HIMSS Analytics Europe today announced that a select number of European hospitals will be awarded Stage 6 & 7 EMRAM awards at the upcoming HIMSS Europe Health IT Leadership Summit in Rome. The award is given to hospitals that have achieved the highest scores on the EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM). This is the first time European hospitals are awarded the prestigious award which honor hospitals that operate in a paperless environment and represent best practices in implementation of the EMR. The awards unveiling will take place at the HIMSS Europe Health IT Leadership Summit in Rome, during an awards ceremony on September 30, at 18.00.

The European adoption model is based on HIMSS Analytics US EMR Adoption Model which was developed in 2005 as a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems for hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics™ Database. Tracking their progress in completing eight stages (0-7), hospitals can review the implementation and utilization of information technology applications with the intent of reaching Stage 7, which represents an advanced patient record environment.

Stage 7 hospitals:

• Deliver patient care without the use of paper charts
• Are able to share patient information by sending secure standardized summary record transactions to other care providers
• Use their vast database of clinical information to drive improved care delivery performance, patient safety clinical decision support, and outcomes using business intelligence solutions
• Are best practice examples of how to implement sophisticated EMR environments that fully engage their clinicians

Stage 6 hospitals:

• Have made significant executive commitments and investments to reach this stage.
• Appear to have a significant advantage over competitors for patient safety, clinician support, clinician recruitment, and competitive marketing for both consumers and nurse recruitment.
• Have almost fully automated/paperless medical records when they have implemented their IT applications across most of the inpatient care settings.
• Are either starting to evaluate their data for care delivery process improvements or have already documented significant improvements in this area.
• Have made investments that are within reach of most hospitals and recognize the strategic value of improving patient care with the EMR.
• Have begun to create strategic alignments with their medical staff to effectively utilize information technology to improve the patient safety environment
• Are well positioned to provide data to key stakeholders, such as payers, the government, physicians, consumers, and employers, to support electronic health record environments and health information exchanges.

The HIMSS Europe Health IT Leadership Summit, is a new, Pan-European executive level forum for education, collaboration and dialogue. Top leaders from healthcare, IT and government will convene to help advance the quality of healthcare delivery. The event will feature conference and education sessions as well as focus groups designed to foster intensive knowledge exchange and networking opportunities at the most senior level.

Source    :    http://emrdailynews.com/2010/09/22/himss-analytics-europe-announces-european-hospitals-emr-adoption-model-emram-awards/

EMRs are moving into genomics, at least at the Mayo Clinic.

In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Mayo physicians showed how EMRs were able to help them determine the genetic variants that make certain people more likely to develop peripheral artery disease.

With consent of patients, researchers tapped the Mayo database of more than 8 million EMRs to pinpoint clinical variables that could indicate a predisposition to PAD, a task that would be difficult if not impossible with paper records, Healthcare IT News reports. The physicians were able to confirm several cases of the disease and to identify phenocopies–traits found in confirmed cases–of atherosclerotic PAD.

“Although manual abstraction of medical records can provide high-quality data, for large studies such as genetic association studies, manual review of medical records can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming,” the study says. “Our study demonstrates … several significant advantages over traditional approaches to genomic medicine research by simplifying logistics, reducing timelines and overall costs through efficient data acquisition.”

The team, from Mayo’s Divisions of Cardiovascular Diseases and Biomedical Informatics and Statistics, said that structured EMR data from large institutions “offer great potential for diverse research studies, including those related to understanding the genetic bases of common diseases.”

Source    :    http://www.fierceemr.com/story/mayo-emr-abstraction-reveals-genetic-predisposition-disease/2010-09-16

Washington — The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has published details for state Medicaid directors on what they should expect from the federal government as they administer the Medicaid portion of the Electronic Medical Records incentive program starting in 2011.

The incentive program stipulates that the federal government will pay the full cost of Medicaid bonuses to eligible physicians who adopt certified EMR technology in a way that meets the government’s “meaningful use” criteria. It also will pay 90% of states’ eligible administrative expenses. Aspects of the latter have been a source of particular confusion for state agencies, which is why CMS chose to issue the additional guidance on Aug. 17, according to policy experts familiar with the incentive program.

