Health Care Reform: Driving EHR Uptake Nationwide

Five years have passed since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed into law under President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, and its impacts are being felt across the healthcare sector in the United States.

Widely considered to be one of the most important pieces of health care legislation to be passed in the next 20 to 30 years, this $35 billion dollar incentive package is set to see a massive increase in the uptake of EHR systems across the nation in a wide range of health related agencies including hospitals, pharmacies, insurers, nonprofits and NGOS.

What’s wrong with the old way of doing things?

For decades health care providers relied on a wide variety of methods for storing and accessing patient data, ranging from hard copy, paper patient records to custom built patient databases.

While these computerized records may have been a step in the right direction, those who used the paper based system face significant problems including:

A lack of privacy and security, virtually anyone with access can read patient data
Paper records take up massive amounts of space when archived and cannot be easily backed in case they are accidentally damaged, misplaced or destroyed.
The lack of an easy way to search or sort paper records contributes to the excessive backlogs in claims processing for patients.
The age old problem of illegible “doctors handwriting” is a significant factor in treatment injury and misdiagnosis, leading to anywhere up to 7000 patient deaths each and every year in the United States.

Older style computer systems do not fare much better. While they do an adequate job in storing patient data and allowing basic access on an organizational level, they do not provide easy access to information to third parties involved in the provision of their health care.

How is Health Care Reform Driving EHR Adoption?

Health care reform incentives aim to see a move towards a nationwide adoption of EHR by a wide variety of providers including Hospitals, Agencies, Pharmacies & Clinics. Funding is linked to not only adoption, but meaningful use by agencies - examples of meaningful use include:

The use of a certified EHR in a meaningful manner, such as e-prescribing
The use of certified EHR technology for electronic exchange of health information to improve quality of health care
The use of certified EHR technology to submit clinical quality and other measures

Maximum incentive payments from Medicaid are paid to providers who use certified EHRs, while those who lag behind in adopting a standardized electronic record system face significant penalties. Providers who do not adopt EHR by 2015 will be penalized 1% of Medicaid payments, which will in turn increase to 3% over 3 years.

Potential Challenges to Nationwide EHR Adoption

There are still however many challenges ahead to nationwide adoption, the biggest being a lack of standardization in preexisting patient records as well as a lack of interoperability of legacy computer based systems. Most health care providers in the United States operated independently of each other, with their own procedures and way of doing things, especially when it comes to patient records.

There is a lot of work to be done to standardize patient details across doctors, pharmacies, agencies and insurers, not only at an organizational level, but also at state and federal levels.

The first step towards a solution is the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) who will facilitate the sharing of patient records between doctors, nurses, social workers, pharmacies, insurers and every other organization that has contact with a patient. This sharing of information will help ensure that all interactions with patients are recorder, including treatments and conditions resulting in correct diagnosis, medication and holistic treatment of patients. This of course would be impossible in an old style paper based system or computer system where information is not shared.

Positive Outcomes Reported by Early Adopters of EHR

Early adopters of EHR systems in the United States have demonstrated that access to quality patient information that is recorded in a structured, standardized format has increased patient safety, quality of care, and reduced inefficiencies, which in turn has reduced costs of treatment.

Improvements to the delivery of health care nationwide
Improving patient safety and reducing the risk of treatment injury and negligence
Increasing the efficiency in providing health care
Reduction of the disparity between healthcare providers and patients
Increased coordination of care between health care providers, agencies and stakeholders
Simplicity and increased ease of access by patients for their own personal information
Improved data security for confidential patient information

COMING SOON… FAMCare EHR Solutions for Agencies

Soon - FAMCare rapid case management software - will provide agencies and health care providers with the perfect EHR solution. It’s simple and clear user interface is ideal for those with limited technical experience. Even the old schoolers who typically stick to their paper records will find it very difficult to stay away from FAMCare. It completely eliminates the need for a complex filing system, and can be accessed almost anywhere due to its mobile technology access. FAMCare supports quality decision making by giving staff easy access to case history, notes and activities.