Six Critical Imperatives for Progress in Healthcare

In 2015, healthcare spending eclipsed $3.2 trillion, which is 18% of the nation’s gross domestic product. CMS projects healthcare spending to reach $4.3 trillion by 2020 (18.5 percent of GDP) and $5.4 trillion by 2024 (19.6 percent of GDP). Healthcare costs are rising exponentially, putting the pinch on patients and providers alike. Every dollar spent on healthcare is a dollar that cannot be spent on a critical competing need both at the micro and macro levels of the economy. Knowing this, we must ask: is the best possible care being provided to patients? Is the care effective in reaching its goal?

Fred Bazzoli of Health Data Management, in his article “HIT Think: A Moon Shot for Healthcare: 6 Critical Imperatives,” proposes essential components that would give healthcare a chance to reach the ultimate goals that it needs to achieve. 

Six Critical Imperatives:

1. Achieve interoperability: Patient information must be easily, seamlessly and automatically exchanged between any and all information systems. A patient's data ought to be accessible in full by clinicians and presented in a way that is comprehensive and easily understandable. 
2. Develop usable, intuitive, and all-inclusive electronic health records systems: Caregivers should be able to use different EHR systems without having to labor at using them. In addition, records systems need to support all of a patient’s information, structured and unstructured, and also should support analytics efforts by clinicians and researchers.
3. Solve caregivers' technology frustrations: Technology needs to make the lives of caregivers easier, not increase burdens. Technology needs to solve caregivers' problems, facilitate care, increase efficiency and make caregivers’ lives better, resolving enough of their pain points to encourage them to stick with their roles as the industry reinvents itself and not leave the profession.
4. Maximize industry coordination and cooperation: Every caregiver must have all available information on a patient, and everyone can work together to wring out as much unnecessary cost as possible from the system. Data sharing between IT systems will play a crucial role in achieving this.
5. Reduce administrative expenses to the bare minimum: Estimates of administrative expenses in healthcare traditionally have ranged from 20 to 25 percent of all industry expenditures. At the low end, that would mean $600 billion is spent on healthcare that’s not directly related to care delivery. Much of that money needs to be reallocated to areas such as clinical and operational research.
6. Focus resources on deeply involving consumers in their health: Patients need to understand the importance of paying attention to self-care, whether that means taking on healthy habits, avoiding habits that are destructive and following care regimens. A restructured healthcare system needs to demonstrate it cares about patient health as much, if not more, than treating sick patients.

As the industry enters a period of uncertainty about the direction of health policy, it must get serious about improving care and cutting costs. IT can help, but the will must be there to use it.

Has the incorporation of technology in your organization's daily procedure helped or hindered effectiveness and efficiency? Do you have any suggestions for how to better integrate technology in practice? Let us know your thoughts and concerns in the comments below.

CMS State Innovation Models Grants Awarded

The HHS announced Tuesday that a significant portion of the $665 million in available grants was awarded to health IT programs.The District of Columbia, 28 states, and three territories received grant money to fund local experiments in improving health care. The money is the second round of grants coming from CMS's State Innovation Models initiative. A breakdown of the awarded grants can be found at the initiative website. 

Politico reports that the selected health IT projects largely focus on improving data in electronic health records and systems. Part of the $100 million New York will receive will go toward better health IT, "including greatly enhanced capacities to exchange clinical data and an all-payer database." Overall, the state is looking to create a stronger, more integrated primary care workforce and delivery system. Colorado will receive up to $65 million over four years to integrate physical and behavioral health care in primary care and community mental health center. Part of the money will expand IT efforts including telehealth. The money will also assist in integrating public health, behavioral health and primary care sectors. Data analytics is a factor in the plans for Michigan and Iowa.

