Great idea? Successful EHR integration boils down to three components:
Installation-Implementation-Transformation
Most companies do a good job to install and implement a system but hardly provide any service on how to use an EHR to reduce costs, maximize outcome and improve quality. Basic question: how do they help me to transform my practice to achieve ROI (Return on Investment) and utilize the collected data to improve my financial performance.
Walmart may sell the product but what's happening afterwards if you need individualized support?
Bernd
March 11, 2009
Wal-Mart Plans to Market Digital Health Records System
By STEVE LOHR
Wal-Mart Stores is striding into the market for electronic health records, seeking to bring the technology into the mainstream for physicians in small offices, where most of America’s doctors practice medicine.
Wal-Mart’s move comes as the Obama administration is trying to jump-start the adoption of digital medical records with $19 billion of incentives in the economic stimulus package.
The company plans to team its Sam’s Club division with Dell for computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for software. Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training will make the technology more accessible and affordable, undercutting rival health information technology suppliers by as much as half.
“We’re a high-volume, low-cost company,” said Marcus Osborne, senior director for health care business development at Wal-Mart. “And I would argue that mentality is sorely lacking in the health care industry.”
The Sam’s Club offering, to be made available this spring, will be under $25,000 for the first physician in a practice, and about $10,000 for each additional doctor. After the installation and training, continuing annual costs for maintenance and support will be $4,000 to $6,500 a year, the company estimates.
Wal-Mart says it had explored the opportunity in health information technology long before the presidential election. About 200,000 health care providers, mostly doctors, are among Sam Club’s 47 million members. And the company’s research showed the technology was becoming less costly and interest was rising among small physician practices, according to Todd Matherly, vice president for health and wellness at Sam’s Club.
The financial incentives in the administration plan — more than $40,000 per physician over a few years, to install and use electronic health records — could accelerate adoption. When used properly, most health experts agree, digital records can curb costs and improve care.
But many, especially physicians in small offices, doubt the wisdom of switching to electronic health records, given their cost and complexity.
Only about 17 percent of the nation’s physicians are using computerized patient records, according to a government-sponsored survey published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine. The use of electronic health records is widespread in large physician groups, but three-fourths of the nation’s doctors work in small practices of 10 physicians or fewer.
Wal-Mart, however, has the potential to bring not only lower costs but also an efficient distribution channel to cater to small physician groups. Traditional health technology suppliers, experts say, have tended to shun the small physician offices because it has been costly to sell to them. Taken together, they make up a large market, but they are scattered.
“If Wal-Mart is successful, this could be a game-changer,” observed Dr. David J. Brailer, former national coordinator for health information technology in the Bush administration.
In the package, Dell is offering either a desktop or a tablet personal computer. Many physicians prefer tablet PCs because they more closely resemble their familiar paper notepads and make for easier communication with the patient, since the doctor is not behind a desktop screen.
EClinicalWorks, which is used by 25,000 physicians, mostly in small practices, will provide the electronic record and practice management software, for billing and patient registration, as a service over the Internet. This “software as a service” model can trim costs considerably and make technical support and maintenance less complicated, because less software resides on the personal computer in a doctor’s office.
Dell will be responsible for installation of the computers, while eClinicalWorks will handle software installation, training and maintenance. Wal-Mart is using its buying power for discounts on both the hardware and software.
Wal-Mart’s role, according to Mr. Osborne, is to put the bundle of technology into an affordable and accessible offering. “We’re the systems integrator, an aggregator,” he said.
The company’s test bed for the technology it will soon offer physicians has been its own health care clinics, staffed by third-party physicians and nurses. Started in September 2006, 30 such clinics are now in stores in eight states. The clinics use the technology Wal-Mart will offer to physicians.
“That’s where the learning came from, and they were the kernel of this idea,” Mr. Osborne said.
Showing posts with label Medical Information Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medical Information Technology. Show all posts
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
EHR Implementation
Medical Information Technology
Your Monthly IT Guide since 1995!
EHR Or Not EHR: That’s Still A Question?
By Bernd Wollschlaeger,MD,FAAFP,FASAM
Many doctors are still debating passionately the merits of an Electronic Health Record (EHR). Some claim that the government has no right to mandate its use, others are suspicious that such systems provide government with the tool to peek into their practice and that “big brother” should stay out of their office.
The majority of doctors I have spoken with are mostly concerned about the costs of the switch from paper to electronic record system. With the average traditional EHR systems running about $50,000 per physician, not including monthly maintenance costs, many docs are hesitant to sign-off on such an expense, especially in those challenging economic times.
Furthermore, doctors have been fed horror stories of EHR implementation failures and the fact that thirty percent of medical practices that adopt a full-fledged EHR system deinstall it later!
It’s also of interest to consider the detrimental short term impact of the stimulus package upon adoption of Electronic Health Records systems. Some have attributed an almost Kafkaesque quality to stimulus package because it will probably serve as a speed bump to EHR adoption until the details of the act have been spelled out. Up until the passage of the stimulus package, adoption of EHR systems has been proceeding slowly but steadily. However, the vaguely defined promise of $17 billion in reimbursements for EHR if unknown criteria are met could result in gridlock among purchasers, i.e. doctors and hospitals, in the short term while they wait for finalization of the provisions of the stimulus package’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). At this point I can state with a high likelihood of certainty that our government will NOT provide financial support to doctors to purchase hard- and software but will incentivize their use. In plain English: you will get paid MORE for demonstrating and proving the “meaningful” use of an EHR system in your practice. This undefined description will likely deter healthcare organizations from rushing to purchase an EHR system.
