2009 Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program Updates

Two New Electronic Prescribing Section Pages Now Available

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is pleased to announce that two (2) new section pages have been created on the 2009 Electronic Prescribing (E-Prescribing) Incentive Program webpage on the CMS website.

E-Prescribing Measure Section page - This page contains several resources including: Measure Specifications; new Claims-Based Reporting Principles and a Sample E-Prescribing Claim. To access these resources, visit http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ERxIncentive/06_E-Prescribing_Measure.asp on the CMS website.

Educational Resources Section Page – This page contains MLN Matters articles; E-Prescribing Incentive Program fact sheets; a link to Medicare’s Practical Guide to the E-Prescribing Incentive Program, and information on how to receive continuing education credit related to the E-Prescribing Incentive Program. To access these resources and information, visit http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ERxIncentive/09_Educational_Resources.asp on the CMS website.

New and updated information will continually be added, so please visit the E-Prescribing Incentive Program web page at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ERXIncentive on the CMS website on a frequent basis.

Three Million People Now Using Kaiser Permanente’s Personal Health Record

My Health Manager is Most Widely Used PHR, Offers Convenience and Health Management Tools
OAKLAND, Calif. — Kaiser Permanente announced today that more than 3 million members are using My Health Manager, the personal health record available on www.kp.org. The growing number of active users — now more than one-third of Kaiser Permanente’s 8.6 million members — demonstrates that consumers find the organization’s personal health record an effective, easy and convenient way to manage their care. This announcement comes during the annual Health 2.0 — 1x® conference in Boston, where leaders from Kaiser Permanente and other providers are collaborating to find the best ways to empower and engage patients in their own care.

Available to Kaiser Permanente adult members, My Health Manager allows members to securely access their personal health records from home, as well as e-mail their physicians, order prescriptions, make, change and cancel appointments for themselves or for family members, and even view lab results — all on the Web, and at no extra charge. Each month, more than 600,000 secure e-mail messages are sent to Kaiser Permanente doctors and clinicians, and more than 1.6 million lab test results are viewed online, making them two of the more popular features on My Health Manager.

Kaiser

AMA and DrFirst partnership: ePrescribing

DrFirst appears to be the first of many soon to come "plug and play" offerings via the Covisint platform. Can a Google Health and/or Microsoft HealtVault PHR be far behind? SV

April 22, 2009, Rockville, MD -- DrFirst announced today that it is working with the American Medical Association to offer its ePrescribing services to physicians through a new online platform being developed by the AMA. The collaboration represents a major turning point in healthcare technology adoption. The collaboration is expected to reduce current confusion around ePrescribing while increasing the percentage of physicians using it.

“As the largest and most respected professional physician association in the United States, the AMA represents a broad base of physicians in the country, therefore this collaboration has the potential to quickly penetrate the market and significantly improve patient safety,” said Peter N. Kaufman, MD chief medical officer at DrFirst. “We strongly believe the implementation of this portal will result in the widespread adoption and diffusion of ePrescribing across the nation to the mainstream physician.”

DrFirst is the first company to announce that it is offering its services through the new AMA online platform. The platform, which is currently in beta testing, is aimed at providing physicians access to information, products, services and resources that can facilitate medical practice and ease adoption of evolving health information technologies. The AMA aims to launch its new platform in early 2010.

DrFirst

AMA and Covisint (a Compuware subsidary) partners: Web-based solutions



DETROIT and CHICAGO--April 22, 2009--Compuware Corporation (NASDAQ: CPWR) announced today that its Covisint subsidiary signed an agreement with the American Medical Association (AMA) to deploy an innovative health information exchange solution delivering value to its 240,000 member physicians and the physician population at large. This partnership extends Covisint’s momentum and reach in connecting doctors across physician organizations, state-based societies, entire states and now, with the AMA, nationally. Covisint will enable AMA physicians to have access to a variety of health information technologies via an AMA-branded, web-based solution.

AMA

Mayo Clinic plus Healthvault PHR = Mayo Clinic Health Manager

More than just a repository, the Mayo Clinic Health Manager multiples the value of the collected information through guidelines produced by the Mayo Clinic. This "private label" approach shows that Healthvault is a foundation that many can build upon. SV

Mayo Clinic Health Manager, powered by Microsoft® HealthVault™, is a personalized, online service that can help you effectively manage and protect your family’s health. It enables you to organize health information for multiple family members in one place. Based on the data you enter about yourself and your family, you will receive customized information, reminders and health guidance developed by experts at Mayo Clinic.

Alaska Senate Bill 133 : statewide electronic health information exchange system

Another state sees the advantage of facilitating information exchange.SV

LEGISLATIVE INTENT. It is the intent of the legislature to create a secure electronic health information exchange system that
(1) ensures that the confidentiality of individually indentifying health
information of a patient is secure and protected;
(2) improves health care quality, reduces medical errors, increases the
efficiency of care, and advances the delivery of appropriate, evidence-based health care
services;
(3) promotes wellness, disease prevention, and management of chronic
illnesses by increasing the availability and transparency of information related to the health
01 care needs of an individual for the benefit of the individual;
02 (4) ensures that appropriate information needed to make medical decisions is
03 available in a usable form at the time and in the location that the medical service is provided;
04 (5) produces greater value for health care expenditures by reducing health care
05 costs that result from inefficiency, medical errors, inappropriate care, and incomplete
06 information;
07 (6) promotes a more effective marketplace, greater competition, greater
08 systems analysis, increased choice, enhanced quality, and improved outcomes in health care
09 services; and
10 (7) improves the coordination of information and the provision of health care
11 services through an effective infrastructure for the secure and authorized exchange and use of
12 health care information.

