Re: Walmart Health: Just had a great dental visit this morning, which was preceded by helpful reminders from Epic, and…
News 9/10/09
The American College of Physicians offers a new tool to doctors who want to transform their practice to a patient-centered medical home. The Web-based Practice Solutions’ Medical Home Builder will help guide practices through the changes and is available for individual physicians, groups, and academic medical centers. United Health Foundation and Pfizer provided the initial grant funding for the program.
Henry Ford Health Systems calculates a 36% reduction in all-cause hospital admissions for heart failure patients six months after implementing Tel-Assurance, a remote patient monitoring platform.
Christ Hospital (OH) implements EpicCare Ambulatory EMR at its 35-physician medical group and regional therapy centers. The hospital is also giving community physicians the opportunity to purchase the EMR and connect to the hospital’s system.
Rockingham Memorial Hospital (VA) selects NextGen to provide EHR and PM solutions across its ambulatory enterprise. The agreement includes NextGen’s EHR, enterprise practice management, image control, and community health solutions.
Allscripts names Seth Frank VP of investor relations. Look for Frank’s introduction September 29th when Allscripts announces its Q2 earnings.
A physician satisfaction survey concludes that 30% of doctors who earn $250K or more and significantly more satisfied with their careers than those making less money. Of course. Pediatricians represent the most satisfied specialty, which makes me an even bigger pediatrician fan. Fifteen percent of physicians were “very dissatisfied” with their career. I wonder how that dissatisfaction percentage compares to the population in general.
pMDsoft says its charge capture/appointment interface software is now working with over a dozen different practice management and hospital applications. They don’t charge extra for interfaces.
The Ohio Pain Clinic is now providing services virtually, offering such free online tools as videos and animations to teach therapy exercises. The one-doctor clinic also utilizes an internally developed, $1 million, pain-specific EMR that allows patients to access their records, make appointments, request refills, and communicate with staff. I have reached out to the doctor to see if he would be willing to share more details on his $1 million EMR project.
The 800-member Hartford PHO goes live on MedVentive’s clinical registries and point-of-care decision support platform. The MedVentive solution will allow the PHO to aggregate and share clinical data across its network.
Health informatics researchers develop a list of recommendations that may help doctors and hospitals prepare for expanded use of EHRs while also ensuring that EHRs are used safely and effectively. The commentary, entitled Eight rights of safe electronic health record use, appears in the September edition of JAMA. All the items listed make good sense, such as efficient hardware, tested product, good content, and a user-friendly interface. They correctly put at the top of the list that organizations must avoid “anything that slows or disrupts the clinician’s work.”
More consolidation in the medical transcription business — MD-IT acquires Superscript Transcription of Grand Rapids, MI and Pikes Peak Transco, Inc. of Colorado Springs, CO. Apparently one reason some of these smaller mom-and-pop services are selling to larger entities is because of concerns over more stringent HIPAA requirements going into effect February 2010.
Physician practice mergers also appear to be on the rise. To protect themselves from financially insecure times, more physician practices are agreeing to be bought by larger group practices and hospitals.
The AMA turns to Facebook to improve communications with patients and physicians. You, too, could become a fan of the American Medical Association by clicking here.
I see that eClinicalWorks is hosting its national user conference starting this weekend at the Venetian in Las Vegas. They are offering about 50 different session topics and most seem pretty substantive. I see the handsome John Halamka, MD is a keynote speaker (will he wear black?) ECW is expecting about 2,200 attendees, which is almost double the number they had at last year’s inaugural event. If you are attending, send us updates from the field. Heck, this sounds like such a solid event, maybe I’ll crash it.
Medflow, a company offering and EHR for the ophthalmology industry, plans to integrate Eyemaginations 3D-Eye home patient education into its EHR solution.
The AAFP offers a new resource tool designed to help providers qualify for PQRI bonuses. The PQRIwizard is an online registry that helps physicians track patient data and, as a by-product, create the reports required to qualify for 2009 incentives. Available to AAFP members for $199; typical bonuses are estimated to be between $600 and $2,000.
If you are a nephrologist and want to participate in the PQRI program and report quality outcomes, consider the recently approved Fresenius Medical Care CKD registry. This registry is supported by the Health IT Services Group through its nephrology-specific Acumen EHR.
The Center for Technology and Aging hopes a new $500,000 grants program will spur the development of technologies aimed at improving patient compliance with prescribed medication regimens.