Another speed bump of the HITECH Act pertains to the reimbursement modality which would only be provided if a certified EHR was implemented. However, the certification standard is to be developed by an office (ONCHIT) that has not been staffed yet, with a coordinator that has not been named yet and by the Secretary of HHS, who has just been appointed.
So what do I advise you to do?
1) Start preparing your practice for the switch toward an EHR. That requires thorough workflow assessment and the careful parsing of essential information out of your existing paper record. This will achieve two goals: a) that your future EHR will model your current workflow, b) that you can transfer the extracted patient information quickly into your new EHR system.
2) Do NOT focus on the big number ($50,000/per physician). This number pertains to the OLD legacy system on which most current EHR software is based. These systems require costly installation, maintenance, updates and can not be adjusted to your practice. Focus instead on the new technologies. The Web 2.0, or second generation of web development and design, aims to facilitate communication, secure information sharing, interoperability and collaboration on the Internet. Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of “Web 1.0” to provide the Internet as computing platform, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. These sites may have an architecture of participation that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This will dramatically cut costs to ~ $6000/year/physician.
3) The new Web 2.0 technologies offer interactive web-based software application with modular design components. For example, you can use an appointment scheduler, a patient registry and lab module to manage your information flow and allow patient to choose their doctors appointment whenever and whereever they want to do it. I am successfully applying such a module for > 2 years and my patients are loving it.
Jumping on the EHR bandwagon NOW gives you a competitive edge and allows use to benefit from the multitude of additional reimbursement opportunities including e-prescribing, quality of care reporting and chronic disease management.
Don’t way and be proactive. Change does not offer only financial opportunities but will provide greater job satisfaction.
We will help you along the way!
Disclosure: The author is a practicing family physician, addiction specialist and computer consultant. In addition, he is a founder and managing partner of a medical IT company.
Your Monthly IT Guide since 1995!
EHR Or Not EHR: That’s Still A Question?
By Bernd Wollschlaeger,MD,FAAFP,FASAM
Many doctors are still debating passionately the merits of an Electronic Health Record (EHR). Some claim that the government has no right to mandate its use, others are suspicious that such systems provide government with the tool to peek into their practice and that “big brother” should stay out of their office.
The majority of doctors I have spoken with are mostly concerned about the costs of the switch from paper to electronic record system. With the average traditional EHR systems running about $50,000 per physician, not including monthly maintenance costs, many docs are hesitant to sign-off on such an expense, especially in those challenging economic times.
Furthermore, doctors have been fed horror stories of EHR implementation failures and the fact that thirty percent of medical practices that adopt a full-fledged EHR system deinstall it later!
It’s also of interest to consider the detrimental short term impact of the stimulus package upon adoption of Electronic Health Records systems. Some have attributed an almost Kafkaesque quality to stimulus package because it will probably serve as a speed bump to EHR adoption until the details of the act have been spelled out. Up until the passage of the stimulus package, adoption of EHR systems has been proceeding slowly but steadily. However, the vaguely defined promise of $17 billion in reimbursements for EHR if unknown criteria are met could result in gridlock among purchasers, i.e. doctors and hospitals, in the short term while they wait for finalization of the provisions of the stimulus package’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). At this point I can state with a high likelihood of certainty that our government will NOT provide financial support to doctors to purchase hard- and software but will incentivize their use. In plain English: you will get paid MORE for demonstrating and proving the “meaningful” use of an EHR system in your practice. This undefined description will likely deter healthcare organizations from rushing to purchase an EHR system.
Another speed bump of the HITECH Act pertains to the reimbursement modality which would only be provided if a certified EHR was implemented. However, the certification standard is to be developed by an office (ONCHIT) that has not been staffed yet, with a coordinator that has not been named yet and by the Secretary of HHS, who has just been appointed.
So what do I advise you to do?
1) Start preparing your practice for the switch toward an EHR. That requires thorough workflow assessment and the careful parsing of essential information out of your existing paper record. This will achieve two goals: a) that your future EHR will model your current workflow, b) that you can transfer the extracted patient information quickly into your new EHR system.
2) Do NOT focus on the big number ($50,000/per physician). This number pertains to the OLD legacy system on which most current EHR software is based. These systems require costly installation, maintenance, updates and can not be adjusted to your practice. Focus instead on the new technologies. The Web 2.0, or second generation of web development and design, aims to facilitate communication, secure information sharing, interoperability and collaboration on the Internet. Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of “Web 1.0” to provide the Internet as computing platform, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. These sites may have an architecture of participation that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This will dramatically cut costs to ~ $6000/year/physician.
3) The new Web 2.0 technologies offer interactive web-based software application with modular design components. For example, you can use an appointment scheduler, a patient registry and lab module to manage your information flow and allow patient to choose their doctors appointment whenever and whereever they want to do it. I am successfully applying such a module for > 2 years and my patients are loving it.
Jumping on the EHR bandwagon NOW gives you a competitive edge and allows use to benefit from the multitude of additional reimbursement opportunities including e-prescribing, quality of care reporting and chronic disease management.
Don’t way and be proactive. Change does not offer only financial opportunities but will provide greater job satisfaction.
We will help you along the way!
Disclosure: The author is a practicing family physician, addiction specialist and computer consultant. In addition, he is a founder and managing partner of a medical IT company.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)