Healthcare IT News - September 2007 - (Page 24)

24 Healthcare IT News September 2007 ■ www.HealthcareITNews.com NEWSBRIEFS CALIFORNIA IPA TAPS VIRTUAL SERVICES PROVIDER Muir Medical Group IPA, Inc. in Walnut Creek, Calif., has chosen ITelagen, a New Jersey-based provider of virtual IT services, to support their member physicians’ offices during an upcoming implementation of electronic medical records and practice management software. ITelagen will provide Muir’s physician offices with IT support solutions, and will also guide an EMR rollout for 200 of their providers. The rollout is scheduled for 2010. Tenn. docs choose document management By RICHaRd PIzzI, Associate Editor LARGE TEXAS PRACTICE GETS NEW EHR SYSTEM Urology Associates of North Texas, the largest integrated private practice urology group in the United States, will implement a new electronic health record system to replace its first generation EHR. The Dallas-Fort Worth area practice employs 50 physicians in 20 locations. The group was one of the first large, single-specialty practices in the nation to adopt a paperless EHR five years ago, and today has over 350,000 patients in an active database. The web-based Electronic Health Record from Allscripts will replace that system. – The clinical workflows at specialty physician practices often differ from those at primary care practices. And as a result, the information technology needs can be different as well. When Campbell Clinic Orthopaedics in Memphis, Tenn., first began researching electronic medical records in 2004, they discovered that most EMRs were not designed with specialists in mind. MEMPHIS, TN “The episodic nature of care makes a specialty practice different than a primary care clinic,” said John Vines, CEO of Campbell Clinic. “Primary care clinicians have more in common with one another than specialty physicians do, and I think EMRs generally reflect that.” Vines says EMRs often require too much data entry from physicians, and while potentially annoying to any doctor, this can be especially harmful to a specialty practice that relies on a high volume of patients flowing through exam rooms. “If your EMR increases the doctor’s workload even just a little, it makes your practice less efficient,” said Vines. “We can’t afford that here, and most other specialty practices can’t, either.” As an alternative to a fullfledged EMR, Campbell Clinic decided to implement clinical document management software. Document management software vendors claim that CamPBell see page 25 “[Specialists] don’t want any of the downtime that’s required to work on an EMR.” – Evan Steele CPoe and patient safety Everett Clinic studies the impact of written prescribing errors on care and workflow. By RICHaRd PIzzI, Associate Editor EVERETT, WA Are the benefits of outpatient CPOE overrated? By RICHaRd PIzzI, Associate Editor MARSHFIELD CLINIC ADOPTS PATIENT EDUCATION SYSTEM The Marshfield Clinic, based in Marshfield, Wisc., will implement Krames On-Demand electronic patient education services at all of its provider sites. The Krames system will sync with Marshfield’s electronic medical record, and allow providers to print educational materials for patients at the point of care. As part of their Krames OnDemand implementation, Marshfield will also deploy the Krames Online Patient Education database on the Clinic’s website. PHYSICIAN GROUPS TO TEST MEDICAL HOME MODEL OF CARE UnitedHealth Group, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American College of Physicians have initiated a pilot program to accelerate the implementation of a primary care model, called the patient-centered medical home, designed to improve patients’ total health and care delivery. Information technology – such as EHRs, registries and secure e-mail consultations – plays an important role in the PC-MH model. This is the first time that this model will be put into practice with the financial and administrative support of a private health plan. More at – Prescription errors have long been considered a primary cause of adverse drug reactions in patients, which is why computerized physician order entry systems hold such appeal to hospitals and physician practices looking to increase patient safety. When Washington state’s Everett Clinic, a 16site practice with 250 providers, wanted to evaluate the impact of e-prescribing on medication safety, it turned to scholars at the Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy program in the University of Washington’s Department of Pharmacy. Beth Devine, a research associate professor in the pharmacy department, helped design a pilot study at Everett to determine if handwritten prescriptions led to clinical errors and whether an e-prescribing system would eliminate them. Somewhat surprisingly, Devine and her colleagues found that only 0.2 percent of the errors in written prescriptions actually led to patient harm. D ESPITE THE ofT-cITEd Pediatricians Jeffrey Bissey, MD, and Wendy Sue Swanson, MD, examine a patient’s electronic record at the Everett Clinic. Potential prescribing errors occurred frequently, but few ever reached the patient. “There are many checks and balances built into the healthcare system,” Devine said. “Pharmacists review prescriptions, nurses conduct double-checks eveReTT see page 26 merits of enhancing safety and reducing costs, there is not adequate evidence that e-prescribing systems provide such benefits in outpatient settings, claimed a team of European medical informatics researchers recently. Published in the July/August 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, “Evaluation of Outpatient Computerized Physician Medication Order Entry Systems” reviewed the literature of outpatient CPOE studies to determine what evidence existed to justify the use of CPOE on safety and cost reduction grounds. Saeid Eslami, a research fellow eslamI see page 28 Electronic or Paper? Best Performing Practices 63% 19% Description of health/medical records system used for current patients. 2006 report based on 2005 data Rural physicians get EHRs By RICHaRd PIzzI, Associate Editor HAZARd, KY 8% 8% 2% Fullyintegrated EMR Paper Partially- Electronic Scanned integrated Dictation paper record EMR system SOURCE: PERFORMANCE AND PRACTICES OF SUCCESSFUl MEDICAl GROUPS HealthcareITNews.com e ● Connect: GraPHS 0907 e ●Connect: PHYSICIaNS 0907 - Appalachian Regional Healthcare will deploy an electronic health record system to more than 190 employed and affiliated physicians in rural communities across eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. The not-for-profit healthcare system plans to implement McKesson’s Horizon Ambulatory Care EHR product and will offer RelayHealth’s intelligent network to connect physicians with their patients, the hospital, other physicians and pharmacies. ARH has deployed a range of McKesson products, from pharmacy automation and robotics to a Web-based physician portal. “Through this initiative, we’re bringing both our employed and affiliated physicians together to enhance the communication between them and their patients and between them and our hospitals,” said Joe Grossman, ARH’s vice president for administration. “This improved communication and functionality will enable better, safer healthcare for the people in our communities.” Taking advantage of the exception that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid aRH see page 25 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=7681

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Healthcare IT News - September 2007

Contents Alaska Sweep SiCKO Debate Data Exchange Rx EDITH knows Hold That Script IT in the Sun Breathing Easy IT on the Menu Ambulatory EMRs Identity Crisis

Healthcare IT News - September 2007

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