By Mark Brousseau
There are five critical actions that healthcare organizations need to take to ensure the success of their information sharing initiatives, Jamie Welch, CIO, Louisiana Rural Health Information Exchange (LARHX) told attendees this morning at HIMSS10 at the Georgia World Congress, in Atlanta.
LARHX’s information sharing initiative includes telemedicine, distance learning, physician learning, physician rotation, patient information sharing, electronic medical records, and mobile mammograms.
These are the five critical actions Welch outlined:
Work at the grassroots level to articulate your business case.
“If you start to boil the ocean before you boil the pond, it’s not going to work,” Welch said. “We know the lingo and we know the vendors – it’s what we do. For the general public, it’s not. The majority of what they hear about health IT is about a Congress that can’t decide if it’s good or bad, and about information breaches.”
“From Day 1, we made sure that everyone understood what the benefits of our project would be over time. We had to convince people that if you let us do this, then these would be the benefits you will see,” Welch said. “Once we got people to see this, then a lot of our challenges solved themselves.”
Link your objectives to measurable outcomes
“You need to present something that is tangible. Everybody likes the cold, hard data, not theoretical information,” Welch said. “We keep track of everything: money saved, days saved, travel time saved, waiting room time saved, duplicate tests saved – you name it.”
Define the governance strategy that works best for your participants
“One model isn’t going to work for everybody,” Welch said.
Mix and match best practices
“We all know what the best practices are. But we can’t all pattern ourselves after each other, because each part of the country is different, and each patient population is different,” Welch said. “Take the best of all worlds and make it work for you.”
Remember that this is not an IT project – it’s a patient project
“Keep patients and physicians involved, and remember it is all about the patient and the physician and better health outcomes,” Welch said. “The health IT element is frosting.”
What do you think?
Showing posts with label HIMSS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HIMSS. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
The ICD-10 Challenge
By Mark Brousseau
“ICD-10 is probably one of the biggest changes to occur in health IT in 30 years,” Dr. Joe Nichols, Edifecs medical director, told attendees at the Medical Banking Project Boot Camp this afternoon at HIMSS10 in Atlanta. “It is massive.”
ICD codes, which were developed for coding institutionally related procedures, are maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO). Most developed countries other than the United States use ICD-10, Nichols noted. The United States still uses ICD-9 codes. The international version of ICD-10 contains approximately 12,400 diagnostic codes. WHO approved the U.S. version of ICD-10, which contains approximately 69,000 codes.
As of October 1, 2013, all claims in the United States must use ICD-10.
Why is this so important? Because ICD-10 is a cornerstone of healthcare information, Nichols said. “It is the standard for defining the health state of the patient, and the institutional procedures that patients may receive to maintain or improve their health state,” he explained. “This is a big change in the coding system.” What was 14,300 codes under ICD-9 will rise to 69,000 codes under ICD-10, Nichols noted, with the number of procedure codes increasing from 3,800 to 72,000 under ICD-10.
With ICD codes pervasive throughout most health systems, and many business functions impacted by the codes, it is important that healthcare organizations have plan for supporting ICD-10 codes.
“ICD-10 codes are used for a lot of things,” Nichols said. As examples, he mentioned: actuarial and financial risk; adjudication; outcomes; population health analysis; benefits design; fraud, waste and abuse analysis; quality and efficiency assessment; medical policies and clinical guidelines; payment rules; clinical history; utilization; and regulatory reporting. “We based a lot of our national policies on this,” Nichols said. “The implications are far-reaching. Imperfect mapping from ICD-9 to ICD-10 will affect processing and analytics in a way that impacts revenue, costs, risk and relationships.”
So how do you deal with this?
“If you haven’t started now, you’re going to be behind the gun,” Nichols said. But organizations need to look at their short-term goals with a long-term vision, to determine what solutions they need today, and whether those solutions will meet future needs. Organizations also need to be aware of ICD-10’s touch points with other initiatives, and the potential downstream impacts of the change. And they should collaborate with business and trading partners as they develop their ICD-10 plans. Finally, organizations should use ICD-10 to try to position themselves for competitive advantage. “There are huge competitive advantages to using ICD-10 better than your competitors,” Nichols explained.
“ICD-10 is probably one of the biggest changes to occur in health IT in 30 years,” Dr. Joe Nichols, Edifecs medical director, told attendees at the Medical Banking Project Boot Camp this afternoon at HIMSS10 in Atlanta. “It is massive.”
ICD codes, which were developed for coding institutionally related procedures, are maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO). Most developed countries other than the United States use ICD-10, Nichols noted. The United States still uses ICD-9 codes. The international version of ICD-10 contains approximately 12,400 diagnostic codes. WHO approved the U.S. version of ICD-10, which contains approximately 69,000 codes.
