|
Cavanaugh Consulting Group® |
|
An Introduction to CCG |
|
Our Background |
|
What We Do |
|
Our Professional Staff |
|
Our Clients |
|
Industry Links |
|
Brochures |
|
Email Us |
|
Experienced and Knowledgeable Navigators |
|
· Hospital Readiness to Meet Meaningful Use Stage 2 Three-quarters (75 percent) of respondents to a recent study indicated that they anticipated that their organization would qualify for the incentives available through Stage 2 in 2014. These organizations were investing accordingly, with one-quarter of respondents indicating that they would invest at least an additional $1 million to achieve Stage Two MU. In order to qualify for Stage 2 incentives, a hospital must meet all 16 core measures during the EHR reporting period. The hospital must also meet a series of menu objectives; Achievement of Core Metrics
· IT leaders outline EHR payment audit pitfalls Link Federal audits, which began in fall 2012, are expected to impact 5% of the more than 4,000 hospitals that have received federal incentive payments since the cash started flowing in 2011. Detailed record-keeping is essential to surviving an EHR incentive payment audit, McNutt said. That's doubly important to providers who will be upgrading their systems for Stage 2 meaningful use and the Oct. 1, 2014, conversion to the International Classification of Diseases 10th revision of diagnostic and procedural codes. Auditors will be looking for documented evidence that providers have been using tested and certified technology eligible for use under the program. · Fewer Certified Electronic Health Records for Stage 2 May Pose Problems for Hospitals Link A review of the Certified Health Information Technology Product List compiled by health and human services (HHS)' Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology shows that just 79 companies, providers and other organizations have developed software and had it tested and certified to ONC determined software functionality standards for Stage 2 meaningful-use (MU) requirements. In comparison, there were 988 developers of health information technology systems tested and certified for Stage 1. Problems hit the vendors when they try to develop systems to automatically add up numerators, denominators and do the calculations on percentage-based measures providers must report to the CMS as part of their Stage 2 MU requirements. The clock for the Stage 2 requirements starts Oct. 1 for hospitals that have already attained at least two years of MU of a certified EHR system under the federal program, which aims to boost the use of interoperable health IT systems in the U.S. healthcare industry Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL) EP’s and EH’s have the ability to use EHR technology that is certified to the 2011 or 2014 Edition EHR Certification Criteria or a combination of 2011 and 2014 Edition EHR Certification Criteria to generate a CMS EHR Certification ID for Meaningful Use attestation. · Led by the Sports, Fitness, and Wellness Segment, Wearable Wireless Device Revenues to Exceed $6 Billion in 2018 Link "Fitness activity trackers are quickly gaining popularity in the market. Different from other more single-use or event-centric devices, activity trackers monitor multiple characteristics of the human body including movement, calories burned, body temperature, and sleep tracking,” says senior analyst, Adarsh Krishnan. Activity trackers are expected to grow at a 40% CAGR and overtake the 2013 shipment leader, heart rate monitors, in 2017. The second largest market—home monitoring devices—which, primarily target the growing elderly care market, is also expected to witness strong growth over the next five years with overall device revenue growing at CAGR exceeding 39%. This segment is also anticipated to see the development of cross-over devices such as personal emergency response devices supplemented with activity tracker features. The remaining wearable wireless device segments are remote patient monitoring and the professional (On-Site) healthcare market. These markets are unique due to relatively fewer suppliers and high device costs. Average costs for ECG monitors exceed $200; continuous glucose monitors exceed $800. Blood pressure monitors and pulse Oximeters remain the most popular devices in these market segments. · Health information technology can help prevent malpractice suits, authors say Link Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and other Massachusetts organizations examined malpractice cases handled and closed by the state's two largest medical liability insurers from January 2005 through December 2009. They found 551 (7.7%) cases were primary-care related and, of these, 397 (72.1%) were associated with diagnosis errors. The other leading causes contributing to malpractice claims in the Massachusetts study were medications, 68 (12.3%); medical treatment, 41 (7.4%) and communication, 15 (2.7%). They added that most diagnosis failures were cancer-related and can often be traced to three general areas: Failures in physical examinations, evaluating symptoms, and obtaining and updating patient and patient-family medical histories; ordering or failure