Healthcare IT Update

Question: For demonstration purposes in a sales context, if a picture or video of a patient were used with no identifying information, would this violate Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)?

Answer: A photo is an identifier, explains Kristen Rosati, a partner at Coppersmith Gordon Schermer Owens & Nelson. Why? Read on … (more…)

Where did all the nurses go? Chances are they’re buried in redundant paperwork.

Time and time again, we hear about a nursing shortage that worsens as our population ages and needs more health care. But a new study suggests that electronic medical record solutions and other HIT solutions could help existing nurses make more of the time they’ve got.

Nurses spend a quarter of their working hours away from a patient’s bedside, and more on attending to indirect patient care such as paperworks, logistics and operations, according to a new study from Atlanta-based Jackson Healthcare.

Jackson Healthcare, StatCom, and Travel Nurse Solutions surveyed 2,439 nurses, nursing managers and chief nursing officers (CNO) across the US, focusing on the 1,663 who work in hospital settings. (more…)

While 2015 and its promise of loads of cash for providers who adopt EHR technology seems right around the corner, a close look at providers’ IT capabilities reveals how far they have to go in order to be prepared for the high demands EHR will place on their systems.

The “rush to deploy EHRs could lead to administrative complications, formatting problems, errors and interoperability glitches,” according to a recent BusinessWeek series that examines some of the technical issues accompanying the rollout of EHR in providers’ offices across the country.

As of last year, only 10% of U.S. health care facilities were using EHRs, according to the article, but the feds want half of them on board by 2014. If you’re aiming to be in that first half, read on to learn about some of the hurdles you’ll need to overcome …

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Feel like you’re babe in the woods when it comes to EMR? Here’s a quick-start guide for small providers.

Thinking about scrapping your paper documentation and plugging into electronic patient records? You’ve got a lot of things to consider. Our Rehab Report editor talked to the experts about EMR questions that PTs, OTs and SLPs should ask before they buy EMR systems, and a lot of the advice we got applies to other small providers as well.

Integrating new electronic medical record (EMR) or documentation software is a critical step into the future, experts contend — yet it’s not a walk in the park. Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to upgrade your current system, get the straight-up facts of what to expect and how to survive the process.

Get Started on the Right Foot

The minute you decide to move forward with an EMR system, take time to figure out your needs, what you have to work with, and your future plans. “It’s not a cookie-cutter process,” says  Francine Wheelock, PT, MPA, manager of clinical systems for MaineGeneral Health, who suggests first considering the following:

• What are your documentation/record-keeping needs?
• What are your networking capabilities? Are you wireless? (more…)

Healthcare providers that are eager to get in on CMS’s electronic health record (EHR) incentive program are one step closer to finding out which systems are government-approved.

Many providers have been holding off on buying an EHR system since the government hasn’t certified any to be acceptable for the EHR program yet. Only certified EHRs will qualify for the potential $44,000-per-EP incentive (which will be paid over a five-year period to those who participate for the full five years).

However, a March 2 message from David Blumenthal, MD, the national coordinator for health information technology, lays out the proposed rule for establishing such certification programs.

You can read about the proposal and submit comments via this Web site.

Warning: Your physicians are strumming your compliance pain with their file-sharing fingers.

If HIPAA compliance is your business, you’ll want to note a new study pointing toward a disturbing trend: doctors risking patient’s personal health information (PHI) through file-sharing — typically without even knowing about it.

The study, conducted among U.S. IP addresses containing PHI and using file-sharing features, found that “search terms used in these file-sharing networks showed that a small percentage of the terms would return PHI … files.”

This “small percentage” actually translate into thousands of U.S. computers, meaning PHI is out there for the plucking if physicians aren’t careful.

“There are people successfully searching for … PHI on the peer-to-peer file-sharing networks,” according to the JAMIA study, “The inadvertent disclosure of personal health information through peer-to-peer file sharing program.”

Some Features Difficult to Undo

JAMIA divides its study into file-sharing features that can lead to PHI exposure via downloaded and existing files. Here are some of the most common  “features which encourage inadvertent sharing,” according to the study: (more…)

The feds are having providers race pell-mell to implement electronic health records, so it’s nice that they’re stopping to consider how much federal health care program beneficiaries will actually use the new tools themselves.

During 12 weeks next fall, the Department of Health and Human Services will  survey a group of 500 Medicare beneficiaries for feedback on the PHR systems they’ll be using during that time, according to an announcement published in the Government Health IT site. Since last year, Medicare fee-for-service patients in Arizona and Utah have pilot-tested personal health record (PHR) tools that are supposed to help them track their health. The tools are available via GoogleHealth, NoMoreClipboard, PassportMD and HealthTrio.

HHS, together with CMS, want to know more about “why consumers, and specifically Medicare beneficiaries, elect to use PHRs and what functionality they want from a PHR,” the announcement adds.

Could EHRs save billing offices time and money as they chase insurance payments?

Five national health insurance plans along with the two largest plan industry groups announced last month that they will be launching a groundbreaking initiative in New Jersey to cut insurance paperwork for physicians’ offices.

If successful, the initiative will be one of the first experiments in electronic health record adoption to cut down on what providers say is the biggest time and money drain on their practices — chasing insurance money.

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Don’t miss out on this EP list, plus the latest HIT lingo from CMS

You should know … (more…)

Surprise! Stuff on a middle manager’s laptop is more valuable than stuff on a CEO’s.

Yet another health care company made the news recently with a stolen laptop: A local Florida paper reported on Feb. 15, 2010 that two laptops stolen from AvMed Health Plans’ corporate office in Gainesville, FL contained personal information — including PHI — of over 200,000 people.

Studies show that security breach incidents are costing companies — including health care providers and plans – more and more money, as well as customers.

In the AvMed case, the data was not protected properly, according to a statement by AvMed, which began notifying affected patients in early February of the breach, which occurred in late December. (more…)