IATRIC SYSTEMS ANNOUNCES "EHR-NEUTRAL" SOLUTION FOR APPLE HEALTH

Politico reports that health IT company Iatric Systems, Inc. has announced its integration with Apple Health to pull patient data into HealthKit and present it from inpatient, ambulatory and patient-generated sources. The "EHR-neutral" approach will link data from records, physician practices and other health IT software, according to an announcement from Iatric. Iatric envisions that patients will help hospitals with meaningful use requirements--especially view, download and transmit.

Two hospitals are currently using Iatric for integration with Apple Health - Michigan's Memorial Healthcare and King's Daughters Medical Center in Mississippi. "We envision our patients using Apple Health easily because for many, the iPhone is already a main part of their lives, said Frank Fear, CIO at Memorial Healthcare, in the announcement. "We could have integrated Apple Health within a portal from our EHR vendor or ambulatory system vendor, but data from disparate systems sits in silos. Iatric Systems was a natural fit because their portal integrates across all of our systems, giving us one tool for capturing and sending data to patients, and eventually, receiving data back from them."

For more information visit Politico here. 

ICD-10 Transition Date Finalized for October 2015

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced last week that the final deadline to comply with the ICD-10 implementation requirement is October 1, 2015. The tenth edition of the International Classification of Diseases is widely viewed as a significant change in the way claims that are submitted to Medicare and private insurance payers are classified. 

These changes enable providers to coordinate patients care over distance and time, improve the accuracy of patient records with more detailed patient history coding, and reduce fraudulent claims. CMS also believes that the ICD-10's granular classifications will improve the data and analytics related to public health research, surveillance, and reporting. The more specific classifications found in ICD-10 represent, in part, the evolution of diagnosis and the modern developments in medicine and medical technology used to treat patients. 

CMS released an online resource designed to help providers in small practices make a timely transition to ICD-10. The "Road to 10" is an online resource available here. The  Road to 10 breaks allows providers to select a profile based on their expertise that is specifically tailored to each speciality's common codes, clinical documentation procedures, and clinical scenarios. Additionally, the Road to 10 gives users the opportunity to create an ICD implementation action plan specifically suited to the needs of their small practices. 

Patient Identification and Matching Report Released by ONC

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released the final version of the Patient Identification and Matching Report. The report evaluated best practices and current trends in using electronic health record systems to accurately identify patients and exchange information between providers, patients, and caregivers. Mistakes in properly identifying patient health records put patient safety at risk and has resulted in too many patient deaths. 

The drafting process for the report included an industry environmental scan with input from stakeholders at meetings, on calls, and requests for submitted comments and recommendations. NAHAM was an active participant throughout the drafting process and provided recommendations focused on improving patient safety that are featured in the report. NAHAM's recommendations can be found on page 76 of the report. 

The report resulted in 10 findings that ONC will use as they move forward with the process of improving electronic health record systems and patient matching to improve patient safety.The findings are below.

Findings

1. Standardized patient identifying attributes should be required in the relevant exchange transactions. 

2. Any changes to patient data attributes in exchange transactions should be coordinated with organizations working on parallel efforts to standardize healthcare transactions. 

3. Certification criteria should be introduced that require certified EHR technology (CEHRT) to capture the data attributes that would be required in the standardized patient identifying attributes.

4. The ability of additional, non-traditional data attributes to improve patient matching should be studied. 

5. Certification criteria should not be created for patient matching algorithms or require organizations to utilize a specific type of algorithm. 

6. Certification criteria that requires CEHRT that performs patient matching to demonstrate the ability to generate and provide to end users reports that detail potential duplicate patient records should be considered. 

7. Build on the initial best practices that emerged during the environmental scan by convening industry stakeholders to consider a more formal structure for establishing best practices for the matching process and data governance. 

8. Work with the industry to develop best practices and policies to encourage consumers to keep their information current and accurate. 

9. Work with healthcare professional associations and the Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience (SAFER) Guide initiative to develop and disseminate education and training materials detail best practices for accurately capturing and consistently verifying patient data attributes. 

10. Continue collaborating with federal agencies and the industry on improving patient identification and matching processes. 

