Healthcare IT News - March 2008 - (Page 17)

www.HealthcareITNews.com March 2008 ■ Healthcare IT News 17 NEWSBRIEFS CALIFORNIA dOCtORS JOIN REMOtE MONItORING PROJECt Selected southern California physicians will participate in a special project involving the remote monitoring of patients with diabetes. The physicians will be part of XTend Medical Corporation’s Medical Disease Management Program, which intends to initially target 500 diabetes patients. Using XTend Medical’s Eocene transmitter, patients will be able to take their glucose readings and transmit the encrypted results to participating physicians via telephone. Survey shows e-prescribing wins converts Seventy percent of docs “very satisfied” with the technology. By Molly MeRRIll & RICHaRd PIzzI, Associate Editors DETROIT, MI NEW WEB SItE FOR AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS The American College of Physicians has launched its redesigned Web site - www. acponline.org - to provide internal medicine physicians and related subspecialists with easier access to ACP information on clinical topics, practice management tools, continuing medical education and other resources. The site includes the latest evidence-based clinical guidelines, clinically-based quality improvement programs and background information about common healthcare topics related to internal medicine. – Michigan physicians who participated in a three-year e-prescribing pilot program believe the technology makes it possible for them to practice better, safer medicine, according to a new survey. The survey, conducted by HaldyMcIntosh & Associates registry smoothes path to P4P for Michigan docs By RICHaRd PIzzI, Associate Editor for the Southeastern Michigan ePrescribing Initiative, or SEMI, consisted of a three-year pilot program involving 500 physician practices and their staff who used the technology. More than 80 percent of all prescriptions written by those polled are currently done electronically, and four out of 10 physician practices polled now only write e-prescriptions. The survey found that three out of four prescribers strongly believe that e-prescribing improves safety for their patients and nearly 70 percent said it improved quality of care. “What is striking about these “ e-prescribing is moving closer to more UNIVERSAL ACCEPtANCE.” – Kate Kohn-Parrott survey findings is that physicians who make the transition to e-prescribing become big fans of what the technology does for their practice and their patients,” said John Driscoll, president of new markets for Medco. “It’s important that we continue to work toward changing the perception among doctors who are not making that connection.” One of the most important benefits of e-prescribing cited by physicians was the safety alerts that warn of potentially harmful drug-drug interactions and drug-allergy risks at the time of seMI see page 20 HHS pitches Maine on P4P demo By RICHaRd PIzzI, Associate Editor PENNSYLVANIA PRACtICE BUILdS COMMUNItY-BASEd EHR Medical Associates of Erie, a multi-specialty group practice with 12 sites in northwestern Pennsylvania, is working with a vendor to provide community-based electronic health records throughout Erie County. MAE will implement the iSuite 3.5 ambulatory EHR software package from Wichita, Kan.-based MedAppz. The group practice employs 21 physicians in six specialties. The physicians in the group are also instructors and professors at the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine. CHICAGO PHYSICIANS dEPLOY AUtHENtICAtION SOFtWARE Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group, a multi-site primary care practice affiliated with Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital, plans to implement authentication software across 15 of its clinics. NMPG will install the IAM Suite from Redwood City, Calif.-based Encentuate. Guy Fuller, NMPG’s IT director, emphasized that the practice was attracted to the software’s enterprise single sign-on capabilities and private desktop offering, which will enable Northwestern physicians to maintain individual desktops on the same workstations. More at – If pay-for-performance is the future of reimbursement in ambulatory care, will physician practices need electronic health records to adequately manage patients and report data? Not necessarily – or at least not initially – say leaders at Westshore Health Network, a not-for-profit physician hospital organization here. Westshore is a network of 214 physicians, including 66 primary care providers. Most of the network’s physicians do not have an EHR, but Westshore has been able to use a chronic disease and preventive health registry to capture data on relevant patient subpopulations across the network. And they have translated that data into P4P income. MUSKEGON, MI Muskegon, Mich. - once known as the “Lumber Queen of the Midwest” - is the largest city on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, with a population of over 40,000. “We anticipate our 2007 payfor-performance reimbursement will increase by 15 to 20 percent over 2006,” said Jennifer Bailey, Westshore’s provider network manager. “We can report information externally to our payers, because now we have a mechanism for validating our quality of care numbers.” Westshore participates in the Physician Group Initiative Program, the physician practice wesTsHoRe see page 20 PORTLAND, ME – Deputy Secretary Tevi Troy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services visited Maine’s largest city recently to encourage the state’s physician community to apply for participation in a new nationwide pay-for-performance demonstration project. HHS announced last October its plans to recruit 1,200 doctors - 100 each from 12 communities across the United States - to participate in the five-year demo. The aim is to increase the use of electronic health records in small- to medium-sized practice settings, in order to improve the quality of care. Troy told the Maine contingent CMS would begin HHs see page 18 CONSUMER interest in online tools and other services Online access to medical records and test results 6% 78% 26% 9% An e-mail gap in healthcare By BeRNIe MoNegaIN, Editor NEW YORK E-mail access to a doctor Have used Interested in using Willing to pay extra e ● Connect: GraPHS 0308 76% 23% HealthcareITNews.com e ●Connect: PHYSICIaNS 0308 N- 3,031 adults 18 years and older DELOITTE 2008 SURvEy OF HEALTH CARE CONSUMERS – Nearly 80 percent of healthcare consumers are interested in having e-mail access to a physician – and 23 percent would be willing to pay extra for it, according to a new study from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. However, most physicians do not offer e-mail exchange and appear to be reluctant to do so. The “2008 Survey of Health Care Consumers,” polled more than 3,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 75. It was directed by Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, and William Copeland, Jr., national managing director of the Life Sciences and Health Care practice of Deloitte Consulting LLP. Besides wanting to e-mail their physicians, 78 percent of consumers said they wanted access to their medical records eMaIl see page 19 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.acponline.org http://www.acponline.org http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8877

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Healthcare IT News - March 2008 Contents No. 1 E-prescribing ‘Quite Bright’ Bill Frist on IT Google Connection Poised for P4P ‘Smashing Success’ Tough On Fraud It's Analytics Getting Rid of the Pain Stuck In Neutral

Healthcare IT News - March 2008

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