Healthcare IT News - August 2008 - (Page 4)

Healthcare iT News ■ August 2008 industry news www.HealthcareITNews.com HHS Secretary Leavitt promotes e-prescribing By Diana Manos, Senior Editor WASHINGTON – Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt has pledged his department will do all it can to promote the use of electronic prescribing as a way to launch widespread use of healthcare IT. Advancing electronic prescribing is and has been “a top goal” Leavitt said in a speech last month. The adoption of e-prescribing is expected to reduce deadly pre- scription errors and time-consuming administrative costs. According to the Institute of Medicine, more than 1.5 million Americans are injured each year by drug errors. Other studies show that pharmacists make more than 150 million phone calls a year to clarify illegible prescriptions with doctors. As part of recently passed Medicare legislation, HHS will reward Medicare providers with release some providers a 2 percent incentive payfrom penalties if they can ment in 2009 and 2010, a 1 prove undue hardship for percent incentive payment adoption. in 2011 and 2012 and a Medicare is expected one-half percent incentive to save up to $156 million payment in 2013 for using over five years by preventelectronic prescribing. Michael Leavitt ing some 530,000 adverse Beginning in 2012, providers who are not using e-pre- drug events, Leavitt said. Kerry Weems, acting adminisscribing will receive a reduced payment, Leavitt said. However, trator of the Centers for Medicare on a case-by-case basis, HHS may & Medicaid Services, said the agency would hold a conference this fall to help physicians prepare for e-prescribing by 2009. It will also issue guidance in the coming months on specifics required to receive the 2 percent bonus. CMS has a program already under way to reward healthcare IT adoption. Through the Medicare Physicians Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), CMS has paid out $36 million in bonuses to more than 56,000 health professionals who reported quality information to Medicare, Weems said. James King, MD, a family physician in Tennessee and president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said the incentives should help physicians make the change to e-prescribing. He said he has tried to use it, but several barriers remain. For example, one can’t cross state lines with an e-prescription, and prescriptions for certain controlled substances still have to be made by hand. King said only 9 percent of the academy’s membership report using electronic prescribing, with 37 percent reporting they have electronic health records. An additional 13 percent expect to adopt electronic health records before the end of the year. ■ More at HealthcareiTnews.com e Connect: LeavItt 0808 ● Manos Continued from page 3 Tip one: Providers need to continuously monitor their security. The more often you check your security, the less trouble you can get into. Tip two: Protect at the source. To prevent breaches, organizations need to give special care to physical media, such as laptops, backup tapes and optical discs. Hard drives need to be encrypted. Plain and simple. If the human element – usually the weakest link in security – fails to protect the data, the information will be of no use to a thief if it is encrypted. Spend about $30 to get every laptop encrypted and another $30 for smart card access to the computers. Pay now, or pay more later. Tip three: Have C- level security officers. Security needs to be on the agenda every time executives get together. It’s that important. HIPAA has been around since 1996 with relatively few enforcement consequences, but the recent stringent HHS settlement is a sign that times are changing. “It’s not okay to just have disclosure statements anymore,” Dietz said. “You have to take appropriate action to prevent breaches. The government is turning up the heat and I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see more of this.” ■ e ● Connect: eNovateIt 0808 More at HealthcareiTnews.com e Connect: MaNoS 0808 ● http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9672 http://www.enovateit.com http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9669

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Healthcare IT News - August 2008 Contents Closer to IT Bill PHIN or RHIOs? Making Leaps After the Flood Tidal Change Denmark Bound Bridging the Divide Robot That Could Mobile Computing Data Everywhere

Healthcare IT News - August 2008

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