BOSTON – Radiologists’ use of an advanced search tool that aims at improving the way they retrieve and sort data from an electronic medical record has the potential to benefit many other departments, according to one of the authors of a new study.

The Queriable Patient Inference Dossier (QPID) search engine was initially developed in 2005 in response to the need for radiologists at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to quickly have access to information about their patients.

Michael Zalis, MD, lead author of the study, which was published in the August issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology, says the system serves as an adjunct to the hospital’s EMR system.

“Even in its simplest implementation, the presence of an EMR system presents considerable challenges to the radiologist,” he explains. “For example, radiologists commonly encounter each patient with little prior familiarity with the patient’s clinical situation. As a result, the time and effort required to retrieve, review, and assimilate EMR data relevant for the case at hand becomes an important consideration for use of EMR in busy clinical practice.”

The QPID system currently serves 500 registered users at Massachusetts General Hospital and posts 7,000 to 10,000 thousand pages of medical record data daily, according to hospital officials.

“[QPID] It was developed separately from the EMR and operates in a read-only fashion in relation to it,” Zalis says. “Thus QPID is not a source of new EMR data, but serves as a method to extract useful patterns of EMR data from the separately curated clinical data repositories at our institution,”

He says this tool has the ability to extend the radiologist’s awareness of a patient’s clinical history and care record, which he says can lead to better value, quality, and safety of practice.

“The potential impact of advanced EMR search tools is by no means limited to radiology and in fact many departments in the hospital and outpatient clinic may benefit from these capabilities,” Zalis says. “In our own institution, with the QPID search system, we have catalyzed a growing base of enthusiastic users, many of whom have contributed their own insights and content to the system’s catalogue of search modules, each of which is potentially applicable at more than one site. The future for advanced search of the EMR looks to be exciting and full of potential.”

Source  :  http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emr-retrieval-tool-full-potential

COEUR D’ALENE, ID – Beginning this fall, North Idaho College (NIC) is offering a program to train students with a prior background in healthcare and/or information technology to construct and use electronic health records. NIC is funding the course though a $625,000 grant it was awarded for the purpose of training health IT professionals.

“This online program is ideally suited to Idaho residents currently employed in a healthcare setting who need education in the selection, implementation and project management phases of adopting an electronic medical records system,” said Sue Shibley, EMR program manager at NIC.

Hospitals now have more incentive to establish digital record systems in place of paper-based ones due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment act of 2009 – incentives which may affect every level of the industry. According to federal estimates, at least 51,000 health IT professionals will be required over the next five years to assist healthcare professionals.

NIC’s Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Adoption for Healthcare Practices curriculum is designed to provide students a practical toolkit for planning and establishing EMR systems. If students take 10 credits worth of classes, the program can be completed in a single semester.

Courses in the program include Introduction to Health Information Technology, Medical Terminology, Legal Issues in Healthcare, EMR System Planning and Selection and EMR System Deployment and Management. Graduates of the program will receive post-secondary certificates. The first 135 students to complete the program before mid-May 20111 will be eligible for tuition reimbursement.

Prospective students are encouraged submit an online application directly to the EMR program for evaluation.

Source  :  http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/idaho-college-offers-emr-courses

By Neil Versel

Hard to believe, but 52 percent of specialists and 50 percent of primary-care physicians claim to be using EMRs, up from 42 percent and 38 percent, respectively, two years earlier, a new survey indicates. The survey does not specify what EMR usage means.

“While use of this technology will soon be mandated, these ‘early adopter’ levels suggest a desire for digital convenience at a time when patient record keeping promises to become exponentially more complex,” reports New York-based survey firm Knowledge Networks. The company conducted the study of nearly 11,000 healthcare professionals through the Physicians Consulting Network, which maintains a research panel of physicians and other caregivers.

(We quibble with whether 50 percent is “early adopter” level–or even accurate–and that technology will “soon be mandated.” CMS will penalize those that haven’t gotten to “meaningful use” by 2015, but won’t exclude non-compliant providers. For that matter, participation in Medicare and Medicaid is voluntary.)

One possible explanation for the increased EMR use is the fact that physicians continue to be crunched for time, a situation that will only get worse as 32 million newly insured patients enter the healthcare system in coming years, thanks to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Supporting this theory is the finding in the survey that 14 percent of primary-care docs and 12 percent of specialists expect to spend less time with pharmaceutical sales representatives in the next six months. Those numbers compare with 9 percent (PCP) and 8 percent (specialists) in the 2008 survey.

