Healthcare IT News - December 2007 - (Page 25)

www.HealthcareITNews.com December ■ Healthcare IT News 25 HIMSS08 Pre-Conference Symposia o meet the needs of the Society's diverse and growing audiences, symposia, which will be held on Saturday, Feb. 23, and Sunday, Feb. 24, before HIMSS08 commences focus on topics and solutions for an array of healthcare professions. The Nursing Informatics Symposium, Informatics as a Quality Driver, includes PreNursing Informatics Sessions on Saturday. This half-day event features education on implementing information technology and standardized nursing terminologies for data collection. It also provides information on the implementation and evaluation of evidencebased performance measures. The full-day Nursing Informatics Symposium on Sunday brings together a dynamic platform of nursing leaders who focus on accelerating efficiency and improving care quality through healthcare IT. The Physicians' IT Symposium, The Journey Toward Improved Patient Outcomes, also on Sunday, focuses on major challenges physicians face in the design and deployment of IT. During this full-day program, physicians share their insights HIMSS' opt-in e-newsletters Offer Niche Education for a Breadth of Healthcare Professions T and provide practical strategies for optimizing workflow through HIT adoption in two distinct educational tracks: Ambulatory and Inpatient. Another Sunday offering, The Pharmacy IT Symposium, Driving Change and Enhanced Quality One Prescription at a Time, was designed by and for pharmacists to explore ways of improving patient quality through the effective use of technology. Speakers explore how e-prescribing has impacted market dynamics; give an in-depth update on the National EPrescribing Patient Safety Initiative; and look at bar coding and pay-for-performance pharmacy issues. Sunday's Clinical Engineering and IT Symposium, The Organizational Response to Technical Change, examines the changing landscape of clinical information technology and how organizational response to technical change defines the next generation of technology management in healthcare. To view the full pre-conference symposia agenda and to register, visit www.himssconference.org. ■ Explore public policy, EMR implementation and RHIOs Hnewsletters offer readers the latest news on HIMSS' initiatives and industry-wide activities related to advocacy and public policy, electronic medical record implementation and regional health information organizations. Subscriptions to all three enewsletters are complimentary. Written specifically for HIMSS members, state and local policymakers, and members of Congress and their staff, the HIMSS Pulse on Public Policy (PULSE) provides timely insight into the action in Washington and across the country related to HIT legislation, federal funding, and court rulings. Each issue features news on congressional, regulatory and state issues; public policy questions and answers and a calendar of key policy events. To subscribe, visit www.himss.org/pulse. The Digital Office: Connecting Your Practice with the Electronic Medical Record offers timely, comprehensive coverage and analysis of the use of EMRs in independent physician practices. Regular features in The Digital Office include lessons learned from physicians who have IMSS' THREE COMPLIMENTARY opt-in e- implemented EMRs, vendor updates and news from the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, as well as terms and definitions. To subscribe, visit www.himss.org/digitaloffice. HIMSS RHIO Connection: Your Link to the RHIO Revolution serves the RHIO community, HIMSS members, state and local policymakers and members of Congress with analysis on how RHIOs are revolutionizing the industry. It includes updates on advocacy and public policy initiatives and new technologies, tools and resources; each issue also features a spotlight on a specific RHIO. To subscribe, visit www.himss.org/ rhioconnection. ■ Coming Next Month: HIMSS08 Preview Edition The special HIMSS08 Preview, which will mail next month as a supplement to the January 2008 Healthcare IT News, is the source for news and announcements about the 2008 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition, February 24-28 in Orlando. The HIMSS08 Preview will explore the dynamic roster of education offerings including keynotes, Views from the Top sessions, e-sessions, roundtable discussions, pre-conference workshops, and symposia, as well as the exhibition featuring 900+ leading HIT vendors highlighting today's cutting-edge healthcare IT products and innovative emerging technologies and an interactive Interoperability Showcase demonstrating the real-world benefits of interoperable patient data exchange. Rounding out the Preview's HIMSS08 coverage will be details on the variety of networking opportunities that will be offered in and around the Orange County Convention Center, where attendees can network and connect with 25,000+ industry leaders and other professionals. ■ Healthcare IT systems at family practices improve business management, customer service A t Valdez Family Clinic, a 2007 Nicholas E. Davies Ambulatory Award recipient, a well-developed business case for implementing an electronic health record has transformed