Healthcare Enrollment May Be Stifled By Federal Website Maintenance

Consumers attempting to complete health insurance applications through online healthcare exchanges before the February 15th deadline may be frustrated this weekend. February 15 is the deadline to apply for coverage that will begin on March 1. 

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Monday that heavy maintenance to the Social Security Administration's website (SS) will result in the inability of HealthCare.gov to verify Social Security numbers and other personal details required for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. 

The maintenance is expected to begin Saturday, February 15 at 3p.m. and end Tuesday, February 18 at 5a.m. Those consumers that are affected by the website maintenance should phone the federal call center on Tuesday to arrange for coverage March 1. The number to the federal call center is 1-800-318-2596.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Begins Open Payments Data Collection This Month

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) announced last week the agency is taking the first steps toward publishing data collected from healthcare providers on payments from drug and device manufacturers and group purchasing organizations. CMS is referring to the data collection initiative as the Open Payments program. 

The Open Payments program is a result of the enactment of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. The program was enacted to increase transparency in the healthcare industry and provide the public with awareness about the financial relationships between drug and device manufacturers, group purchasing organizations and their healthcare providers. The goal is to allow patients to make informed choices when selecting a healthcare provider and in treatment decisions.

Data collection will begin February 18, 2014.  Organizations will submit data to the CMS on payments made to healthcare providers. CMS states that payments includes gifts, consulting fees and research activities. The second phase will begin in May 2014 when manufacturers submit detailed payment information. 

Healthcare providers and manufacturers will have the chance to review and correct inaccuracies in the data after both phases of collection have been completed. Following the review process CMS will post the data on payments to their website. CMS will post this data by September 30, 2014. 

Congressional Gridlock Stalls Hopes for National Patient Identifier and Meaningful Use Stage 2 Delay

Many in the health IT field believe that implementing a national patient identifier and a deadline extension for stage 2 meaningful use requirements would ensure a more cohesive operation of patient access and identification systems and increase patient safety.  Both of these problems require congressional action to solve, but with a Congress that fails to pass even the most basic pieces of legislation and appropriations it is unlikely there will be any legislation addressing these issues in the year to come.

National Patient Identifier

A national patient identifier would go far to improve patient safety by improving the accuracy with which patients are matched with their medical records.  Ideally, a national patient identifier would be a unique number for each patient with a two-digit checksum at the end of the number. In practice this would allow a patient’s data to move completely through multiple data systems without comingling with other patients’ records that may contain similar names, addresses and other identifying factors.

However, the likelihood of legislation requiring a national patient identifier is very slim after Congress voted to overturn a HIPAA provision that would have required a patient identifier in 1998. Congressional opposition focused on privacy concerns and the capability providers have to identify patients with several different identifying factors. Former national health IT coordinator Farzad Mostashari, M.D., explained that he believed the odds were very low for a national patient identifier and that it would require the industry proving they are unable to keep patients straight by cross-checking a patient’s identity with other identifying factors available to the provider.

Meaningful Use Incentive Program

The electronic health records meaningful use incentive program was created to advance the adoption of health information technology nationwide. Beginning in 2014 eligible hospitals and professionals will have to comply with stage 2 of the regulatory standards in order to receive corresponding incentive payments. 

Senator Alexander and Senator Thune, along with 15 other Senators, wrote a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting more time for implementation of stage 2 standards. Their letter stated, “If the goal is to improve care by achieving broad and meaningful utilization of EHRs, providing sufficient time to ensure a safe, orderly transition through Stage 2 is critical to having stakeholder buy-in, a necessary component of long-term success.

However, former national health IT coordinator Farzad Mostashari, M.D., does not think that this extension will be granted.  Without speaking to the merit of the request, Mostashari recently told a group gathered at the CHIME Fall Forum that the extension would take up to a year to approve, and the extension requested is a year. The overlap would through U.S. health IT into “total chaos” due to the uncertainty during the rulemaking process to amend the schedule.

