Medical Society of the State of New York (MSSNY) evaluating EHRs for its members


Cudos to Liz,Ron and Tom for helping the committee with this project.
Stay tuned for the final list of EHR vendors to published. SV


MSSNYe-news
September 21st, 2007

Weekly Update for New York State Physicians
Volume 7, Number 37

On another front, the HIT Committee chaired by Drs. Zeb Taintor and Sal Volpe and staffed by Liz Dears and Ron Pucherelli, the impossible has been conquered. After a year of an intense interviewing process of electronic health record (EHR) firms, they have almost completed their findings. After investigating and interviewing only CCHIT-qualified vendors with a 30-page questionnaire regarding stability, reliability, accessibility and ease-of-use, they are narrowing down the list. They are identifying which vendors are best suited to our needs, be it a large, high-volume practices or one more finely tuned to solo practices, and every type in between. We expect to publish the finding shortly.

In the meantime, Co-Chair Dr. Volpe recommends that physicians check out ePrescribing. They offer free software that will help reduce drug interactions.

Robert B. Goldberg, DO
President

MSSNY’s Council Meeting Involved Important Actions and Awards
At its September 20 meeting in Lake Success – with satellite connections to Albany, Buffalo and Syracuse – MSSNY Council took the following actions:


* Authorized MSSNY staff to negotiate discount fees for MSSNY members with vendors of electronic medical records (EMR), with contract provisions preventing the endorsed vendors from granting similar or lower discounts to non-MSSNY members. The approved vendors will be announced shortly. The chosen vendors are to include two that specialize in servicing large practices and have the capability of connecting EMRs to hospitals, and the remainder are to cater to small and medium-sized practices. All will provide software that has a practice management component, is culturally sensitive and is CCHIT-certified.



* The Council vote was preceded by a brief update from MSSNY Executive Vice President Rick Abrams of MSSNY’s $9M health information technology (HIT) grant activities and a presentation by MSSNY’s HIT Task Force chairs, Zebulon Taintor, MD, and Salvatore Volpe, MD, who described the task force’s years of work and explained the importance of HIT for reducing medical errors and practice overhead. Mr. Abrams reported that MSSNY was awaiting DOH approval to announce its $4.6M grants to practices in six NYS regions. Dr. Volpe reported that he was able to recover the cost of his EMR and e-prescribing systems with reduced overhead expenses within a year and that he had a $30,000 surplus the following year.


MSSNY eNews

HEAL NY Phase 5 Health Information Technology Grants: Advancing Interoperability and Community-wide EHR Adoption


Attention fellow New Yorkers, over 100 Million is available to improve HIT in NY. SV

Questions Due October 12, 2007
Applicant Conference September 28, 2007
Applications Due November 19, 2007

HEAL NY

Governor Fletcher authorizes Kentucky e-health corporation

Here's another state providing a " statewide backbone" for EHRs.

It's sort of like biology. Each community is like a single nerve. The states would act like a plexus and finally the a Federally "encouraged" set of standards would serve as the national backbone. The "organism" is slowly coming together. SV

Gov. Ernie Fletcher today authorized creation of a corporation to advance the state’s goal of creating an electronic health network, or “e-health” system in Kentucky.

Electronic Health Records - Expand e-Health funding to assist health care providers to adopt electronic medical records and ensure there is a secure, statewide network to allow those records to be appropriately exchanged.

“Every Kentuckian in the next four years should have the choice of having an electronic medical record that would be available to them and their doctors to ensure the best quality and most efficient health care,” said Governor Fletcher.

Courier Journal

Governor Kentucky

ehealth.johnwsharp recommends our site.

Mr Sharp has an fine site that also discusses eHealth topics. SV

John W Sharp

Minnesota Health Information Exchange to be among largest 'e-initiatives' in the nation

I am amazed that will be able to go live by early 2008. SV

MINNEAPOLIS 09/10/2007--Governor Tim Pawlenty joined with leaders from Minnesota's largest health care organizations to announce an electronic health information exchange that will connect doctors, hospitals and clinics across health care systems so they can quickly access medical records needed for patient treatment during a medical emergency or for delivering routine care.

The Minnesota Health Information Exchange will improve patient safety, increase efficiency among health care providers, and reduce administrative costs for all health care organizations.

"This exchange is the only public-private partnership of its kind," Governor Pawlenty said. "It will support and build on the critical initiatives taking place in the health care system today, including quality improvement efforts of our providers, the availability of quality and pricing information to consumers, paying providers for good outcomes and the adoption of evidence based guidelines."

ALLINA

Certification Commission and MITRE collaborate on open source health IT testing resource

CHICAGO, IL and McLEAN, VA - September 10, 2007 - Today, the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHITSM) and the MITRE Corporation announced a collaborative relationship to begin building a testing resource to evaluate compliance of electronic health records (EHR) and networks with certification criteria for interoperability. This new initiative will make it easier for health information technology companies to add standards-based information exchange capabilities to their products and prepare those products for certification. The testing software will be developed under an open source license so that it is free and publically available, and the Certification Commission will use the software running on a secure platform during its inspection of a product's compliance.

