Healthcare IT News - February 2009 - (Page 13) www.HealthcareITNews.com February 2009 ■ Healthcare IT News 13 NEWSBRIEFS PRojEct SWIPEIt LAuNchEd The Medical Group Management Association has launched an industry-wide effort calling on health insurers, vendors and healthcare providers to adopt standardized, machinereadable patient ID cards by Jan. 1, 2010. ”We’re launching Project SwipeIT because the adoption of this technology is long overdue,” said William F. Jessee, MD, president and CEO of MGMA. MGMA estimates that machine-readable patient ID cards could save physician offices and hospitals as much as $1 billion a year by eliminating unnecessary administrative efforts and denied claims. Docs urge back to bedside skills By Molly MerrIll, Associate Editor cARdIoLogISt gRouP REAdIES FoR EhR/PM SyStEM Michigan CardioVascular Institute, a Saginaw, Mich.-based group practice of cardiologists and heart surgeons, is poised to implement an electronic health records and practice management system. MCVI officials say the technology will help them to standardize care and prepare for a pay-forperformance environment. The institute will roll out technology from Tampa, Fla.-based Sage Intergy to 22 locations in Michigan. – A New England Journal of Medicine article by a Stanford physician warns medical schools against letting technology take the place of bedside skills. Abraham Verghese, MD, doesn’t blame technology for this trend. Instead, he turns his attention to medical education and educators like him in saying the “chart-as-surrogate-for-thepatient” approach to medical care is no replacement for the skilled, hands-on physical exam. He says the advent of computerized medical records and easy availability of diagnostic tests has led to physicians to the “iPaSTANFORD, CA Stanford University has put a focus on training its medical students with bedside skills. tient” – the virtual construct of a patient based on all the lab tests and imaging – even before they meet the real live human version waiting nearby in a hospital bed. “The iPatient’s blood counts and emanations are tracked and trended like a Dow Jones Index. The real patients keep the beds warm and ensure that the folders bearing their names stay alive on the computer,” said Verghese. He says there is a new push at Stanford to emphasize and improve bedside examinatio skills in students and residents in internal medicine, and calls for a similar national effort at all medical schools. IpaTIeNT see page 14 healthcare It leaders using or looking to use tablets or other mobile devices Survey polled 171 healthcare IT decision makers and executives. 85% 15% No e ● Connect: GraPHS 0209 yES IMPRIVATA 2008 Grant propels EMR South Jersey subsidizes EHRs VINELAND, NJ By Molly MerrIll, Associate Editor PORTLAND, OR oBgyN PRActIcE AutoMAtES ItS chARtS Horizon Gynecology & Obstetric Associates, a multi-site, 12-physician, five-nurse practitioner practice, will boost its efficiency and care coordination with an integrated practice management and electronic health records system. The practice will implement the Sage Intergy practice management and electronic health record system from Tampa, Fla.-based Sage Software Healthcare. “We narrowed the field to four companies, and in the end, the physicians chose Sage Intergy EHR for its superior OB chart,” said Rita Foster, chief operating officer for Horizon. SuMMA hEALth LAuNchES quALIty INItIAtIvE The Summa Health Network, the physicianhospital organization of the Summa Health System in Akrin, Ohio, is participating in a quality initiative with two national insurers and one regional insurer. The focus of SHN’s initiative is to use evidence-based, clinical quality measures to monitor diabetes, hypertension, depression, cancer screenings, osteoporosis, hyperlipidemia, asthma, smoking cessation, immunizations and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. SHN will seek to analyze and improve cost, quality and use patterns of care delivered across three health insurance plans’ participants. More at HealthcareITNews.com e ●Connect: PHYSICIaNS 0209 thE NEWS: The Oregon Community – The Oregon ➔ Health Information Network received Community Health Information more than $4 milion toward the Network (OCHIN), a not-foradoption of EHRs. profit organization that supports WhAt It MEANS: 40 clinic safety-net clinics that serve ➔ implementations will be rolled-out to uninsured and under-insured the network’s members. patients, will continue its West Coast safety net clinic electronic health records implementation if they were working by themthrough federal grants totaling selves. She says OCHIN provides more than $4 million. The Department of Health members with “cheaper, better and Human Services Office of service (than vendors), and they Health Resources and Services get to control what we do.” OCHIN signed a deal with Epic Administration grant will assist with 40 clinic implementations, Systems Corp. in 2004 to prowhich represents 47 percent of vide EHRs to clinics in Oregon, OCHIN’s project implementa- California and Washington. Through a previous grant, the tion costs over the next three network implemented its first years. OCHIN licenses, designs EMR in 2005 at Multnomah and builds integrated software products that support ambulatory healthcare and clinical needs. Its 25 member organizations can afford quality software products and Multnomah County’s North Portland Health Clinic in Oregon. services that might otherwise be out of reach by County’s North Portland Health collaborating and using their Clinic, a federally qualified health center in Oregon. collective buying power. Vanetta Abdellatif, director Abby Sears, CEO of OCHIN, says members are not required to of Integrated Clinical Services pay a fee but they pay for OCHIN’s for Multnomah County Health service, which she says is a fraction Department, says Multnomah oCHIN see page 15 of the cost they would have to pay – Member physicians of South Jersey Healthcare, an integrated healthcare system, will soon be offered electronic health records. SJH will provide physicians on its medical staff with a financial subsidy to acquire and implement an EHR from Tampa, Fla.-based Sage Software through its eHealth Connection grant program. eHealth Connection offers physicians an annual threeyear benefit. Through the program, SJH subsidizes 85 percent of the EHR licensing fee for physicians on its medical staff. SJH will cover the cost to implement software interfaces. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: SJH 0209 ● Managing the pain Michigan docs put data to work on patient care. By BerNIe MoNegaIN, Editor GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Fred Davis, MD, knows all about the power of data. He’s been witnessing its growing effect on pain management for more than 25 years. With the emphasis on valuebased medicine, the patient management system called PRISM that Davis developed 10 years ago and has been improving year by year – from floppy disc to Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet to its computerbased incarnation, may get its time in the sun. He figures the data gathering system could be applied not only to other pain management practices, but to other specialties and chronic diseases as well. And it could also be a boon for research. Davis, a pain management specialist, is president of ProCare Systems, a company that provides physician practices with management services such as billing, scheduling and Fred Davis, MD marketing. The ProCare network includes four pain management practices with more than 20 pain management physicians at 13 locations across Michigan. “As we see it, there will be a shift in reimbursement away from paying for individual services toward payment for MICHIgaN see page 14 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/south-jersey-subsidizes-ehrs http://www.HealthcareITNews.com
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