 Resources

Don Fluckinger’s article, “Shut down thoughts of a national patient identifier,stage 2 extension,” 

A podcast discussing the benefits of a national patient identifier can be found here. 

Alexander-Thune Letter from 17 Senators to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting a meaningful use stage 2 delay can be found here. 

Health "Datapalooza" Announced

As part of the HHS Health Data Initiative, The Health Datapalooza will be held this year on June 5th and 6th in Washington, DC. This event is being put on by the Health Data Consortium, a group of organizations that joined together with the aims of promoting new data, making existing data more accessible by consumers and developers, and encouraging the development of products and services that improve health and health care. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a member of the Consortium.

More information on this event, including how to register to attend or submit an application to present, can be found at hdiforum.org.

The CMS Innovation Center is helping plan one session of this two-day event. An ACO “deep dive” will demonstrate how Accountable Care Organizations can make effective use of claims data through innovative software services and analytics. Surgeon and author Atul Gwande will be leading a discussion between the audience and a diverse set of stakeholders from data analysts to a number of the Pioneer ACOs.

From hdiforum.org:

HDI Forum III: The Health Datapalooza promises to bring together a diverse group of data experts, technology developers, entrepreneurs, policy makers, health care system leaders, CIOs, CTOs, and community advocates to support innovative applications of health and health care data.

The Forum will feature keynote addresses, an Apps Expo, demonstrations of new, cutting-edge apps, and thought-provoking panel discussions. There will also be plenty of time for networking and one-on-one interaction.

Source: CMS News Release

National Community Health Center Partnership Forms to Improve Health IT Services

Recognizing the need for trusted resources with relevant experience to help safety-net providers manage increasing demands for quality, cost, and outcome data, as well as navigate a complex and ever changing HIT marketplace, The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), in partnership with three Health Center Controlled Networks (HCCNs) - Health Choice Network of Florida, OCHIN of Oregon, and the Alliance of Chicago, announced the launch of THQLink (connecting Technology, Health, and Quality).

THQLink aims to harness decades of investment in Community Health Center specific expertise, resources, and thought leadership under one organization to strengthen our nation’s Community Health Centers and other safety-net providers by leveraging technology to advance quality in healthcare.

“We didn’t want to recreate the wheel. This is about bringing together the thought leaders in the field with their proven track records and expertise to quickly implement what works so that Community Health Centers can be well positioned for the future,” said Tom Van Coverden, President and CEO of NACHC.

The three founding HCCNs came together with NACHC as the culmination of a joint strategic planning process. These primary partners built THQLink as an infrastructure that will allow the three Networks, along with other safety-net participants, to share resources to carry out three aims:
1) Achieve greater value for Community Health Centers as they improve quality and cost effectiveness of care delivery by jointly deploying state of the art information technology.
2) Promote high quality resources specializing in the safety-net to support efficient and effective use of Health Information Technology to improve quality and achieve Patient Centered Medical Home recognition.
3) Develop and implement a robust data aggregation and analytics platform to measure outcomes, share best practices and improve population health.

Health Choice Network, Alliance of Chicago, and OCHIN currently serve approximately 12% of all Federally Qualified Health Centers in 27 states. As the electronic health record (EHR) market matures, achieving economies of scale and attracting and maintaining skilled workers who know health centers requires Health Center Controlled Networks (HCCNs), Primary Care Associations (PCAs), and Regional Extension Centers (RECs) to work closer together than ever before. In this spirit, and as part of the arrangement, all three organizations have agreed to deploy a consolidated aggregation and analytics system powered by Microsoft Amalga, an enterprise health intelligence platform.

“Health Choice Network is breaking new ground in using Amalga to combine clinical and educational data to improve care processes in South Florida,” said Nate McLemore, general manager, Microsoft Health Solutions Group. “We’re excited to build on that foundation and collaborate with THQLink and community health centers nationwide to implement the Amalga platform and applications in support of population health initiatives across the country.”