Meanwhile, physicians seem to be embracing smartphones to improve their efficiency. The survey found that 62 percent of specialists and 55 percent of primary-care physicians have such devices, and that at least 17 percent of these smartphone owners are using their phones for e-detailing from pharma reps.

“Healthcare professionals are embracing new technologies that promise more control and convenience; we cannot help but see a connection between the use of smartphones for e-detailing and an anticipated drop in time spent with sales reps,” Knowledge Networks Senior VP Jim Vielee tells Healthcare IT News. “These trends seem destined to magnify as healthcare reform takes effect, creating dramatic upswings in doctors’ case loads.”

Source: http://www.fierceemr.com/story/knowledge-networks-says-half-docs-now-use-emrs/2010-07-15

Primary care physicians and specialist doctors are using electronic medical records more, and more than half have smartphones, according to a Knowledge Networks study.

By Nicole Lewis

A growing number of primary care physicians (PCPs) and specialist doctors are using electronic medical records and other technologies as they adopt health information technology to streamline their workflow processes, a new study shows.

The survey, conducted by Knowledge Networks in conjunction with the Physicians Consulting Network (PCN) and its panel of specialists and other health care professionals, shows that 52 percent of specialists and 50 percent of PCPs said they are already keeping their patient records in an electronic format — up 10 percentage points for specialists and 12 points for PCPs since 2008.

Published last week, the study of nearly 11,000 health care professionals also shows that more than half of PCPs and specialists already have smartphones, and that many are using them for email, shopping, e-detailing and to participate in surveys.

The report reveals that smartphones, such as iPhones and BlackBerries, are quickly becoming a way of life for medical professionals. Sixty two percent of specialists and 55 percent of PCPs report having one, and roughly 85 percent to 90 percent of those who have them are using them for Internet and for email.

Other findings were that 17 percent of PCPs and 18 percent of specialists who have smartphones are using them for e-detailing, which refers to the use of technology to bypass sales calls from pharmaceutical representative. Higher proportions — 29 percent of PCPs and 24 percent of specialists — use smartphones to participate in on-line surveys.

Executives at Knowledge Networks say the research reflects the way digital technology and other factors are transforming doctors’ attitudes and habits.

“Marketers must adjust to the needs of plugged-in, increasingly busy doctors in everything they do - from the platforms they use for messaging to the time they expect to have with prescribers,” Jim Vielee, senior vice president at Knowledge Networks, said in a statement. “Health care professionals are embracing new technologies that promise more control and convenience; we cannot help but see a connection between the use of smartphones for e-detailing and an anticipated drop in time spent with sales reps. These trends seem destined to magnify as health care reform takes effect, creating dramatic upswings in doctors’ case loads.”

Knowledge Networks is a company that works closely with clients to create, effective marketing, advertising, public policies, and social science research.

Source:http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/EMR/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=225800003&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_News

By Neil Versel

The first anniversary of the enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act–Irvine, Calif.-based research firm SK&A published a report saying that 36.1 percent of physician offices have some form of electronic medical record. That’s 3.2 percentage points greater than the 32.9 percent adoption rate reported in February 2009.

Those numbers may seem high, based on studies in esteemed academic publications such as the New England Journal of Medicine, but they are in line with the findings from recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. It’s also worth noting that SK&A had a huge sample size of 180,000 physician offices in the U.S.

It’s no surprise that adoption rates seem to be related to number of physicians, number of exam rooms in the office and daily patient volume, with larger practices more likely to have EMRs. Practices owned by integrated health systems tend to have greater EMR usage as well, slightly above 50 percent. Given that primary care is increasingly burdened with high patient loads and starved for cash, general practice was near the bottom in terms of EMR adoption, SK&A reports. Dialysis, critical care and radiology reported the highest EMR usage rates.

Source:http://www.fierceemr.com/story/emr-use-inches-physician-offices/2010-02-18

By Neil Versel

The Adoption/Certification Workgroup of the federal Health IT Policy Committee wants to require hospitals and physicians to report “hazards and near-misses” as a result of software malfunctions, beginning in 2013. Reporting would become part of demonstrating “meaningful use” of EMRs and thus a condition for receiving Medicare and Medicaid bonus payments.

While some would like to see a database on EMR and data glitches up and running sooner than that, some patient-safety advocates believe 2013 is unrealistic. “I think it will take a while to do this right,” UCSF physician Dr. Robert M. Wachter tells the Huffington Post Investigative Fund. “The problem here is that there are potentially dangerous systems and we have no mechanism to figure out what they are or to force them to improve,” he adds.

