On Tuesday, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) sent a letter to federal health officials expressing his concern that efforts to advance the adoption of electronic health records are “at risk of failure or mediocrity” if officials do not strengthen the requirements that doctors and hospitals must meet, The Hill’s “Healthwatch” reports.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHRs can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
Letter Details
In the letter, Warner recommended that regulators:
Source: iHealthBeat
The majority of patients find value in the use of electronic health records, according to a study commissioned by the National Partnership for Women & Families, The Hill‘s “Healthwatch” reports (Pecquet, “Healthwatch,” The Hill, 2/16).
Methodology
The study, titled “Making IT Meaningful: How Consumers Value and Trust Health IT,” was conducted by Harris Interactive in August 2011 and involved 1,961 survey respondents.
Researchers asked respondents if EHRs are or would be useful in addressing seven key elements of care, such as ensuring physicians have timely access to relevant information and helping patients communicate directly with care providers.
Study Findings
The survey found:
Respondents said they had more confidence in EHRs compared with paper records for tasks such as:
Privacy Concerns
The survey found that many participants had concerns about data breaches and privacy laws. For example:
The report states, “[T]his issue is not about trusting providers: More than 90% of both paper and EHR respondents trust their doctors to protect health information. Rather, this unease may point to inexperience with the capabilities of electronic systems and dissatisfaction with the legal and policy framework in place to protect health information” (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 2/16).
Implications
Christine Bechtel, vice president of NPWF, said consumers must support health IT if it is going to succeed. “If they don’t, we will see political pressure for repeal and the promise will be squandered,” Bechtel said.
National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari said the “survey draws attention to a critical, but sometimes overlooked, facet of health IT — patients and their families need to be at the center of efforts to modernize health care’s information infrastructure” (Healthcare IT News, 2/16).
Source: iHealthBeat
Federal officials say new fraud-fighting techniques — including IT tools — have helped the government recover a record high of $4.1 billion in health care fraud judgments in fiscal year 2011, Healthcare IT News reports (Bouchard, Healthcare IT News, 2/15).
The amount recovered last year is about 50% more than the amount recovered in 2009 (AP/Washington Post, 2/13).
Using IT To Fight Fraud
In FY 2011, nine U.S. cities had federal strike force prosecution teams working to identify potential Medicare and Medicaid fraud. The teams used advanced data analysis techniques to:
Attorney General Eric Holder said the strike force teams “reflect a strong, ongoing commitment to fiscal accountability and to helping the American people at a time when budgets are tight.”
Federal health officials also noted that they are doing a better job of sharing data between agencies.
Other Fraud-Fighting Techniques
In addition to using IT-related fraud-fighting techniques, officials from the Department of Justice and HHS officials said they have strengthened Medicare and Medicaid enrollment requirements and are more thoroughly screening health care providers.
Investigators also are conducting site visits to ensure that moderate-risk providers have legitimate offices. Meanwhile, high-risk providers are subject to background checks and fingerprinting (AP/Washington Post, 2/14).
Source: iHealthBeat
Waiting for vendor technology upgrades and subsequent certification is one of the biggest obstacles to physicians meeting meaningful use requirements, according to reports submitted by regional extension centers to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, Government Health IT reports.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health records systems can qualify for Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments.
As of last month, ONC had received 4,100 reports from RECs on obstacles that physicians face in implementing EHRs and achieving Stage 1 of meaningful use.
According to an analysis of the preliminary REC reports, vendor selection accounted for 34% of all reported barriers to meaningful use, more than any other factor.
At the Health IT Policy Committee’s meaningful use workgroup meeting last week, ONC’s Dawn Heisey-Grove said, “My general sense is I think it may be an overabundance of choices,” adding, “Hundreds are certified. And, a large portion of providers were doing rip-and-replace.”
Other barriers reported by physicians include:
Despite the challenges, 26% of the physicians enrolled in the RECs said they remain on track to meet meaningful use (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 2/10).