For more information about THQLink, please click here.

Source: NACHC News Release

HHS Sponsors Contest for Web App to Identify Local Health Trends

Federal officials are challenging developers to design Web-based applications that use Twitter to track health trends in real time. Health officials may be able to use knowledge of these trends as an early indicator of emerging health issues and a warning of public health emergencies in a community.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) issued the challenge, a developers’ contest called Now Trending - #Health in My Community. The online challenge runs through June 1, 2012.
Social media trends can be powerful indicators of community health issues. However, current Web-based apps look backward, collating social media data to show how trends developed. The ASPR challenge would create a Web-based app to use social media data as an advance signal of a public health emergency.

“When we looked back at the H1N1 pandemic, we saw that, in some cases, social media trends provided the first clues to flu outbreaks,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, assistant secretary for preparedness and response and a rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service. “Based on that 2009 pandemic experience, local health officials asked for our help in developing a Web-based tool that could make social media monitoring useful as part of the surveillance systems in place now to identify new diseases early.”

With early identification, health officials can respond quickly, including advising people how to protect their health and minimize the spread of the disease. Minimizing the spread of disease could help the community bounce back quickly from an outbreak or a public health emergency – or potentially prevent a public health emergency, such as a pandemic, from occurring.

To win the challenge, the application must be innovative, scalable, dynamic, and user-friendly. The app must use open-source Twitter data to deliver a list automatically of the top five trending illnesses over a 24-hour period in a specified geographic region. The application must be able to send the data to state and local health agencies. These agencies, in turn, can cross-reference the data with traditional biosurveillance systems, build a baseline of trends, determine emerging public health threats, and advise the public on how to protect their health.

The person or team developing the best application will receive $21,000 from ASPR as well as a $1,000 travel stipend to attend an event announcing the winner. In addition, the winner will be invited to present the winning tool at a Fusion Forum, a discussion series sponsored by ASPR’s Fusion Cell for state and local health officials to help identify pioneering ways to move from open source information into use as a public health response. The winning application will be made available to state, territorial, tribal and local health agencies across the nation for use in their communities.

To register to participate in the Now Trending - #Health in My Community Developer Challenge, visit http://challenge.gov/HHS/334-now-trending-health-in-my-community. Upon submission participants must warrant that they are the sole authors and owners of the final product.

ASPR’s Fusion Cell manages the large volumes of disparate internal and external data sources necessary for situational awareness, rapid decision support, and ultimately the discovery of new indicators and warnings of events of public health significance. This ensures that decisionmakers are better informed, better prepared, and better able to rapidly respond to protect people’s health during emergencies and save lives.

Visit www.phe.gov to learn more about ASPR, its Fusion Cell and other aspects public health and medical emergency preparedness, response, and recovery.

Source: HHS News Release

Study: Health IT May Not Save Costs

Research recently published in the Journal of Health Affairs concludes that giving physicians electronic access to patient's health information does not deter them from ordering tests, and in fact, may encourage doctors to order even more tests.

The study, Giving Office-Based Physicians Electronic Access To Patients’ Prior Imaging And Lab Results Did Not Deter Ordering Of Tests, was led by Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor of Medicine Danny McCormick, MD.

“Our research raises real concerns about whether health information technology is going to be the answer to reducing costs,” Dr. McCormick told the New York Times.

Source: New York Times article

More Than 70 Percent of Attested EHRs are Dually Certified by CCHIT

More than two-thirds (71 percent) of the complete electronic health records (EHRs) of providers and hospitals that have successfully attested to federal meaningful use criteria and qualified for incentives through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) are dually certified under both the ONC-ATCB and the CCHIT Certified® programs of the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, says a news release from CCHIT. According to the latest figures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), approximately 22,000 eligible providers and hospitals with complete EHRs have successfully attested.

