Tag: EHR

30Sep, 2015

Healthcare Transparency

By: Charity Darby | Tags: allowed charges, billed charges, EHR, EMR, Florida, Governor, healthcare transparency

This week Florida Governor Rick Scott made headlines on the issue of healthcare transparency. The article that triggered this blog was published by “The News Service of Florida” and included an audio report . The issue of price transparency in healthcare has been a particular obsession of mine since the early 1990s, as I parachuted into healthcare operations. Imagine an engineer and commercial contractor having to deal with the effective collection rate for medical services with a net ranging in the 33 percentile of billed charges. It took a while […]
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21Sep, 2015

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The future of patient engagement, and the end of EHR as we know it… by 2025.

By: Charity Darby | Tags: CMS, EHR, EMR, HHS, Interconnect, MU-2, ONC, platform

Recently we have read a multitude of papers on the failure of providers to connect with consumers, as they use their electronic healthcare records (EHR). There are reasons this is important. First, the quality of medical care, as we have discussed on these pages, doesn’t equate to more care is better care. Second, patients are demanding it. In an era when we have cars that drive themselves, the ability to open your car, turn on your engine and heat it with a remote, check if your front door is locked, […]
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3Sep, 2015

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One Implementation, Many Similar Stories

By: Charity Darby | Tags: Chief Information Officer, EHR, EMR, Health Information System, HIT, implementation, penalties

Over the last few weeks we have read media reports that New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, with about $5 billion (USD) in revenues and with over 30,000 employees, covering 11 hospitals, is having problems implementing a new health information system. I take zero pleasure in reporting this as I have been there on a more micro scale, and I expect to be there again. This “epic” issue is of note. Some of the facts, as I think I have them, are that this is a huge project. We […]
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28Aug, 2015

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New Study Casts Serious Doubts on Efforts to Accelerate EHR Adoption

By: Charity Darby | Tags: ACA, EHR, EMR, HITECH ACT, Medicare and Medicaid

For years, and under two different Presidents, the U.S. government has been pushing, enticing and inducing the medical community to adopt Electronic Health Records (EHR). One of the unanswered questions from a U.S. Government perspective is, “What difference does it make?” A recent report from a research collaborative study from faculty at University of Alabama – Birmingham, Indiana University and Johns Hopkins University asks the dark question; “has it all been worth it?” The private report indicates that it is very possible that “the electronic health records meaningful use program […]
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21Aug, 2015

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Physicians are not the only ones looking to replace EHRs…

By: Charity Darby | Tags: EHR, EMR, informatics, MU-1, MU-2

In addition to physicians’ looking to replace their EHR system, so are community hospitals! Recently, I read a report that highlighted small medical practices are not the only ones with anxiety over technology in healthcare. It seems that more than “half of all community hospitals” in the U.S. are unhappy their current EHR system. Further, the report also notes a survey of over 250 hospitals, or about 5% of all the total hospitals in the U.S., nearly 20% of the respondents are “actively looking” to replace their current EHR vendor. […]
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13Aug, 2015

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Patients and Doctors, the Paradox

By: Charity Darby | Tags: COPD, cost, Diabetic, Doctors, EHR, EMR, medical data, Medical Director, patients, PWeR, Wellness, WSJ

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) caused me to push my other blogs to the back burner. The article resonated so strongly with me as it reminded me of my experience trying to help my father manage his healthcare. He passed at the age of 74 just five years ago. The WSJ article titled, “When Patients Manage Doctors” had the subtitle of, “People with multiple chronic conditions often must take charge of managing their own care.” The article had some great statistics and some good, basic advice; […]
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6Aug, 2015

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U.S. Healthcare Cost Back on Up Swing… on way to $5.4 Trillion (USD)

By: Charity Darby | Tags: ACA, CMS, EHR, EMR, GDP, Inflation, insurance, Mandates, Medicaid, Medicare, Regulations, Spending, U.S. Healthcare, Wellness

Since 2009 healthcare cost appeared to be changing their mid-range trend line. Some, including the President of the United States, have tried to connect that “drop” in the cost of healthcare to the passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA and sometime referred to as “ObamaCare”); however, most know that ACA did literally nothing to control cost, or did very little to reform how we pay for healthcare. In fact, some could say, and I have said that the ACA will actually add to long-term healthcare cost, and […]
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8Jul, 2015

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The King v. Burwell Decision

By: Charity Darby | Tags: 21st Century, ACA, Congress and President, EHR, King v. Burwell, National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) v. Sebelius, SCOTUS

I would not be the student of healthcare if I didn’t comment on the second most historic decision of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010. I will admit, I was not that surprised by the King v. Burwell decision as I was the decision prior, National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) v. Sebelius1. In my personal opinion, that was the big case where the majority effectively determined that the “penalty” was not a penalty but rather a “tax,” and under the […]
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15Jun, 2015

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Final Rules for ACOs-Act 2

By: Charity Darby | Tags: ACO, benchmarking, CMS, EHR, EMR, HHS, U.S Department of Health and Human Services

Today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the Final Rule for The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) on the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) in an effort to encourage more participation of accountable care organizations (ACOs) in risk-based models. The CMS press release noted: The final rule issued today improves the program over the proposed rule in a number of areas, including but not limited to: • Creates a new Track 3, based on some of the successful features of the Pioneer ACO Model, which […]
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29May, 2015

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“EMR 1.0” ?

By: Charity Darby | Tags: EHR, EMR, EMR 1.0, HIT, mobile devices, tablets

Part One Recently USA Today published an article on electronic health records & electronic medical records (EHRs/EMRs ). The article mentioned that the U.S. government is relaxing some of the tougher rules and requirements for hospitals using EHRs/EMRs. What grabbed my attention first was the mention of “The problem is we’re in the EHR 1.0 stage. They’re not good yet.” I will add more comments later however, their admission that EHR 1.0 was at a very, very early stage in the overall development. Let’s take a few steps back to […]
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