SB 133

Microsoft HealthVault PHR/EHR sample interface solutions

Here some examples of how HealthVault provides "interoperability" between ambulatory EHRs, hospital EHRs, ePrescribing systems and even other personal health record systems.
As you can see major EHR vendors such as eClinicalWorks, Greenway, Eclipsys; major Hospital systems such NYU and Medstar and PHR vendors Nomoreclipboards and PeaceHealth signed on as partners.

Pro-active patients will find this virtual filing system a good adjunct to the home file cabinet filled with years of medical results.
Even EHR vendors with PHR products will find products such as HealthVault and Google Health will provide a lower cost solution to being "interoperable" with the rest of the healthcare community. SV

NoMoreClipboard
Peace Health Shared Care Plan
Microsoft HealthVault
Allscripts
eClinicalWorks
Greenway

HIMSS Medical Home Podcast

Episode #9: The Medical Home Model
The Medical Home model of collaborative care will require electronic tools to make it efficient and scaleable. Steven Clemenson, MD, CMIO, Internal Medicine Associates, Fargo, ND and Salvatore Volpe , MD, FAAP, FACP, CHCQM, Oakwood Medical Solutions, Staten Island, NY discuss the efficiency gains and cost savings that have been shown using this care model. The interview was conducted by William F. Bria, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, Shriners Hospital for Children, and Chair of the HIMSS/AMDIS Physician Community.

HIMSS

GAO picks first 13 members of HIT Policy Committee

Advocates for Patients or Consumers

1. Christine Bechtel, Washington, D.C. (3-year term)
Vice President, National Partnership for Women & Families

2. Arthur Davidson, M.D., Denver (2-year term)
Denver Public Health Department; Director, Public Health Informatics; Director, Denver Center for Public Health Preparedness; Medical epidemiologist; Director, HIV/AIDS Surveillance, City and County of Denver

3. Adam Clark, Ph.D., Austin, Texas (1-year term)
Director of Research and Policy, Lance Armstrong Foundation


Representatives of Health Care Providers, including 1 physician

4. Marc Probst, Salt Lake City (3-year term)
Chief Information Officer, Intermountain Health Care

5. Paul Tang, M.D., Mountain View, Calif. (2-year term)
Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer, Palo Alto Medical Foundation


Labor Organization Representing Health Care Workers

6. Scott White, New York City (1-year term)
Assistant Director, Technology Project Director, 1199 SEIU Training and Employment Fund


Expert in Health Information Privacy & Security

7. LaTanya Sweeney, Ph.D., Pittsburgh (3-year term)
Director, Data Privacy Lab, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy, Carnegie Mellon University


Expert in Improving the Health of Vulnerable Populations

8. Neil Calman, M.D., New York City (2-year term)
President and CEO, The Institute for Family Health


Research Community

9. Connie Delaney, R.N., Ph.D., Minneapolis (1-year term)
Dean, School of Nursing, University of Minnesota


Representative of Health Plans or Other Third-Party Payers

10. Charles Kennedy, M.D., Camarillo, Calif. (3-year term)
Vice President, Health Information Technology, WellPoint


Representative of Information Technology Vendors

11. Judith Faulkner, Verona, Wis. (2-year term)
Founder, CEO, President, Chairman of the Board, Epic Systems Corp.


Representative of Purchasers or Employers

12. David Lansky, Ph.D., San Francisco (1-year term)
President and CEO, Pacific Business Group on Health


Expert in Health Care Quality Measurement and Reporting

13. David Bates, M.D., Boston (3-year term)
Medical Director for Clinical and Quality Analysis, Chief of General Internal Medicine, Partners HealthCare System and Brigham & Women's Hospital

GAO

HEAL NY - Phase 10 Grant PCMH Focus

NYS HEAL grant information has just been released.SV

HEAL 10 will support competitive projects across all regions of New York State designed to improve the coordination and management of patient care through implementation of a Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model supported by the effective use of interoperable health information technology (health IT). The projects will identify a target patient population with a chronic disease or high risk/high cost diagnosis and include all of the key care givers in their community involved in patient care for this population.

Request for Grant Applications - HEAL NY Phase 10 - Improving Care Coordination and Management Through a Patient Centered Medical Home Model Supported by an Interoperable Health Information Infrastructure Due June 15, 2009, 3 PM

Sam's Club EHR eClinicalworks Electronic Health Records

Well its official.
Here’s the press release

Sam's Club

Here's the video link

Video

Here's a link to the actual product page

Product description

Virginia, Illinois and Georgia First States Targeted for Phased Implementation

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and Patient Centered Medical Home


A new pilot program, based on the Patient Centered Medical Home, (PCMH) will strengthen the relationship Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon BCBSNJ) members have with their personal physicians to improve the quality of care and reduce health care costs.

The pilot program is a collaboration between Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon BCBSNJ) and the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians (NJAFP) that will use elements of the PCMH model of care to improve health outcomes for Horizon BCBSNJ members.

Let's keep the joint projects coming. SV

BCBSNJ

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Personal Health Records


NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital has been working with Microsoft and is now offering Microsoft's Personal Health Record.
Initially it will be offered for cardiac patients.
The website, myNYP.org, features Dr. Mehmet Oz. Patients will be able to review information generated by NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital as well as read educational material on tests and on recovery guides.SV

HIMSS09 2009 Chicago


I just got back from the weekend presentations.
The Physicians Symposia were excellent with topics such as the Patient Centered Medical Home.

Insider's tip: bring comfortable shoes. SV

HIMSS09