As of October 1, 2013, all claims in the United States must use ICD-10.
Why is this so important? Because ICD-10 is a cornerstone of healthcare information, Nichols said. “It is the standard for defining the health state of the patient, and the institutional procedures that patients may receive to maintain or improve their health state,” he explained. “This is a big change in the coding system.” What was 14,300 codes under ICD-9 will rise to 69,000 codes under ICD-10, Nichols noted, with the number of procedure codes increasing from 3,800 to 72,000 under ICD-10.
With ICD codes pervasive throughout most health systems, and many business functions impacted by the codes, it is important that healthcare organizations have plan for supporting ICD-10 codes.
“ICD-10 codes are used for a lot of things,” Nichols said. As examples, he mentioned: actuarial and financial risk; adjudication; outcomes; population health analysis; benefits design; fraud, waste and abuse analysis; quality and efficiency assessment; medical policies and clinical guidelines; payment rules; clinical history; utilization; and regulatory reporting. “We based a lot of our national policies on this,” Nichols said. “The implications are far-reaching. Imperfect mapping from ICD-9 to ICD-10 will affect processing and analytics in a way that impacts revenue, costs, risk and relationships.”
So how do you deal with this?
“If you haven’t started now, you’re going to be behind the gun,” Nichols said. But organizations need to look at their short-term goals with a long-term vision, to determine what solutions they need today, and whether those solutions will meet future needs. Organizations also need to be aware of ICD-10’s touch points with other initiatives, and the potential downstream impacts of the change. And they should collaborate with business and trading partners as they develop their ICD-10 plans. Finally, organizations should use ICD-10 to try to position themselves for competitive advantage. “There are huge competitive advantages to using ICD-10 better than your competitors,” Nichols explained.
Start ARRA Awareness Training Now
By Mark Brousseau
If they haven’t done so already, companies in the healthcare space should conduct organizational awareness training on ARRA and HITECH, Mary Rita Hyland, AVP, regulatory affairs, The SSI Group, Inc., told attendees at the Medical Banking Project Boot Camp at HIMSS10 this afternoon.
Organizations also should conduct a HIPAA and HITECH gap analysis to identify any products, procedures and services that need to be updated and modified, Hyland told attendees. As part of this exercise, organizations need to identify and coordinate technical or product updates, as well as coordinate and implement policy and procedural updates. “Operationally, ensuring compliance with HITECH’s security and privacy provisions is, to a large degree, an IT function,” Hyland noted.
Once they’ve reviewed their systems, policies and procedures, organizations need to audit and assess their compliance. “You don’t want to wait for an audit to be done on you by a whistleblower or someone else in the industry who doesn’t believe you are in compliance,” Hyland warned. “Audits are going to be important in meeting the guidelines and maintaining your compliance.”
If they haven’t done so already, companies in the healthcare space should conduct organizational awareness training on ARRA and HITECH, Mary Rita Hyland, AVP, regulatory affairs, The SSI Group, Inc., told attendees at the Medical Banking Project Boot Camp at HIMSS10 this afternoon.
Organizations also should conduct a HIPAA and HITECH gap analysis to identify any products, procedures and services that need to be updated and modified, Hyland told attendees. As part of this exercise, organizations need to identify and coordinate technical or product updates, as well as coordinate and implement policy and procedural updates. “Operationally, ensuring compliance with HITECH’s security and privacy provisions is, to a large degree, an IT function,” Hyland noted.
Once they’ve reviewed their systems, policies and procedures, organizations need to audit and assess their compliance. “You don’t want to wait for an audit to be done on you by a whistleblower or someone else in the industry who doesn’t believe you are in compliance,” Hyland warned. “Audits are going to be important in meeting the guidelines and maintaining your compliance.”
Solving the Revenue Cycle
By Mark Brousseau
Banks are well positioned to help “solve” the healthcare revenue cycle, thanks to the keystone revenue cycle data that flows through banks every day, Benchmark Revenue Management CEO Tyson McDowell said at the Medical Banking Project Boot Camp in Atlanta this afternoon.
“Banks can solve operational improvement issues for hospitals, while solving transparency and risk management issues for themselves,” McDowell told attendees. He said banks should “grow-up” their healthcare revenue cycle solutions and extend into denial management, denial avoidance, and services that back up their healthcare customers’ revenue cycle workers with “on-demand” talent.
Today, many banks offer lockbox services, patient payment solutions and extended lockbox services.
