of the 193 organizations surveyed in a Modern Healthcare / Press Ganey survey believe physician employment by hospitals will increase in the future.

After eliminating $28 million in unnecessary tests during a year-long pilot program, the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvements (ICSI) licenses Nuance’s RadPort decision support solution for use across Minnesota. RadPort helps clinicians verify at the point of care if particular imaging exams are medically appropriate. ICSI members include 60 medical groups representing 9,000 physicians.

Trivia for your next cocktail party: the incoming Congress will include 16 doctors in the House and three in the Senate. That’s a 64% increase over current numbers.

Sage Healthcare announces the addition of six new practices running its PM and EHR applications. The healthcare facilities represent over 150 providers.

E-mail Inga.

News 11/9/10

From Zuckerberg: “Re: ONC ACTB EMR certification. Several EMR vendors are making a big deal out of partial certification and deserve some grief. Partial certification is meaningless – you think physician practices are going to buy multiple products and integrate them? I can understand partial certification for hospitals, but for physicians, this is crazy. Novice physician buyers are going to see that a vendor is ‘certified’ and assume that they are good to go. They’ll only find out after a lot of effort that what they’ve implemented isn’t going to deliver the goods.” I agree the “modular” versus “complete EHR” certification will cause confusion for some unsophisticated buyers. I’d suggest novice physicians refer to the ONC’s list of certified products, which includes designations for modular versus complete EHR certifications. You can also drill down to see what specific modules have been certified. More importantly, ONC indicates which modules within a particular product are not certified. If an EHR has only modular certification, providers will need additional applications in order to meet meaningful use requirements. Unlike Zuckerberg, I assume vendors are being up front and forthcoming about potential product gaps, but perhaps I am too optimistic. The winners here are consultants, who have the opportunity to help providers wade through the quagmire.

From Jack Dempsey: “Forbes article. HIT wouldn’t be as much fun without Bush.”  Forbes’ Zina Moukheiber likens the “sniping” between athenahealth’s Jonathan Bush and eClinicalWorks Girish Navani to a Bill Gates-versus-Steve Jobs type debates. I’m not sure I’d characterize Bush or Navani as snipers, though both leaders are definitely passionate about their companies and their business models. Bush, however, is the only CEO I’ve ever met who’s willing to sit in on a panel discussion wearing a suit jacket and red shorts.

Mercy Memorial Hospital System (MI) contracts with Allscripts for several clinical solutions, including EHR and PM for Mercy’s employed and affiliated physicians. Mercy is also adding Sunrise Enterprise 5.5 and Allscripts Care Management.

Speaking of Allscripts, Sales President Jeffrey A. Surges is leaving to take over as CEO of Merge Healthcare.

A Kaiser Permanente study finds that targeted alerts sent to physicians through EHRs can help decrease unnecessary tests and help physicians pay closer attention to the messages they receive. In Kaiser’s study, physicians who ordered specific blood tests for elderly patients were immediately alerted when typical results for that age group were unreliable. Kaiser found unnecessary tests were dramatically reduced. To reduce alert fatigue and promote adherence to clinical practice guidelines, researchers recommend implementing alerts for specific types of orders.

Forty-six percent of readers say their practice is paying between $500 and $999 a month for their vendor or hospital-hosted EHR. Another 28% say they pay less than $500 and the rest claim the cost is over $1,000 a month.

Allscripts releases its third quarter numbers: net income falls to $1.4 million from $12.9 million last year. Revenue rose 47% to $242.4 million. Excluding one-time items, earning were $.19/share; analysts were expecting $.17/share. Allscripts blames the income drop on higher expenses, including selling, general, and administrative expenses of $103.8 million compared to last year’s $53.0 million.

MedLink acquires the assets of EHR provider MedAppz, maker of the iSuite EHR.  Both MedLink and MedAppz have products that are 2008 CCHIT certified and neither appears to have earned ONC ACTB certification, at least to date. I’ll go out on a limb and say that I bet MedLink would like to find a way to certify just one EHR and move the combined client base to it.

Epocrates and Covisint team up to help physicians receive PQRI reimbursements from CMS. The partnership allows the 300,000 physicians in the Epocrates network to report on quality measures through Covisint’s DocSite PQRI registry.

A local paper reports that Troy, MI-based gloStream has added 50 new employees in the last year. The five-year-old company has 130 employees plus 15 independent contractors.

Trend alert: the number of physicians signing up to provide concierge medicine continues to grow. Concierge Choice Physicians says it has added over 50 practices since the start of the year and now includes 172 practices. MDVIP, which has 430 practices, has signed on 100 practices in the last year.

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