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Tag: HIMSS 2014

Congratulations, Doctor, On Your Federally-Subsidized “Hardship”

At HIMSS 2014, the health information technology’s (HIT) largest annual confab, the bestest-best news we heard from a policy perspective, and maybe even an industry perspective, was the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) dual announcement that there will be no further delays for either Meaningful Use Stage 2 (MU-2) or ICD-10.

Perhaps we should have immediately directed our gaze skyward in search of the second shoe preparing to drop.

As it turns out, CMS de facto back-doored an MU-2 delay by issuing broad “hardship” exemptions from scheduled MU-2 penalties. To wit: any provider whose health IT vendor is unprepared to meet MU-2 deadlines, established lo these many months ago, is eligible for a “hardship” exemption.

Few would disagree with the notion that it’s unproductive to criticize policy without offering constructive ideas to fix the underlying problems.

Here,  the underlying problem is easy to define: it is in point of irrefutable fact fundamentally unfair to penalize care providers for their vendors’ failings—especially when the very government proposing to penalize them put its seal of approval on the vendors’ foreheads to begin with.

CMS’s move to exempt providers from those penalties is correctly motivated, but it seeks to ease the provider pain without addressing its cause.

Instead of issuing a blanket exemption for use of unprepared vendors, CMS should:

  1. Waive penalties only for those providers who take steps to replace their inferior technologies with systems that can meet the demands of the 21st century’s information economy;
  2. Publish lists of health IT vendors whose systems are the basis for a hardship exemption, along with an accounting of how many of those 21 billion dollars have been paid to subsidize those vendors’ products; and
  3. Immediately initiate a reevaluation of the MU certification of any vendor whose products form the basis for a hardship exemption.

This proposal might seem bold, but if we’re truly looking to advance health care through the application and use of EHR, then what I’ve outlined above simply represents necessary and sound public policy. Current practice rewards vendors whose products are falling short by perpetuating subsidies for those products.

The federal government should stop paying doctors to implement health IT that cannot meet the standards of the program under which the payments are issued. That’s just a no-brainer.

An EHR should not be a federally-subsidized “hardship.”

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HIMSS Unplugged

By ANDY ORAM

HIMSS has opened and closed in Florida and I’m in Boston with snow up to my rectus abdominis. After several years of watching keynote pageants and scarfing up the amenities at HIMSS conferences, I decided to stay home this year.

Writing articles from earlier conferences certainly called on all my energy and talents. In 2010 I called for more open source and standards in the health care field. In 2012 I decried short-term thinking and lack of interest in real health transformation. In 2013 I highlighted how far providers and vendors were from effective patient engagement.

In general, I’ve found that my attendance at HIMSS leads moaning and carping about the state of health IT. So this year I figured I could sit in my office while moaning and carping about the state of health IT.

In particular, my theme this year is how health IT is outrunning the institutions that need it, and what will happen to those left behind.

The scissors crisis: more IT expenditures and decreasing revenues

Although the trade and mainstream press discuss various funding challenges faced by hospitals and other health providers, I haven’t seen anyone put it all together and lay out the dismal prospects these institutions have for fiscal health. Essentially, everything they need to do in information technology will require a lot more money, and all the income trends are declining.

Certainly the long-term payoff for the investment in information technology could be cost reductions–but only after many years, and only if it’s done right. And certainly, some institutions are flush with cash and are even buying up others. What we’re seeing in health care is a microcosm of the income gap seen throughout the world. To cite Billie Holliday: them that’s got shall get; them that’s not shall lose.

Here are the trends in IT:

  • Meaningful Use requires the purchase of electronic health records, which run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars just for licensing fees. Training, maintenance, storage, security, and other costs add even more. The incentive payments from the federal government come nowhere near covering the costs. EHR providers who offer their record systems on the Web (Software as a Service) tend to be cheaper than the older wave of EHRs. Open source solutions also cost much less than proprietary ones, but have made little headway in the US.
  • Hot on the heals of Meaningful Use is ICD-10 compliance, a major upgrade to the diagnostic codes assigned to patient conditions. Training costs (and the inevitable loss of productivity caused by transitions) could be staggering. Some 80% of providers may miss the government’s deadline. The American Medical Association, citing estimated prices for a small practice of $56,639 to $226,105 (p. 2), recently urged the government to back off on requiring ICD-10. Their point of view seems to be that ICD-10 might have benefits, but far less than other things the providers need money for. Having already put off its deadline, the Department refuses to bend further.
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  • What A Green Three Ring Binder Says About the State of Meaningful Use and Health Information Exchange

    The photo says it all.

    The green notebook and pen represent the latest and greatest health IT innovations used by the hospital nurse to record my wife’s health information in the hours before her surgery to re-attach a fully torn Achilles tendon.

    (Apologies for the cheeky intro and to my wife and anyone else for any HIPAA violations I may have committed in the capturing of this image).

    It’s not that the hospital does not have an electronic health record.

    They do – from a vendor widely considered a leader in the industry: Meditech. Same goes with the physician practice where she receives all her care and where her surgeon and primary care doctor are based.

    They too have an EHR from another leading vendor: NextGen.

    The problem? These systems are not connected. Thus, confirming the not so surprising news that health data interoperability has yet to make its debut in our corner of the NYC burbs.

    Fortunately for my wife, she is well on her way to recovery (a bit more reluctant to juggle a soccer ball with her son in airport passenger lounges, but nevertheless feeling much better…and mobile). By everyone’s estimation – hers, mine, friends who suffered the same injury and friends who happen to be doctors – she received high quality care.

    What’s more, we feel the overall patient experience at our physician practice and the hospital was quite good. That said, I cannot help but ask myself a series of ‘what ifs?’

    What if…we forgot to mention a medication she was taking and there was a bad reaction with medication they administered as part of the surgery or afterwards?

    What if… the anesthesiologist or surgeon couldn’t read the nurse’s handwriting?

    What if the next time we go to the hospital, it is a visit to the emergency room and the attending clinicians have no ability to pull any of my family’s health records and we are not exactly thinking clearly enough to recall details related to medical history?

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    CVS Caremark Enters CommonWell

    One of the most critical issues facing our healthcare system is the fact that the IT systems we’ve put in place have not yet led to a more connected, intelligent approach to patient care.

    While we have made notable headway toward interoperability through health information exchange solutions, we must dramatically accelerate our progress to support the transition to value-based care and realize our full potential as an industry.

    With this vision in mind, McKesson, Cerner and other leading healthcare IT companies announced the CommonWell Health Alliance last year at HIMSS13. Members of the Alliance are united by a shared commitment to develop a core set of interoperability services and standards that will enable patient data to be shared securely across care settings and electronic health record (EHR) platforms.

    In the twelve months since, tremendous progress has been made in making this aspiration a reality. CommonWell is running robust initial projects and collaborating with a myriad of practices. We’re also continuing to expand with new members who share our ideal of the trusted exchange of patient data, regardless of vendor, system, or setting.

    Now, the Alliance is welcoming its first pharmacy member in CVS Caremark. This is a watershed event for several reasons.

    CVS Caremark is one of the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chains and pharmacy benefit management companies. Few organizations in any segment of healthcare have more access to patient data and more trusted influence.

    But CVS Caremark’s role in driving innovation in our healthcare system, and its importance to the goal of interoperability, is vital for other reasons.

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