Healthcare IT News - November 2007 - (Page 24) 24 Healthcare IT News ■ November 2007 PHYSICIaN PRaCTICES & amBulaTORY CaRE www.HealthcareITNews.com “Because there aren’t standards for data, the time and expense of the data manipulation falls onto the primary care practice, which is least able to afford it.” Baron says the federal government should create standards for electronic data submitted in reports, because the lack of standardization creates waste and inefficiency. He believes that a “voluntary” or industry-driven standardization process is not likely to work. “The government standardizes billing, but not report production,” Baron noted. “Electronic interfaces aren’t available for a lot of data, and they’re very expensive to construct and maintain. Primary care simply doesn’t have the resources to do this.” Baron fears that governments might ultimately mandate the use of EHRs in primary care, but without addressing issues like standardization that will only make adoption and use more difficult for physicians. “I don’t see mandates for primary care as a tenable policy strategy without standardization of data and a new payment model,” Baron said. “If information producers were required to submit data to practices in a standard format, that would build the business case for EMRs in primary care. Otherwise, we just won’t have the resources for quality improvement projects.” ■ More at care is to integrate all the information flowing in from other sources Continued from page 21 – such as consulting specialists, healthcare IT systems is not a labs, imaging centers – and to given. Inadequate staffing and a make sense of it. But because there lack of “structured data” coming aren’t any standards for data that from sources outside the practice is submitted to us, it’s difficult for make it extraordinarily difficult us to make use of it.” for primary care physicians to gain Baron said that most primary optimum value from an EHR. care physicians have a “paper chart” “Physicians in primary care mindset, and they retain this way adopt and use EHRs differently of thinking even after adopting than do other physicians,” said EHRs. For example, when docu2313 Maxant “We’re in the data 1 10/18/07 5:37 PM Pagesources arrive Baron. Final :Layout aggrega- ments from external 1 tion business. Our job in primary at a practice, most physicians elec- INTeRNIsT “Physicians in primary care adopt and use EHRs differently than do other physicians.” – Richard Baron, MD tronically “sign” a document with a single mouse click, assuming that they have taken responsibility for its contents, as would be done with a paper chart. But because there are no interoperability or universal data standards, most electronic documents submitted to primary care practices are not in a form that can be easily used by the practice. Transferring the contents of an externally generated document into the EHR in a structured format takes multiple steps. Most small practices can’t spare the staff time to do that. “Practices don’t realize that to make use of EHR technology you’re going to have to do a lot of data structuring,” Baron said. HealthcareITNews.com e ●Connect: INterNISt 1107 EXPERIENCE THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS. Integrated digital workstations offer big performance—in a small, space-saving size. For today’s crowded, fast-paced healthcare facilities, MediPort offers the winning combination: High-performance digital workstations compactly packaged in a unique x-ray viewer form factor. 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As announced in September, the Columbia FPO will implement TouchWorks EHR software from Chicago-based Allscripts. In addition to its 1,200 member physicians, the technology will eventually serve 1,000 community physicians through a Columbiasponsored arrangement still under development. Under the new agreement, Greencastle will manage the EHR roll-out, ensure physician adoption of the technology and guide the process of system integration. More at Medical-grade, UL 60601-1-compliant workstations take the worry out of image viewing. HealthcareITNews.com For more information, please visit www.maxant.com/mediport Maxant Technologies, Inc. 7540 N. 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