Healthcare It News - February 2008 - (Page 16)

1 Healthcare IT News ■ February 2008 industry news www.HealthcareITNews.com Survey: Single-payer system would mean boost for healthcare It By rICHarD pIzzI, Associate Editor s percent of Healthcare IT News readers who responded to the most recent News Monitor poll believe that more U.S. hospitals and physicians would adopt healthcare information technology under a single-payer healthcare system. Contrarily, 27 percent of News Monitor poll respondents say a M0613_2007_TAKEYOU.pdf single-payer system would18-01-2008 have little effect on the number of healtheVentY-tHree care facilities adopting IT tools like electronic medical records. One hundred and seventy-two people responded to the question. “Single-payer would better align incentives and fee schedules for physicians,” wrote David G. Seaman, CEO of Pronger Smith Medical Care in Tinley Park, Ill. “Under single-payer, physicians would be able to adopt evidence09:51:43 based care uniformly rather than managing care based on payer.” Harold L. Bischoff, executive director of the Cornerstone Alliance in Lima, Ohio, agreed. “With single-payer, you could invest money in only one system to match up the billing and payment functions instead of multiple data systems,” Bischoff wrote. A common complaint of those endorsing a single-payer system was that the seemingly endless variety of healthcare IT systems generate innumerable problems for providers. “Lack of uniformity is one reason physicians hesitate to carry the cost of IT advancements,” wrote Susan T. Dicosola, executive director of Coastal Orthopaedics in Norwalk, Conn. “For instance, electronic remittance is not trustworthy across the board. Medicare is reliable, and news MONItOR One destination. Many paths. We'll take you there one or two other carriers are fine, but even the reps of most other carriers admit their product ‘is not there yet’! Which practice is willing to beta-test various electronic remittance schemes? How is that a good use of anyone’s resources?” The minority who did not believe that single-payer would spur IT adoption argued that the payer system has little relevance to the costs of healthcare IT. “The payer system has nothing to do with IT adoption,” wrote Michael Ellwood, director of Quality Care Initiatives at the American Academy of Physician Assistants. “Whether there is one payer or multiple payers, the first responsibility of the payer is to reduce its costs. At least with multiple payers and competition, there might be a chance that innovative insurance companies will partner with medical practices to assist with HIT adoption. A single payer will have no such incentive.” Most poll respondents believed, however, that the current system – in the words of Kenneth Kleinberg of Allscripts – “is a tremendous waste of effort and resources as healthcare providers attempt to march to various insurance company requirements.” A single-payer system would, they claimed, allow the IT benefits “to be more readily realized.” ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: NeWSMoNItor 0208 ● TesTBeD Continued from page 14 The destination is clear: Personalized quality care for every patient. Agfa HealthCare will get you there with patient centric workflows that include automated clinical paths. At every step you will get the information you need, when you need it. Found in 1 of every 2 hospitals and Europe’s leading choice in HIS/CIS, our systematic steps to better and affordable care will get you where you need to be without jeopardizing current systems or investments. Agfa HealthCare: We’ll take you there. www.agfa.com/healthcare Visit us at HIMSS, booth #7763. that patient privacy is preserved. “These records will last a lifetime. They will outlast any system,” said Walker. As the records migrate from system to system – the DoD, the Department of Veterans Administration and the private sector - policy interactions will need to bridge the three different privacy models. Cothren noted that Northrop Grumman will leverage lessons learned and the technology it developed for its nationwide health information exchange prototype for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. In August 2007, the DoD awarded the company a contract to deploy, enhance and maintain its Clinical and Health Data Repository initiative, which will enable the DoD to seamlessly exchange health information with the VA. In 2005, Northrop Grumman successfully deployed the first bidirectional, real-time electronic patient record sharing capability between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Administration. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: teStBed 0208 Agfa and the Agfa rhombus are trademarks of Agfa-Gevaert N.V. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. ● e ● Connect: aGFa 0208 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8600 http://www.agfa.com/healthcare http://www.agfa.com/healthcare http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8598 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/eConnect.cms?id=8679

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Healthcare It News - February 2008 Contents Hot Potato Wal-Mart Focus CIO Role Wasteland Linking Docs Katrina Work P4P Team Fire Sale? Emergency Systems Beyond Business

Healthcare It News - February 2008

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