NYCLIX Selects FirstGateways to Build Regional Health Information Exchange Infrastructure in New York City

New York, August 27, 2007 – NYCLIX, Inc., a New York City-based regional health information organization (RHIO) whose mission is to establish a clinical data exchange capability in the New York City region to improve the care of New Yorkers, has entered into a contract with First Consulting Group (FCG- NASDAQ: FCGI) to provide the technical infrastructure for NYCLIX’s health information exchange services. FCG’s FirstGateways™ technology will allow clinical data to be exchanged securely among the participating NYCLIX (New York Clinical Information Exchange) provider organizations and used by clinicians at the point of care. NYCLIX includes the largest hospitals in Manhattan and hospitals in Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens, a major faculty practice organization, a multi-site Federally Qualified Health Center, and the nation’s largest not-for-profit home healthcare provider.

NYCLIX

myPHR ,a guide to PHRs by (AHIMA) American Health Information Management Association

This a an excellent resource for researching PHR options.SV

Individuals can create their own PHR, or may be offered one by a variety of sources, such as a healthcare provider, insurer, employer or a commercial supplier of PHRs. Each supplier has different policies and practices regarding how they may use data they store for the individual. Study the policies and procedures carefully to make sure you understand how your personal health information will be used and protected. Policies to look for include privacy and security; the ability of the individual, or those they authorize, to access their information; and control over accessibility by others. If the PHR contains the same information that the doctor has seen, it has more usefulness for tracking purposes than information from insurance forms. For example, insurance claims information may list the diagnosis or medication but not the details (for example, actual blood pressure reading or dose of the medication taken).

A wide range of products are currently available to help you create your own personal health record (PHR). Below you can search a list of options, by format and cost, and decide for yourself which works best for you.

myPHR

2007 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI)

National Provider Question & Answer Session



The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Provider
Communications Group will host the seventh in a series of national
provider conference calls on the 2007 Physician Quality Reporting
Initiative (PQRI). This toll-free call will take place from 1:30 p.m. –
3:30 p.m., EDT, on Wednesday, September 26, 2007.

Pay for Performance Programs for Providers Now Total 150 as of August 29 2007

The evidence continues to grow in favor of P4P. SV

The number of provider “pay for performance” (P4P) programs nationwide has grown dramatically from 39 (2003) to approximately 148 (March 2007), according to the P4P and Consumer Incentive Survey conducted jointly by Med-Vantage® and The Leapfrog Group. There were 84 programs in 2004 and 107 in 2005.

Recent survey results from 75 purchasers, government agencies and health plans, revealed several important findings:

1. Since 2004, the top reason for implementing P4P remains improving clinical outcomes.

2. More than 60% of P4P survey respondents have now evaluated their programs and at least half of the evaluated programs find that clinical performance improved significantly.

3. About one third of all P4P survey respondents have been able to demonstrate cost savings.

4. Over 70% of all P4P programs are working to expand the scope or number of performance measures they use. P4P programs now rely largely on well-established or co-authored measures from national standard setting organizations such as AQA, NCQA, NQF, the Joint Commission, The Leapfrog Group and others.

5. Over 30% of P4P survey respondents posted information publicly on provider performance in their provider directories.

6. Advanced P4P programs are now developing tools to measure improvements in outcomes and eligibility for rewards directly from medical charts.

“The P4P and Consumer Incentive Survey demonstrates clear evolution in P4P programs. They are assessing hospital and physician quality more broadly and beginning to emphasize measures of efficiency. The programs also directly lead to greater availability of publicly reported information that is useful to employers and consumers,” said Suzanne Delbanco, CEO of The Leapfrog Group.

Geof Baker, CEO of Med-Vantage added that “P4P will continue to expand in the government sector, particularly Medicaid, with greater focus on clinical IT adoption by physician practices and capture of chart information for outcomes reporting.”

Results of the P4P and Consumer Incentive Survey will be made publicly available on the Leapfrog and Med-Vantage web sites.




Leapfrog Group

Columbia University Medical Center Physicians Select Allscripts Electronic Health Record for 2,200 Physicians

This will have a major ripple effect in the community as physicians attempt to research EHR products for their practice.

The NYC DOH PCIP has chosen eClinicalworks for it roll out to over 1000 physicians.

Interoperablity between major EHRs such Allscripts, eClinicalworks and Eclipsys would be boon for patients and health care providers alike. SV

Allscripts

UPMC Health Plan rolls out PHR for over 500,000 members


As more Plan originated PHRs appear, the need for standards and interoperablity increases. SV



UPMC Health plan

Misys has agreed to license iMedica

Great news for iMedica.
This should mean more exposure.
Misys has been undergoing a good of changes lately but I didn't see this one coming.
Perhaps it will become akin to the Allscripts/A4Health merger?
Small practice EHRs will probably become attractive acquisitions based upon their lower cost to install and run. SV


iMedica