to order diagnostic or laboratory tests; and managing referrals and following up with the patient. “It would appear that a finite number of safeguards could be put in place to prevent and/or mitigate these errors, which, in turn, could have a major effect on patient safety and malpractice,” the researchers concluded, adding that designing electronic health-record systems to help prevent these errors “represents a priority for preventing future malpractice.” · Office of the National Coordinator: Healthcare IT Holds 'Great Potential' to Help Behavioral Health Patients Link To date, behavioral health providers lag behind eligible hospitals and professionals in adoption of health IT. On average, information technology spending in behavioral health organizations represents 1.8 percent of total operating budgets compared with 3.5 percent of the total operating budgets for general health care services. However, challenges remain for the widespread use of interoperable systems and health IT across providers, particularly those not eligible for incentive payments. Only 4 percent of rehabilitation hospitals and 2 percent of psychiatric hospitals have a basic EHR system. · Advocate Medical Group didn't adequately secure data, class-action suit says Link Advocate Medical Group, already under federal and state investigation after the theft of computers containing personal information on millions of people, is now facing a class-action lawsuit from patients who say the Downers Grove-based physician group didn’t do enough to protect their private data. The suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, says the health care nonprofit violated privacy regulations by failing to use encryption and other security measures on the four computers that were stolen from its Park Ridge offices in July. · EHR adverse events data cause for alarm Link After analyzing more than 300 event reports related to EHR software default values, more than 3 percent were found to result in unsafe conditions or prolonged hospitalization for patients, according to a new report by the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority. The report analyzed 324 EHR default values – which are the preset medication, dose and delivery – that led to events, with the aim of giving state healthcare facilities valuable data to avoid EHR events such as wrong-time and wrong-dose errors in the future. · Why Hospitals Still Build Their Own Health IT Link "We found the IT solutions in the open market were not going to meet our needs," said Landmark Hospitals CEO William Kapp. Landmark needed an electronic health record(EHR) that would function not only as a medical record, but also as a health information exchange (HIE) between its five long-term acute care hospitals. "We couldn't find a solution that made any sense for us and the existing options were prohibitively expensive." · Meaningful use incentives ascend past $14.5B Link There were 395,000 eligible providers and hospitals in “active registration” in the federal meaningful use program--out of a total pool of 532,000. According to the latest data, a little more than 77 percent of hospitals have been paid under the program, and registration for eligible providers continues “pretty handily” at 75 percent. · Approximately 50 percent or one out of every two Medicare EPs are meaningful users of EHRs · Approximately 63 percent of all Medicaid EPs have received an EHR incentive payment · 10 percent of Medicaid EPs are meaningful users · More than 55 percent – one out of every two Medicare and Medicaid EPs have made a financial commitment to an EHR. · Study: Adopting HIE Doesn’t Necessarily Equate to Less Tests or Costs Link The study, published in the June Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association focused on Mesa County with the major city being Grand Junction. In large measure, having access to patient data from other providers via the HIE did not affect provider behavior when it came to ordering lab and radiology tests. Data in the study--about 1 million ambulatory, 358,000 laboratory and 127,500 radiology claims--came from 306 ambulatory providers in 69 practices for nearly 35,000 patients. · KLAS ranks athenahealth top in usability Link A new KLAS report, its first on ambulatory electronic medical record usability, finds that success in achieving high usability ranges from 85 percent to 55 percent. Of the EMR vendors reviewed, athenahealth ranked No. 1. The products reviewed in the report include Allscripts Enterprise, athenahealth, Cerner, eClincialWorks, Epic, GE Healthcare CPS, Greenway, McKesson Practice Partner and NextGen. · Practices embracing HIE, replacing EHRs Link More than a third of physician practices plan to purchase, replace or upgrade ambulatory EHR systems, according to HIMSS Analytics' newest Ambulatory Electronic Health Record & Practice Management Study. Meanwhile, nearly half of physician groups say they'll join an HIE. · What will Google Glass do for health? Link It's probably the most anticipated and potentially transformative new gadget since the smartphone. But unlike the iPhone, Google Glass has also been heralded with a healthy dose of