Healthcare IT News - October 2008 - (Page 4)

Healthcare IT News ■ October 2008 industry news www.HealthcareITNews.com cess for ensuring that report on HHS efforts the news: GAO hits key privacy principles – The Department to ensure healthcare IT ➔ HHS again on privacy and challenges are of Health and Human Services privacy. In January, the what it Means: completely and adehas made advances in healthcare GAO said HHS should ➔ Healthcare IT bills quately addressed.” quality and other aspects of health- define and implement stalled. “Stakeholders may care, but privacy risks to electronic an overall privacy lack the overall polistorage and exchange of personal approach. Based on a current review of cies and guidance needed to assist health information remain a problem, according to the General HHS documents describing the them in their efforts to ensure that agency’s privacy-related healthcare privacy protection measures are Accountability Office. The GAO report, released in IT activities, GAO determined consistently built into health IT DrMcCullough_7.875x10.5 a 7/18/08 3:03 PM needs to include “a proprograms and applications,” the September, updates January HHS still Page 1 By DIaNa MaNos, Senior Editor WashinGtOn Gao: Government lacking on medical privacy privacy issues and increased report said. “Moreover, the breaches of privacy reportdepartment may miss an ed by hospitals and other opportunity to establish the healthcare organizations. high degree of public confiMeanwhile, despite a dence and trust needed to handful of healthcare IT help ensure the success of a bills introduced this year, nationwide health informaDeborah Peel, nothing has gained traction. tion network.” MD Exactly how to protect priHHS generally agreed vacy remains one of the key blockers, with GAO’s findings. The report comes amid contin- as factions weigh in on the need for ued heated debate of healthcare IT gao see page 12 MCCaIN Continued from page 1 “Rising costs associated with transcription and tracking patient records were adversely affecting our practice’s bottom line. Since I had previous experience using Dragon® Medical, I knew I wanted to implement speech recognition with our TouchWorks® EHR from Allscripts®. To maximize our ROI, Dragon would not only promote physician EHR usage, but would also entirely eliminate rising transcription costs and provide the complete records necessary for accurate coding and billing at a higher level of reimbursement than before. Now, all 17 physicians in our practice use Dragon within TouchWorks and are completely mobile with their dictation, using wireless microphones and tablet PCs. They’re achieving speech recognition accuracy rates of over 98% and notes are being turned around instantly — before patients leave the office. As a result, patient satisfaction has been tremendous. We were getting five referrals per month, but last month we had 70. We’ve added several physicians to our group and are well positioned for continued future growth.” Steven J. McCullough, DO Nephrologist Jackson Purchase Medical Associates Paducah, Kentucky ©2008 Nuance Communications, Inc. www.nuance.com /dictaphone | 1.800.350.4836, EXT. D698 adviser, Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin was quoted last February in Medpage Today as saying McCain does not favor penalties for doctors who do not use healthcare IT. “There needs to be a business incentive for providers to invest in them to better coordinate care,” Holtz-Eakin said in the Feb. 28 issue of Medpage Today. “If we can exchange records at low cost, we’ll all be better informed about outcomes.” Holtz-Eakin, who once headed the Congressional Budget Office and has served as President Bush’s chief economist, said, “banks and other sectors of the economy have figured out how to use electronic records and coordinate services. The healthcare sector will also.” This optimistic view of the healthcare sector adopting healthcare IT is one shared with the Bush Administration, which has pushed a value-driven healthcare initiative since 2006 centered on adopting electronic health records as one of the cornerstones. The government is not funding Internet adoption, but the market is pushing its use, Leavitt said. This summer, Congress passed the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, reversing pay cuts for physicians this year and providing a 2 percent incentive for physicians who use electronic prescribing starting in 2009. The law also included a 2 percent pay cut for Medicare-participating physicians who do not adopt eprescribing by 2012. McCain was on the campaign trail and absent from the vote. McCain’s opponents would argue he couldn’t promote healthcare IT because he is not “wired” himself. His defenders argue he is well acquainted with information technology, however, serving as a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation since coming to Congress in 1987. He was chairman of the committee from 1997 to 2001, and again from 2003 to 2005, during the explosion of the Internet economy. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: MCCaIN 1008 Speech-driven clinical documentation and communication for healthcare leaders™ e ● Connect: dICtapHoNe 1008 ● http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.nuance.com/dictaphone http://www.nuance.com/dictaphone http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=10034 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/eConnect.cms?id=10066

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Healthcare IT News - October 2008 Contents Seattle's Slate Board 2.0 MGMA Newsmaker IT Battles Infection Beyond Adoption Excellence in Maine Carrot and Stick HP Layoffs Mobile Workstations Automating Offices

Healthcare IT News - October 2008

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