“These early adopters have the advantage of complete EHRs that not only meet the meaningful use requirements established by the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT (ONC), but also have been tested against the more rigorous clinical scenarios for functionality, interoperability and safety required by the independent CCHIT Certified program,” said Karen M. Bell, MD, chair, CCHIT. “It’s no surprise that the vast majority of physicians and other providers are choosing tried and true CCHIT Certified products that have been proven over the years to support their unique business and patient care needs.”

CCHIT continues to certify EHR products in both programs. Some health IT companies previously certified by CCHIT in the ONC-ATCB program are now returning to become CCHIT Certified. The CCHIT Certified program includes both “core” and “optional” certifications. Currently, optional, add-on certifications for specialty care or special patient populations include behavioral health, cardiovascular medicine, child health, dermatology, clinical research, oncology and women’s health.

“Moving forward, CCHIT will continue to review and upgrade its independently developed, comprehensive programs to ensure that EHR certification keeps pace with advances in the field, and meets the various information technology needs of health care providers in the future,” Bell said.

A letter from Dr. Bell with a deeper analysis of these results as they pertain to office-based providers is available at CCHIT’s blog EHR Decisions.

Source: CCHIT News Release

NeHC CEO Discusses National HIE Evolution

National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) CEO Kate Berry was recently interviewed by FierceEMR about her views on the changing national HIE landscape. The article, written by contributing editor Marla Durben Hirsch, provided a summary of the recent NeHC University roundtable Implications of a Shifting National HIE Architecture and shared Berry's views the topic.

Click here to read the article.

Source: NeHC News Release

New Report Calls for Enhanced Security to Safeguard Protected Health Information

A new report, The Financial Impact of Breached Protected Health Information: A Business Case for Enhanced PHI Security, provides health care organizations with a new method to evaluate the “at risk” value of protected health information (PHI) that will enable them to make a business case for appropriate investments to better protect PHI.

This report was created through the “PHI Project” – a collaboration of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), via its Identity Theft Prevention and Identity Management Standards Panel (IDSP), in partnership with The Santa Fe Group/Shared Assessments Program Healthcare Working Group, and the Internet Security Alliance (ISA) – that involved a cross-section of more than 100 health care industry leaders from over 70 organizations.

Representatives from Utica College and the Center for Identity Management and Information Protection (CIMIP) traveled to Washington to take part in a congressional briefing to unveil the Protected Health Information (PHI) Project report.

The survey responses revealed that the majority of participants want to comply and secure PHI, but they believe that budgetary constraints and the lack of executive commitment, leadership, and accountability, as well as the evolving nature of threats and the technologies available to protect PHI, combine to make real protection of health information extremely challenging.

Seventy-five percent believed their organization possesses effective policies to protect PHI and takes effective steps to protect PHI. But almost 40% did not believe that their organizational management views privacy and security as a priority, and 54% did not feel that their organization possesses sufficient resources to ensure protection requirements are currently being effectively protected. When asked about the complexity of the laws and the ease of compliance, only 12% felt the laws were “easy to understand” and only 14% thought the laws were “not difficult at all” to comply with. When asked to identify the most significant impediments their organization faces to achieving a strong privacy and data security posture with respect to how PHI is collected, used, and retained the most common impediment was seen as “lack of funding”(59%) and followed by insufficient time, lack of senior executive support,” and lack of accountability and leadership.”

Responses showed that more than 85.3 % of participants stated that the accidental or inadvertent exposure from an insider was the “most likely” or “very likely” threat to protected data. More than 50 % believed that some type of security threat was likely adversely affecting their organizations now.

The report is available for free download at webstore.ansi.org/phi.

Source: ANSI News Release

Walgreens Uses e-Delivery of Patient Info to Physicians

Walgreens announced that it will use Surescripts’ Clinical Interoperability services to electronically deliver patient data directly to primary care providers to improve the coordination of care. In the coming months, all of the 7,800 Walgreens and Duane Reade pharmacies and 350 Take Care Clinics nationwide will use the Surescripts network to deliver immunization records to the patient’s primary care provider. Later this year, Walgreens will also use the Surescripts network to provide immunization reporting to state and local public health agencies, and Take Care Clinic patient summaries to the patient’s primary care provider.