“Time is growing short, and I think they were worried that some states hadn’t moved forward quickly enough,” said Erica Drazen, managing partner for Emerging Practices, a professional services organization based in Falls Church, Va. “It wasn’t like there was a lot of detailed guidance on this subject before. There needs to be consistency among the states.”

According to the new CMS guidance, states must satisfy at least three basic requirements to receive the federal funding: administer Medicaid bonuses to eligible physicians and hospitals, routinely track meaningful use reports and conduct other oversight activities, and pursue initiatives that encourage EMR adoption to promote health care quality.

The 19-page document provides additional details on what the agency is looking for from the states. For example, under the administration section, CMS says states will receive 90% funding for:

• Development of a master patient index.
• Costs associated with health information exchanges.
• Creation or enhancement of a health data warehouse or repository.
• Physician outreach activities, including workshops, webinars and meetings.
• A physician help line, dedicated e-mail address and/or a call center.

CMS also is expecting states to implement auditing programs to help prevent them from making improper Medicaid bonus payments and to monitor the program for potential fraud, waste and abuse. For 2011, the first year of the incentive program, the agency expects states to focus audits on physician and hospital eligibility and measures of patient volume.

States may receive enhanced federal matching funds for auditing activities focused on enrollment, license verification, sanctions, data analysis, and privacy and security.

Drazen said the guidance is appreciated and has been well-received by most state offices. “There’s a lot going on, and it can get a little confusing about what you can do and when.”

Bruce Taffel, MD, agrees. He’s vice president and chief medical officer with Shared Health, a vendor of health information exchange solutions and technology based in Chattanooga, Tenn. “With the states, you’re going to have 50 different flavors, so what CMS came out with is an important step in coordination and outreach, because the states are going to have to hustle.”

Dr. Taffel said it was particularly important for CMS to consider state incentive models such as medical homes as acceptable criteria for federal funding, since many states already use such programs. With the agency recognizing medical homes, it’s more likely that physicians operating within them will be able to receive incentive payments of their own, he said.

Under the bonus program, physicians whose caseloads are at least 30% Medicaid patients and who also adopt certified EMRs by 2011 or 2012 are eligible for up to nearly $64,000 in support over a period of six years.

By comparison, Medicare-participating physicians who adopt certified EMRs could receive up to $44,000 over five years. Doctors cannot receive both Medicare and Medicaid bonuses.

CMS issued its final rule outlining meaningful use requirements on July 13. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology also issued a final rule the same day outlining the standards and criteria EMR vendors need to follow for their products to become certified for meaningful use.

Source   :   http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/08/30/gvsb0830.htm

BRUSSELS – HIMSS Analytics Europe will introduce awards for European Hospitals that have achieved the highest scores on the EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM). They’ll be unveiled at the upcoming HIMSS Europe Health IT Leadership Summit in Rome from September 29 to October 1.

HIMSS Analytics Europe recently launched the European EMR Adoption Model and is currently surveying hospitals across 12 European countries. Initial findings will be presented at the upcoming Leadership Summit, alongside the announcement of the criteria needed to achieve the highest level of EMR adoption.

HIMSS officials explained that the European EMR Adoption Model has been adapted to meet the unique needs of European Healthcare Institutions and draws on the HIMSS Analytics US EMR Adoption Model which was developed in 2005 as a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems for hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics Database. Tracking their progress in completing eight stages (0-7), hospitals can review the implementation and utilization of information technology applications with the intent of reaching Stage 7, which represents an advanced electronic patient record environment.

Stage 7 hospitals:

• Deliver patient care without the use of paper charts
• Are able to share patient information by sending secure standardized summary record transactions to other care providers
• Use their vast database of clinical information to drive improved care delivery performance, patient safety clinical decision support, and outcomes using business intelligence solutions
• Are best practice examples of how to implement sophisticated EMR environments that fully engage their clinicians.

The validation process that confirms a hospital has reached Stage 7 includes a site visit conducted by an executive from HIMSS Analytics Europe and two current chief information officers to ensure an unbiased evaluation of the Stage 7 environments.

