Healthcare leaders go for the Triple Aim
Participants answered questions related to how IT was being used to facilitate the goals of the Triple Aim, which is a framework developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement that describes an approach to optimizing health system performance. While more than two-thirds of respondents (68 percent) indicated an improvement within the patient health experience, more than half also felt that IT was reducing the cost of healthcare (53 percent) and improving population health (51 percent).“
This year’s survey showed that more than one-third of participants report that their organization was able to demonstrate improvement in all three areas covered in the Triple Aim as a result of their IT use,” says John H. Daniels, Vice President, Strategic Relations for HIMSS. “These numbers are critical as they prove the continued progress healthcare is making as IT integrates with value-based care strategies and the growing influence of the patient in health encounters. It will be important for providers to capitalize on this momentum to ensure improved patient satisfaction as the sector begins the transition from Stage 2 to Stage 3 of Meaningful Use.”
The strategic value of information technology (IT) also continues to be top of mind with healthcare leaders, as 81 percent of respondents indicated IT is considered a highly strategic tool at their organization. Seventy-six percent noted that their IT plan fully supports their overall business plan.
Survey data was collected between Jan. 9, 2015, and Feb. 24, 2015. To download the complete HIMSS report, go to www.himss.org/2015-leadership-survey
Source: HIMSS
EHRs
CMS Designated Test EHR Program update
Cerner and Epic Systems have joined iPatientCare as Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Designated Test EHR Program participants, joining the ranks of Meditech and McKesson. Since the Test EHR Program was launched just over a year ago, more than 4,000 providers have registered to conduct tests, and more than 5,000 have successfully attested to the transition-of-care Meaningful Use (MU) core objective.
The MU Stage 2’s transition-of-care objective, measure No. 3, requires eligible professionals and eligible hospitals/critical access hospitals to either: A) Conduct one or more successful electronic exchanges of a summary-of-care document, with a recipient who has EHR technology designed by a different EHR developer than the sender’s; or B) Conduct one or more successful tests with the CMS-designated test EHR during the EHR reporting period via the Test EHR Program. The preferred method is the first one: A.
The Test EHR is available as a last-resort option to meet this measure if the first option cannot be met. It is also important to note that this summary-of-care exchange requirement can be met during any time in the reporting year and does not have to occur within the actual reporting period.
In December 2014, CMS released an updated FAQ that offered measure No. 3 to providers who were not able to meet the MU Stage 2 transition-of-care objective. This could be done through either of the two options mentioned and offers the opportunity to retain and submit documentation for attestation explaining their circumstances.
Additional resources are available to providers and EHR developers at www.healthit.gov, including the ONC Test EHR page.
Source: ONC
Patient Records
$1M National Patient ID Challenge in the works
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is launching an international $1 million challenge early this summer to find a universal solution for accurately matching patients with their healthcare information. The aim is to increase the success rate of patient ID matching from 80 to 100 percent, and to ultimately “ensure 100 percent accuracy of every patient’s health info to reduce preventable medical errors and eliminate unnecessary hospital costs/resources.”
Not all of the details have been sorted out, but this much is known: The effort is being launched through an online crowd-sourcing challenge site called HeroX, which was co-founded by XPRIZE CEO Dr. Peter Diamandis.
Besides exchanging information and being interoperable, electronic health records (EHRs) must be accurate in order to support the requirements of coordinated and accountable patient-centered care. Duplicate or inaccurate patient records can occur from manual data entry errors or when two or more individuals share the same name, presenting considerable concern for different individuals being identified as the same patient – and potentially resulting in inadequate treatment or unintended injury.
A coalition of industry partners from the vendor and association communities lent their support for CHIME’s National Patient ID Challenge. They include the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the CommonWell Health Alliance, the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) and the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA).As CHIME works to raise the prize money, it has put a task force of healthcare IT leaders in place charged with assigning challenge guidelines and winning criteria. Keep updated at https://herox.com/PatientIDChallenge.
Source: CHIME