A recent survey of 400 physicians by Surescripts illustrated the challenge of compiling more complete medical records: 39 percent responded that they are frequently missing immunization records during patient visits; 35 percent are often missing patient summaries.

Source: Walgreens News Release

ONC Requests Input on Safeguarding Health Info on Mobile Devices

The ONC Office of the Chief Privacy Officer (OCPO), along with the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), invites members of the public to provide input on mobile devices' uses and the current and emerging privacy and security best practices regarding protecting and securing health information while using mobile devices.

In conjunction with the input gathered during the Mobile Devices Roundtable: Safeguarding Health Information event, public input will help inform the development of an effective and practical way to bring awareness and understanding to those in the clinical sector regarding protecting and securing health information while using mobile devices.

ONC is seeking your input. The public comment period will remain open until Friday, March 30, 2012.

For more information, please click here.

Source: ONC News Release

NeHC Releases 2012 Stakeholder Survey Results

National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) released the results of the 2012 NeHC Stakeholder Survey, featuring responses related to health information exchange, consumer engagement and other NeHC programs. NeHC previewed the results at HIMSS12 during its stakeholder meet-up and other strategic meetings.

Coming on the heels of the release of the proposed rule for meaningful use Stage 2, survey results provide insights into perceptions of stakeholders related to barriers to health information exchange (HIE) and the importance of consumer engagement to transforming healthcare, which relate to some of the core measures that physicians and hospitals must meet in order to be eligible for Stage 2 meaningful use incentives. Stakeholders believe that the most important benefits of HIE include care coordination, ensuring that patients and providers have the right information available when needed to support patient care, and improving quality and efficiency. In addition, stakeholders believe that consumer engagement will be very important or important to transforming healthcare and achieving better outcomes.

“It is both interesting and enlightening to understand what stakeholders are thinking related to core strategic priorities for NeHC including education, HIE, and consumer engagement,” said NeHC CEO Kate Berry. “This type of information can help inform our programs to ensure we emphasize the areas of greatest need to encourage progress toward widespread deployment of HIT and HIE to improve patient care.”

Highlights from the survey are included below:
“What are the most important benefits of health information exchange?” (Respondents were asked to select three)
73% - Better care coordination
65% - Providers and patients have the right information available when needed
39% - Improved efficiency
37% - Improved quality

“What are the biggest challenges to achieving widespread health information exchange?” (Respondents were asked to select three)
61% - Funding and sustainability
53% - Interoperability standards
46% - Provider adoption
46% - Disparate electronic medical record systems
34% - Privacy and security

“How important is patient/consumer engagement to transforming healthcare?”
95% - Very important or Important
5% - Somewhat important

“What Health IT topics are of greatest interest to you?”(Respondents were asked to select all that apply)
60% - Interoperability standards
57% - Meaningful use
51% - Examples of HIE
49% - Health IT policy updates
49% - Healthcare reform
44% - Privacy and security

For a full reporting of the top survey results click here.

NeHC conducted the survey from February 13-17. The questionnaire was distributed to over 7,000 stakeholders with a response rate of 3 percent.

NeHC intends to use survey results and additional stakeholder feedback to inform its continued work with HIE, consumer engagement through the Consumer Consortium on eHealth, and with planning future NeHC University education programs.

Source: NeHC News Release

NIH Releases Genetic Testing Online Tool

An online tool launched by the National Institutes of Health will make it easier to navigate the rapidly changing landscape of genetic tests. The free resource, called the Genetic Testing Registry (GTR), is available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gtr/.

"I’m delighted that NIH has created this powerful, new tool. It is a tremendous resource for all who are struggling to make sense of the complex world of genetic testing," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., who unveiled GTR at NIH's observance of international Rare Disease Day. "This registry will help a lot of people — from health care professionals looking for answers to their patients’ diseases to researchers seeking to identify gaps in scientific knowledge."