“Stage 7 hospitals provide best practices that other healthcare organizations can study and emulate as they strive to use EMR applications to improve patient safety, clinical outcomes and patient care delivery efficiency,” said Uwe Buddrus, General Manager, HIMSS Analytics Europe. “The accomplishments of Stage 7 hospitals serve as important indicators of high quality patient care with the interoperable electronic medical record in place.”

Source  :  http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/himss-analytics-europe-award-wired-hospitals

DETROIT – Detroit Medical Center executives say they have achieved improved patient safety and saved $5 million to boot, thanks to DMC’s system-wide electronic medical system.

It is the second year in a row in which computer-based healthcare information processing created major improvements in quality of care and cost-savings for DMC’s eight hospitals, officials said.

The windfall in savings - triggered by highly effective electronic monitoring of critical tasks such as treating pressure ulcers and preventing medication errors - resulted in a healthy return on investment, they said.

The $50 million system powered by Kansas City, Mo-based Cerner Corp, has gone online throughout the DMC in gradual stages over a 12-year period, starting in 1998.

“The latest numbers are in, and we continue to see great strides in improving quality, treating patients more quickly and preventing error, which translates to dollar savings as well,” said Chief Nursing Officer Patricia Natale. “This work with these results is very exciting.”

“The savings are only part of the story,” she added, “because EMR is also a major step forward on the road to better quality of patient care. Thanks to EMR, we’re now seeing a dramatic reduction in the length of hospital stays due to pressure sores, along with a dramatic reduction of drug errors through EMR-enabled medication scanning.”

“The latest surveys show that EMR has helped to reduce medication errors by up to 75 percent,” said DMC Chief Medical Information Officer Leland Babitch, MD. “Obviously, that’s a major gain for patients - especially given the fact that medication errors account for the majority of accidental deaths and injuries at U.S. hospitals.”

The U.S. Institute of Medicine has estimated that up to 100,000 patients die as a result of hospital errors annually.

Treating pressure ulcers

The impact of the electronic medical record system on the treatment of pressure ulcers was especially noticeable, said DMC quality-of-care administrators.

They noted that the chronic sores often require extended hospital stays and thus drive up costs. But the most recent DMC Patient Care Services study of severe pressure ulcer cases showed that close EMR monitoring of bedsores reduced the average length of stay required to treat them by nearly three full days last year, compared with the average length of ulcer-triggered stays before EMR monitoring began in 2008.

The DMC study concluded that the reduction in the length of pressure ulcer-related hospital stays - in a system that admits more than 75,000 patients each year - was now helping to generate more than $4.5 million in yearly cost savings.

“The data on electronic medical records and patient safety and quality of care are clear and convincing by now,” said DMC Vice President for Quality and Safety Michelle Schreiber, MD.  “Those data demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that EMR is an extremely powerful tool when it comes to protecting patients from hospital errors.

“But EMR is also proving to be an effective method for promoting quality of care - and the new numbers on bedsores and length of stays show how computer-based recordkeeping helps caregivers to take better care of patients day in and day out.”

In spite of the savings to be had from hospital-based EMR, however, recent studies show that the majority of U.S. hospitals have either failed to implement top-to-bottom EMR systems - or are cutting back on information technology (IT) programs already in place.

As of August 2010, fewer than 4 percent of U.S. hospitals had implemented the level of system-wide electronic patient recordkeeping that is now in place at the DMC.  In addition, a recent study at the University of Michigan School of Medicine showed that more than one-fourth of the nation’s recession-affected hospitals have been cutting back on their already existing IT programs.

The cash-strapped hospitals were slashing IT budgets, reported the study in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, in spite of the fact that the Obama administration has recently made available more than $2.73 billion in Medicare/Medicaid bonuses for clinicians and hospitals that spend to improve their electronic medical records systems.

“The DMC has spent $50 million on building a powerful EMR system over the past five or six years, said Michael Duggan, president and CEO of the Detroit Medical Center, “and we did it because we like to think of ourselves as the ‘hospital of the future’ - as a state-of-the-art healing center where patients know they can get the best healthcare available anywhere today.  ”

“At the same time, the ability to greatly reduce healthcare costs via electronic medical records is an added bonus - which makes implementing EMR a win-win situation for everyone involved.”

Source    :     http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/detroit-medical-center-pegs-emr-savings-5m-year