the clinic from a paper-based to a digital practice environment. Valdez Family Clinic is a single-location family practice, serving the economically disadvantaged and medically underserved community in South San Antonio, Texas. Approximately 65 percent of the clinic's patients are pediatric. When Alicia V. Valdez, MD, opened the practice, her background in business management helped her view the clinic as a small business where investment was critical to improving process efficiency and quality of patient care. The financial impact of declining reimbursements and under-coding encounters threatened the practice's viability. Dr. Valdez's goal was to find a tool to enable complete documentation and proper coding of clinical encounters–essential given South San Antonio's significant Medicare and Medicaid population–and offer the clinical benefit of having complete, up-to-the-moment patient data for every patient visit. The clinic implemented MedcomSoft Record, a feature-rich automated medical office software suite, built around an EHR. The system is driven by a single database, using codified data, captured at the point-of-care. With more than 250,000 clinical data concepts, the nomenclature enables true integration. System capabilities include scheduling appointments; tracking no-shows and cancellations; generating prescriptions through a comprehensive drug database; scanning or attaching documents and images; capturing, tracking and managing referrals and authorizations; and generating claims by the time a patient visit is completed. Patients feel empowered, as they have more and better knowledge about their healthcare. In addition, the clinic chose to replace its aging EKG machine with a device that can be operated through the EHR. Clinical staff control the EKG machine directly from the patient chart. While the EKG machine itself prints results on traditional paper rolls, the EHR automatically converts data into the appropriate codes and stores it electronically in the patient chart. While improving office processes, such as increased accuracy of coding and billing and making patients more involved in their own healthcare, the EHR also has given Dr. Valdez a better work-life balance. She can see the same number of patients in a four-day work week than she did prior to the EHR in a 4.5-day work week, making it home at a reasonable hour in the evenings. Valdez Family Clinic is a thriving practice with improved patient flow and patient care and a user-friendly computerized system. Village Health Partners (formerly Family Medical Specialists of Texas), also a 2007 Ambulatory Award recipient, was a threephysician family practice in suburban Plano, Texas, at the time of the award and has been expanded to seven physicians. The practice implemented its EHR system to support the practice's mission of providing unsurpassed customer service and clinical quality, thus giving patients what they value most: access, convenience and communication. After being in practice for two years, the practice's physicians recognized the need for better automated tools to achieve their mission. With no efficient way of measuring clinical quality or clinical decision support at the pointof-care, the practice was not providing the level of service patients had come to expect. Moving to an EHR, the physicians believed, would improve business and clinical efficiencies and improve all areas of customer satisfaction. The practice's EHR system, Centricity Physician Office, offers many features including workflow capabilities, clinical decision support, patient education and interfaces for practice management processes such as demographics and appointments. In addition, Village Health Partners has integrated secure messaging into the EHR to communicate with patients, consultants and others who need patients' medical information. Through the patient portal on the practice's Web site, patients can refill prescriptions, make appointments, request referrals, change demographics, or ask billing questions. As Village Health Partners strives to offer critical preventive care and management of chronic diseases, the EHR was selected, in part, for its capabilities in tracking preventive care and providing point-of-care reminders and clinical decision support for chronic diseases. The system's clinical protocols help support all staff becoming more involved in raising the practice's clinical quality. The system organizes information and provides education in a way that helps patients better understand, and participate in, their health. Patient utilization of the system has helped lower phone volume at the practice, with near- ly 10 percent of appointments now made online. Prescriptions are refilled in seconds, sent electronically at the point-of-car http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.himss.org/digitaloffice http://www.himss.org/rhioconnection http://www.himss.org/rhioconnection http://www.himss.org/pulse http://www.himssconference.org http://www.himssconference.org http://www.himss.org/davies http://www.himss.org/statedashboard http://www.himss.org/davies

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Healthcare IT News - December 2007

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