Genetic tests currently exist for about 2,500 diseases, and the field continues to grow at an astonishing rate. To keep pace, GTR will be updated frequently, using data voluntarily submitted by genetic test providers. Such information will include the purpose of each genetic test and its limitations; the name and location of the test provider; whether it is a clinical or research test; what methods are used; and what is measured. GTR will contain no confidential information about people who receive genetic tests or individual test results.

Genetic tests that the Food and Drug Administration has cleared or approved as safe and effective are identified in the GTR. However, most laboratory developed tests currently do not require FDA premarket review. Genetic test providers will be solely responsible for the content and quality of the data they submit to GTR. NIH will not verify the content, but will require submitters to agree to a code of conduct that stipulates that the information they provide is accurate and updated on an annual basis. If submitters do not adhere to this code, NIH can take action, including requiring submitters to correct any inaccuracies or to remove such information from GTR.

In addition to basic facts, GTR will offer detailed information on analytic validity, which assesses how accurately and reliably the test measures the genetic target; clinical validity, which assesses how consistently and accurately the test detects or predicts the outcome of interest; and information relating to the test’s clinical utility, or how likely the test is to improve patient outcomes.

"Our new registry features a versatile search interface that allows users to search by tests, conditions, genes, genetic mutations and laboratories," said Wendy Rubinstein, M.D., Ph.D., director of GTR. "What's more, we designed this tool to serve as a portal to other medical genetics information, with context-specific links to practice guidelines and a variety of genetic, scientific and literature resources available through the National Library of Medicine at NIH."

GTR is built upon data pulled from the laboratory directory of GeneTests, a pioneering NIH-funded resource that will be phased out over the coming year. GTR is designed to contain more detailed information than its predecessor, as well as to encompass a much broader range of testing approaches, such as complex tests for genetic variations associated with common diseases and with differing responses to drugs. GeneReviews, which is the section of GeneTests that contains peer-reviewed, clinical descriptions of more than 500 conditions, is also now available through GTR.

The GTR database was developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), part of NIH’s National Library of Medicine, under the oversight of the NIH Office of the Director and with extensive input from researchers, testing labs, health care providers, patients and other stakeholders. To view video tutorials on how to use GTR, go to http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1C4A2AFF811F6F0B.

The Office of the Director, the central office at NIH, is responsible for setting policy for NIH, which includes 27 Institutes and Centers. This involves planning, managing, and coordinating the programs and activities of all NIH components. The Office of the Director also includes program offices which are responsible for stimulating specific areas of research throughout NIH. Additional information is available at http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/.

NCBI creates public databases in molecular biology, conducts research in computational biology, develops software tools for analyzing molecular and genomic data, and disseminates biomedical information, all for the better understanding of processes affecting human health and disease. NCBI is a division of the National Library of Medicine, the world's largest library of the health sciences.

Source: NIH Press Release

WEDI’s Survey on ICD-10 Industry Progress Now Open

The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) is conducting its latest Industry Progress Survey on ICD-10. Information from this survey will be used to inform WEDI, CMS, and other organizations on the progress of ICD-10 implementation. This brief survey will also assist in planning necessary programs and actions to assist the industry in transitioning to ICD-10.

To gather the most complete picture of progress within the industry, this survey is open to all organizations affected by ICD-10 such as vendors, health plans, providers, and payers. The survey is open to both WEDI members and non-members.

Responses to this survey will be gathered online. WEDI asks that participants only submit one survey per organization. The survey will close on Wednesday, February 29, 2012. Please direct any questions to Ann Marie Railing at WEDI at 703-391-2718 or amrailing@wedi.org.

Please visit the ICD-10 website for the latest news and resources.

HHS previously announced a delay in ICD-10 implementation.

Source: HHS News Release