Source: iHealthBeat
On Thursday, three senators sent a letter urging the Office of Management and Budget to release a delayed rule to create a medical device identification system, Modern Healthcare reports.
Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) sent the letter to Jeffrey Zients, OMB’s acting director (Lee, Modern Healthcare, 2/9).
Background
There is no uniform labeling system for medical devices, making it difficult to track down problematic equipment used by hospitals and patients.
In 2007, Congress voted to support FDA’s plan to create an identification system for the devices.
In July 2011, FDA sent its proposal to OMB for review, but OMB has yet to release a proposed rule based on FDA’s plan (iHealthBeat, 2/7).
Letter Details
The lawmakers wrote, “Due to our strong desire for a robust post-market environment, we are very concerned with the delayed implementation of the [unique device identifier].”
According to the letter, OMB was expected to have reviewed and released a proposed rule within 90 days of having received FDA’s proposal (Modern Healthcare, 2/9).
The senators requested that OMB by March 1 provide:
Source: iHealthBeat
About three million people are expected to be using smartphone-powered remote patient monitoring devices by 2016, according to a report from Juniper Research, FierceMobileHealthcare reports.
The report predicts that the increase will be driven by an expansion of peripheral devices for monitoring patient data — such as wearable biometric sensors — as well as more processing power in mobile devices (Jackson, FierceMobileHealthcare, 2/2).
Other Report Predictions
The report also predicts that:
Source: iHealthBeat
More than half of physician practices with three or more doctors have fully implemented an electronic health record system, although many of their EHR systems have limited capabilities, according to a recent survey by the Medical Group Management Association, InformationWeek reports.
Implementation of EHR Systems
Among physician practices with three or more doctors, the survey found that:
Capability of EHR Systems
The MGMA survey also found that many of the EHR systems used by survey respondents lacked important functions. The survey found that:
However, Todd Evenson – assistant director of survey operations for MGMA – said that many physician practices have started adopting EHR systems with greater functionality to meet federal requirements for receiving incentive payments under the meaningful use program (Terry, InformationWeek, 2/1).
Source: iHealthBeat
Fifty-four percent of surveyed physicians whose practices adopted electronic health records said that the implementation process was somewhat difficult, while 35% said that the process was very difficult and 12% reported that the process was not difficult, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
The study found that physicians who did not have any ownership stake in their practice were less likely to report that the EHR implementation process was difficult or very difficult, as did physicians who indicated that the office staff was innovative.
Thirty-eight percent of physicians with partial or full ownership of their practice indicated that implementation was very difficult, according to the study.
The study is based on surveys conducted in 2005 and 2009 of 163 physicians who participated in the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative EHR implementation project.
Source: JAMIA: “Factors Associated With Difficult Electronic Health Record Implementation in Office Practice”
Source: iHealthBeat
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About 60% of physicians working in small- or medium-sized practices say that technology has made their work easier, according to a survey by Practice Fusion, a vendor of electronic health record systems, Healthcare IT News reports.
Practice Fusion conducted its second annual State of the Small Practice survey by distributing an online poll to 1,000 medical practices through the Practice Fusion platform.
The survey found that:
Source: iHealthBeat
In 2011, venture capital investments in the health IT sector generated 86 deals worth $633 million, according to a report from Dow Jones VentureSource, CMIO reports.
The numbers represent a 26% increase in health IT deal activity and a 22% increase in health IT capital raised over the previous year, according to the report.
Growth Factors
According to the report, the increase in health IT investments was fueled by interest in:
Additional Findings
The researchers found that overall investment in the health care sector fell slightly to 738 deals worth $8.4 billion, compared with 747 deals worth $8.3 billion in 2010.
Health IT activity finished third in dollars invested behind biopharmaceuticals and medical devices (Pearson, CMIO, 1/24).
Source: iHealthBeat
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