“The revenue cycle improvement market is exploding due to permanent financial pressures,” noted McDowell. “While the official definition of the revenue cycle is all of the administrative processes related to collecting all fees owed for services to patients, a more practical definition would be: a near futile attempt to collect all the monies owed in a world with thousands of moving parts.”
“A hospital really has no idea how much money it’s going to get paid,” McDowell said. “Hospitals and, to a lesser extent individual doctors, are getting it from all sides. Healthcare providers need to protect themselves. And denial and payment data is the keystone for solving the revenue cycle.”
Banks have unique access to this information, McDowell said, and they offer value-added services like lockbox. “Banks are in a position to provide new services for healthcare. And it comes from the data. The hospital needs someone to tell them why they need to spend money on an improvement.”
McDowell concluded that banks are starting to move in the direction of new healthcare services.
Banks are well positioned to help “solve” the healthcare revenue cycle, thanks to the keystone revenue cycle data that flows through banks every day, Benchmark Revenue Management CEO Tyson McDowell said at the Medical Banking Project Boot Camp in Atlanta this afternoon.
“Banks can solve operational improvement issues for hospitals, while solving transparency and risk management issues for themselves,” McDowell told attendees. He said banks should “grow-up” their healthcare revenue cycle solutions and extend into denial management, denial avoidance, and services that back up their healthcare customers’ revenue cycle workers with “on-demand” talent.
Today, many banks offer lockbox services, patient payment solutions and extended lockbox services.
“The revenue cycle improvement market is exploding due to permanent financial pressures,” noted McDowell. “While the official definition of the revenue cycle is all of the administrative processes related to collecting all fees owed for services to patients, a more practical definition would be: a near futile attempt to collect all the monies owed in a world with thousands of moving parts.”
“A hospital really has no idea how much money it’s going to get paid,” McDowell said. “Hospitals and, to a lesser extent individual doctors, are getting it from all sides. Healthcare providers need to protect themselves. And denial and payment data is the keystone for solving the revenue cycle.”
Banks have unique access to this information, McDowell said, and they offer value-added services like lockbox. “Banks are in a position to provide new services for healthcare. And it comes from the data. The hospital needs someone to tell them why they need to spend money on an improvement.”
McDowell concluded that banks are starting to move in the direction of new healthcare services.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
News from HIMSS: Saturday
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Some headlines from the HIMSS health IT conference in Atlanta:
iSOFT showcases health IT solutions
iSOFT Group Limited will showcase its suite of solutions that focus on interoperability at the HIMSS health IT conference in Atlanta in the US from March 1-4, 2010.
iSOFT, which last year entered the important US market through its acquisition of Boston-based technology developer BridgeForward Software (re-named iSOFT Integration Systems), will at HIMSS demonstrate its solutions that are designed to address the requirements for ‘Meaningful Use’ under the US Government’s US$34 billion health IT stimulus package.
iSOFT solutions to be showcased at HIMSS include:
Health Information Exchange
iSOFT’s Health Information Exchange (HIE) solution provides healthcare organizations with access to clinical, financial and administrative data from any hospital information system across the organization. iSOFT’s HIE supports clinicians’ decisions at the point of care, reduces preventable errors and duplicative testing, and encourages best-practice medicine.
Health Intelligence
Health Intelligence (HINT) provides healthcare organizations with insights into organizational trends and statistics that supports informed decisions for future planning, the delivery of better-quality care and increased operational performance.
Integration
iSOFT Viaduct addresses the interoperability challenge faced by all organizations by providing a platform that enables software solutions to share information when needed and in the required form, ensuring seamless integration.
Solution Engineering
Health Studio provides a healthcare solution engineering environment to allow organizations to design, create and deploy their own solutions without needing to engage specialist vendors.
Patient Safety
iSOFT Patient Safety provides intelligence on safety and quality problems and best practices, empowering managers to make strategic improvements by providing an interactive evidence base.
Quest Software and HealthCast tout end-to-end clinical desktop and workflow solution
Quest Software, Inc. and HealthCast, Inc. will demonstrate an end-to-end clinical desktop and workflow solution for clinician access to protected healthcare information.
HealthCast’s eXactACCESS single sign-on and clinical workflow solution, coupled with Quest vWorkspace virtual desktop management solution, provides access to critical electronic health, order entry, and clinical documentation systems. As a result, these systems can be centrally managed to reduce costs and security concerns while increasing control of the clinical desktop environment.