controversy. Consider what artificial intelligence, such as IBM's Watson, could do in tandem with the technology. "That's going to tie into Google Glass as well, said Kraft. "If you're a dermatologist and looking at a rash, what if Glass could compare that to a database and come up with a diagnosis?" "If Glass can demonstrate that it is significantly more useful than a smartphone, it will creep into healthcare," Champion predicted. "But given how physically and mentally demanding the operating room is, I have a feeling that there will be a Glass backlash from healthcare professionals, if not those who are concerned with medical malpractice claims on the defense side." · Expert: Industry Not Ready for SNOMED Criteria in Stage 2 Link That’s the view of Dave Delano, project director at Massachusetts eHelath Collaborative and executive director of NEHEN, an electronic data interchange network for New England. For example, the SNOMED CT clinical terminology is not widely adopted among providers and vendors, yet Stage 2 starts in October 2013 for hospitals. In particular, EHRs don’t capture communication codes present in 2014 CQMs, such as a specific code that conveys among physicians the degree of a medical condition, or “exclusion” codes that give a patient’s reason for declining medication or notes a patient doesn’t qualify for the medication, DeLano explains. Nor are most providers yet familiar with using SNOMED for clinical documentation · EHR adoption up, but doc satisfaction lags Link More physicians than ever are using electronic health record systems, but they're not as happy with them as they used to be, according to a new survey by Physicians Practice. Fewer physicians (54 percent) reported that they are satisfied with their EHRs, down from 63 percent two years ago. Meanwhile, only 57 percent of users said that their EHR made them more efficient, and only 43 percent reported that they've seen a return on their investment. · Top HIS Vendors by 2012 Revenue - Link HIS Professionals put together this chart that shows the rise of revenues of select vendors as the health I.T. market expanded. Comments on each vendor are included in the article.
· Partners in Accountability - Link Earlier this year, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced some 450 participants in its bundled payment program, one of many flavors of accountable care. Although falling under the ACO framework, which reimburses based on outcomes, not productivity, these arrangements are widely varied, he says. "Some are contractual or incentive models; some are joint ventures," he says. "We are starting to see many partnerships, with payers and providers coming together." Regardless of the model in play, the I.T. challenges are many, as data capture, sharing and analytics form the cornerstone of reimbursement reform. · Figloiozzi and Company Begin Meaningful Use Audits as CMS Designee – Link A number of health care providers that attested to Meaningful Use for Stage 1 have received a letter from an Figloiozzi and Company, acting as CMS's auditor for the EHR Incentive Program (the "Program" or "Meaningful Use Program"), requesting certain records related to the attestation. CMS has not, as of this writing, made any announcement of this audit initiative or of the engagement of Figloiozzi and Company. While it is always good policy to confirm the identity and authority of any entity claiming a right to review or audit records, these letters are legitimate. Citing its statutory authority under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and without any fanfare, CMS has begun to audit the attestation materials. They request four categories of information: · A copy of their certification from the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for the technology they used to meet Program requirements. · Documentation to support the method (observation services or all emergency department visits) they chose to report emergency department admissions. · Supporting documentation with regard to their completion of the attestation module responses as to core set objectives and measures. While the audit letter's request is not specific, it would appear that this request is intended to solicit information beyond that already provided. · Supporting documentation with regard to their completion of the attestation module responses as to "menu set" or voluntary, objectives and measures.
Hyperlink to Past Article Summaries
|
|
Healthcare IT News |
|
Cavanaugh Consulting Group CavanaughConsulting.org |
|
Quotes
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your troubles, you wouldn't sit down for a month.” Theodore Roosevelt
“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.” Albert Einstein
“Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.” George Bernard Shaw, quoted in The Boston Globe
“I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that's not their job.” Margaret Thatcher
“Anybody who thinks the world would be a better place if it were run by women doesn’t remember high school.” Madeleine Albright, quoted in HuffingtonPost.com
“You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up.” Babe Ruth, quoted in Forbes.com
|