South FL Leaders to Revive EMR Efforts

Health leaders in South Florida are reviving efforts to obtain widespread adoption of electronic medical records, hoping now they can land millions from the federal economic stimulus package.

Two projects in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, the other in Palm Beach County -- had ground to a halt in the past year when state seed money ran out, at a time when record-sharing systems were working in test runs but not complete.

Now, the organizers of both projects are meeting again to pursue grants from the $30 billion stimulus fund that President Obama and Congress set aside in February to create a national medical data system. Obama has called for an electronic health record for all by 2014... "It would be a natural fit for us to get the money and resume what we have started," said Dr. Bernd Wollschlaeger, a physician who is on the board of the South Florida Health Information Exchange, the group running a project in the Broward and Miami areas. "Why use the money to reinvent the wheel when that has already been done?"

Continuing reading here

Source: Bob LaMendola, South Florida leaders revive efforts to push for electronic medical records, angling for stimulus funds: New life for dormant projects aiming to reduce waste, medical errors, Sun Sentinel, Business and Financial News, (August 7, 2009)

Massachusetts helping to shape US efforts to digitize records

I forgot to blog about a recent article I read in the Boston Globe that emphasized why Massachusetts is in the fortunate position of being the country's electronic medical records focal point. According to Paul Egerman, Massachusetts is like the Silicone Valley of healthcare information technology.

Egerman went on to start one company, IDX Systems Corp., that was bought by General Electric for $1.2 billion, and another, eScription Inc., that was acquired by Nuance Communications Inc. last year for $363 million. He is now a volunteer adviser to David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health information technology - and a former Harvard professor and Mass. General physician.

Synopsis of why Massachusetts is so influential in healthcare IT and the Obama Administration's goals?

- More experience than any other state

- Massachusetts doctors and hospitals do more electronic prescribing - eliminating the need for handwritten scraps of paper - than their counterparts in any other state.

According to John Halamka, chief information officer at CareGroup Healthcare System, ``The average use of EMRs in the US is between 2 and 20 percent. In Massachusetts, we're somewhere between 30 and 50 percent, so we've had a fair degree of experience with what works and what doesn't work.''

- Massachusetts won influence because Harvard economist David Cutler was the primary architect of candidate Barack Obama's healthcare plan.

Girish Navani of eClinicalWorks was also quoted in that article.

EClinicalWorks software is already used by about 25,000 doctors, and the company brought in $100 million in revenue last year. The company is hiring about twice as quickly - roughly 200 people in 2009, mainly in areas like training and customer support - as it would be without the stimulus, according to Girish Navani, eClinicalWorks chief executive...``The big picture,'' says Navani, ``is truly transforming healthcare, rather than just spending a lot of money and not getting to our goal.''

I included the source of the article so that you can read it in depth. It's really a good article! (I say that about most of the articles I cite to because I only blog about the good ones!)

Source: Scott Kirsner, State helping to shape US efforts to digitize health records for all, The Boston Globe, Business Section, pg.1 (July 12, 2009 Sunday

Mayo Clinic as a model for health reform?

    I read a very interesting article by Peter Benesh on Pres. Obama's health reform plan. President Obama often points to the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., as one model for repairing the nation's health care. He's often cited stats showing that the Mayo Clinic spends 20% to 30% less on health care than other hospitals yet produces better patient outcomes. It could be the staffing model (MC hires doctors as salaried staff rather than independent, fee-for-service contractors)

    Remember, the Mayo Clinic is a not-for-profit hospital. Benesh suggests that using a not-for-profit hospital organization as a model for health care reform will draw plenty of attention as the debate intensifies over the next few months. I believe one of the important points of this article is that researchers found patient satisfaction across the country did not increase along with higher spending on care. Nor did outcomes improve with spending.

And you know I'll always have a reference to EMR:

Mayo's cost-saving program has several components. It aggregates care under one roof, with teams of medical professionals integrating their skills for each patient. It creates a single, electronic medical record for each patient for physicians to share so that everybody knows what everyone else is doing. Surgery, if required, can be performed within 24 hours.

In addition, patients can get all their appointments and tests completed in three to five days at the Mayo Clinic, without having to see doctors and take tests in different locations and wait for results.

And because doctors are salaried employees, they don't have to spend a lot of time on paperwork, back-office staff and associated overhead.

As always, I only pick articles I think my readers would find interesting, click here for the complete article.

Source: Peter Benesh, Obama Health Plan: Reform Might Be Heavy On The Mayo Famed Clinic Seen As Model Hospital Group Scores Well On Efficieny, But Is It The Right Prototype?, Investor's Business Daily, National Edition, Front Page News, pg. A01 (July 7, 2009)