“Our goal is to give physicians and clinicians the fast and easy access they need to their patient information while improving data security and reducing IT infrastructure and support costs,” said Simon Pearce, vice president and general manager of desktop virtualization, Quest Software.
vWorkspace and eXactACCESS automate clinician access to and management of virtual desktops and applications by eliminating the need to enter multiple passwords to disparate systems. HealthCast's unique proximity badge functionality automates the login to the virtual desktop and launches a clinician’s primary application based on who they are, and then navigates them to a default location within the application. When the badge is “tapped” again, the clinician’s virtual desktop and applications are disconnected so that clinicians can go to any other workstation in the enterprise, and securely pick up their desktop and applications exactly as they had left them with another “tap” of their badge.
California Health Information Exchange Networks interconnect
The Santa Cruz Health Information Exchange (HIE) is using Axolotl’s Elysium NHIN Gateway to connect to two California HIE networks - EKCITA in Tehachapi, CA and the Long Beach Network for Health in Southern CA, for exchange and sharing of critical clinical information.
This connectivity will be demonstrated at the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase, supported by the California Health and Human Agency (CHHS), the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) and the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) to illustrate the progress towards health IT interoperability, nationwide.
The Santa Cruz HIE, utilizing Axolotl’s Elysium Exchange solutions, will demonstrate the ability to query from and exchange data with other California HIEs. The demonstration will highlight how clinical data, based on national standards, is integrated into different physician workflows at the point of care - by the local systems that are chosen in each care setting.
“Patient care will be radically improved through this inter-HIE exchange capability,” said Bill Beighe, CIO of Santa Cruz HIE. “This demonstration will show that HIE-to-HIE information exchange is technically feasible and available now.”
The HL7 Continuity of Care Documents (CCD) being exchanged are standard electronic documents that include discrete data elements which can be extracted and incorporated into the receiving systems. Elysium is leveraging components of the IHE IT Infrastructure set of profiles, such as Cross Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS) and Cross Community Access (XCA) to enable the transfer of the clinical data between connected communities. Multiple records will be exchanged to show that the process is general and not a special case.
“Axolotl participated with the Northrop Grumman consortium in the NHIN I project and in July 2009 did a live NHIN demo connecting five HIEs in California. Axolotl’s Elysium Gateway products that enable inter-HIE information exchange are available in our latest production platform and are being implemented. These products connect HIE Networks seamlessly to any other HIE either directly or via the NHIN,” said Anand Shroff, Vice President, Engineering, Axolotl.
Some headlines from the HIMSS health IT conference in Atlanta:
iSOFT showcases health IT solutions
iSOFT Group Limited will showcase its suite of solutions that focus on interoperability at the HIMSS health IT conference in Atlanta in the US from March 1-4, 2010.
iSOFT, which last year entered the important US market through its acquisition of Boston-based technology developer BridgeForward Software (re-named iSOFT Integration Systems), will at HIMSS demonstrate its solutions that are designed to address the requirements for ‘Meaningful Use’ under the US Government’s US$34 billion health IT stimulus package.
iSOFT solutions to be showcased at HIMSS include:
Health Information Exchange
iSOFT’s Health Information Exchange (HIE) solution provides healthcare organizations with access to clinical, financial and administrative data from any hospital information system across the organization. iSOFT’s HIE supports clinicians’ decisions at the point of care, reduces preventable errors and duplicative testing, and encourages best-practice medicine.
Health Intelligence
Health Intelligence (HINT) provides healthcare organizations with insights into organizational trends and statistics that supports informed decisions for future planning, the delivery of better-quality care and increased operational performance.
Integration
iSOFT Viaduct addresses the interoperability challenge faced by all organizations by providing a platform that enables software solutions to share information when needed and in the required form, ensuring seamless integration.
Solution Engineering
Health Studio provides a healthcare solution engineering environment to allow organizations to design, create and deploy their own solutions without needing to engage specialist vendors.
Patient Safety
iSOFT Patient Safety provides intelligence on safety and quality problems and best practices, empowering managers to make strategic improvements by providing an interactive evidence base.
Quest Software and HealthCast tout end-to-end clinical desktop and workflow solution
Quest Software, Inc. and HealthCast, Inc. will demonstrate an end-to-end clinical desktop and workflow solution for clinician access to protected healthcare information.
HealthCast’s eXactACCESS single sign-on and clinical workflow solution, coupled with Quest vWorkspace virtual desktop management solution, provides access to critical electronic health, order entry, and clinical documentation systems. As a result, these systems can be centrally managed to reduce costs and security concerns while increasing control of the clinical desktop environment.
“Our goal is to give physicians and clinicians the fast and easy access they need to their patient information while improving data security and reducing IT infrastructure and support costs,” said Simon Pearce, vice president and general manager of desktop virtualization, Quest Software.
vWorkspace and eXactACCESS automate clinician access to and management of virtual desktops and applications by eliminating the need to enter multiple passwords to disparate systems. HealthCast's unique proximity badge functionality automates the login to the virtual desktop and launches a clinician’s primary application based on who they are, and then navigates them to a default location within the application. When the badge is “tapped” again, the clinician’s virtual desktop and applications are disconnected so that clinicians can go to any other workstation in the enterprise, and securely pick up their desktop and applications exactly as they had left them with another “tap” of their badge.
California Health Information Exchange Networks interconnect
The Santa Cruz Health Information Exchange (HIE) is using Axolotl’s Elysium NHIN Gateway to connect to two California HIE networks - EKCITA in Tehachapi, CA and the Long Beach Network for Health in Southern CA, for exchange and sharing of critical clinical information.
This connectivity will be demonstrated at the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase, supported by the California Health and Human Agency (CHHS), the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) and the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) to illustrate the progress towards health IT interoperability, nationwide.
The Santa Cruz HIE, utilizing Axolotl’s Elysium Exchange solutions, will demonstrate the ability to query from and exchange data with other California HIEs. The demonstration will highlight how clinical data, based on national standards, is integrated into different physician workflows at the point of care - by the local systems that are chosen in each care setting.
“Patient care will be radically improved through this inter-HIE exchange capability,” said Bill Beighe, CIO of Santa Cruz HIE. “This demonstration will show that HIE-to-HIE information exchange is technically feasible and available now.”
The HL7 Continuity of Care Documents (CCD) being exchanged are standard electronic documents that include discrete data elements which can be extracted and incorporated into the receiving systems. Elysium is leveraging components of the IHE IT Infrastructure set of profiles, such as Cross Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS) and Cross Community Access (XCA) to enable the transfer of the clinical data between connected communities. Multiple records will be exchanged to show that the process is general and not a special case.
“Axolotl participated with the Northrop Grumman consortium in the NHIN I project and in July 2009 did a live NHIN demo connecting five HIEs in California. Axolotl’s Elysium Gateway products that enable inter-HIE information exchange are available in our latest production platform and are being implemented. These products connect HIE Networks seamlessly to any other HIE either directly or via the NHIN,” said Anand Shroff, Vice President, Engineering, Axolotl.
Friday, February 26, 2010
The Other Story at HIMSS
By Mark Brousseau
While Electronic Health Records (EHR) and the impact of the recent definition of the meaningful use requirements will be hot topics at next week's HIMSS Conference in Atlanta, HERAE CEO Jim Ribelin thinks a program underwritten by the new HIMSS Medical Banking Project bears watching.
The project, called Designing the Healthcare Financial Network of the Future, is "right on target," Ribelin says. "The program will assemble key stakeholders to discuss what a strong financial network for healthcare could look like. A future that doesn’t siphon 20 cents of every healthcare dollar spent, and works to advance the balance between responsible financial management and clinical needs of patients," Ribelin says. The program's objective is to determine how the healthcare system can enhance value, reduce costs, and empower the shift from simple disease management to improved health for consumers, while at the same time creating better business models for the healthcare providers.
"EHRs are receiving a lot of attention, but the payment system, where a lot of new processes are in place with standards and systems defined such as bank ACH transactions, HIPAA 835s and ERA files, provides a real opportunity for significant change. A chance to create a network that will reduce costs and create efficiencies without negative impact on patient care,” says Ribelin. “Fix the healthcare payment system, create a strong financial healthcare network and the industry would see a savings of resources without sacrificing quality healthcare.”
What do you think?
While Electronic Health Records (EHR) and the impact of the recent definition of the meaningful use requirements will be hot topics at next week's HIMSS Conference in Atlanta, HERAE CEO Jim Ribelin thinks a program underwritten by the new HIMSS Medical Banking Project bears watching.
The project, called Designing the Healthcare Financial Network of the Future, is "right on target," Ribelin says. "The program will assemble key stakeholders to discuss what a strong financial network for healthcare could look like. A future that doesn’t siphon 20 cents of every healthcare dollar spent, and works to advance the balance between responsible financial management and clinical needs of patients," Ribelin says. The program's objective is to determine how the healthcare system can enhance value, reduce costs, and empower the shift from simple disease management to improved health for consumers, while at the same time creating better business models for the healthcare providers.
"EHRs are receiving a lot of attention, but the payment system, where a lot of new processes are in place with standards and systems defined such as bank ACH transactions, HIPAA 835s and ERA files, provides a real opportunity for significant change. A chance to create a network that will reduce costs and create efficiencies without negative impact on patient care,” says Ribelin. “Fix the healthcare payment system, create a strong financial healthcare network and the industry would see a savings of resources without sacrificing quality healthcare.”
What do you think?
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