The database could help pull together an uncoordinated group of existing public and private data repositories, such as the voluntary reporting system the FDA runs to track issues with devices it regulates. However, that system, like many others, has limited public access and redacts any fields that could identify the reporting organization.

The workgroup envisions a reporting system in which patients are encouraged to report errors and omissions in their own medical records and recommends that vendors include “feedback” buttons so they can report problems with a single click.

To learn more:
- see this Huffington Post Investigative Fund story
- check out this take from Federal Computer Week

Source: http://www.fierceemr.com/story/federal-panel-wants-national-reporting-emr-software-data-errors/2010-04-01

By Neil Versel

Plenty has been said about the potential for EMRs and telemedicine to improve the woeful state of care in America’s prisons, but juvenile detention facilities often get left out of the discussion.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles County supervisors approved $17 million in funding for an EMR system to manage the medical records of the more than 1,500 youngsters being held in county juvenile camps and halls. The EMR is intended to improve record keeping in the county’s Probation Department, which federal authorities have cited multiple times in recent years for keeping inadequate medical records on youths in custody.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. Department of Justice has said the poor record-keeping has resulted in “inconsistent or inappropriate treatment and medication.” Los Angeles County currently faces the threat of a civil-rights lawsuit that could strip county officials of some of their control over the Probation Department, the newspaper says.

Though juvenile detainees often get moved between facilities in Los Angeles County, paper records don’t always follow them. The EMR is intended to rectify that problem. The Probation Department’s CIO says the unspecified system should be in place in 15 to 18 months.

Source:http://www.fierceemr.com/story/l-county-approves-17m-emr-juvenile-detention-facilities/2010-06-03

Selecting electronic medical records software is notoriously difficult. The EMR market is flooded with several hundred vendors that cover the full spectrum of pricing and functionality, and clinics often have trouble cutting through the marketing noise.

Federal qualified health centers (FQHCs) are certainly not exempt from this predicament. They too will be required to use electronic medical records by 2015. Since most are using paper charts, the transition to electronic can be especially challenging for them.

When beginning the search for an EMR, we recommend that buyers assemble a list of their key requirements. Specialty-specific templates, lab integration, e-prescribing, and device integration are commonly required features. FQHCs, however, need to consider additional functionality due to their unique offering.

These requirements include:

• The ability to serve a wide range of specialties. Most FQHCs will need a system that supports a broad range of care – primary care, pediatrics, women’s health, behavioral health, physical therapy, dental, etc. While many vendors can address primary care and related specialties, very few can also address mental/behavioral health, therapy, and dental care in a single system.
• FQHC reports. As you know, FQHCs are required to track detailed patient information and provide Universal Services Data (USD) reports on patient demographics, statistics, and trends. Most software vendors on the market will have basic reports for patient demographics and sometimes PQRI, but most will not offer specific FQHC reports out of the box.
• Support for sliding fee scale adjustments. Systems built for FQHCs will allow administrators to apply discounts based on family size and income. Most vendors will not offer this functionality, requiring users to complete adjustments manually. This process can become very labor-intensive and increase the room for human error.
• Efficient workflows for high-volume centers. FQHCs are notoriously busy, with many providers seeing 30-40 patients per day. This large patient load will require a system that allows users to complete notes quickly, calculate charges efficiently, and generate claims automatically. Wasting time with redundant tasks can quickly lower an FQHC’s ability to support high patient volumes.

Although the EMR software market is large and complex, FQHCs can begin their EMR search processes effectively by focusing on software vendors that offer these four features. They will further benefit from the simple fact that fewer software vendors can serve their specialized needs. This smaller universe of potential vendors will help them quickly identify potential options and make the research process that much easier.

Source: http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/medical/emr-selection-primer-four-essential-features-for-fqhcs-1061510/#ixzz0r6HUnpcG

By, Mike Miliard

NEW YORK – The worldwide market for hospital information systems is positioned for significant growth in the coming years, according to a new study from GlobalData.

The global market is forecast to exceed $18 billion by 2016, after growing at a compound annual rate of 13 percent from its $7.8 billion valuation in 2009.

That growth is primarily driven by hospitals that stand to receive government reimbursements as they try to improve care and increase workflow efficiency with information technology. Overall, the study shows, hospital officials strongly believe that adopting HIS will greatly increase efficiency and reduce medical errors, thus improving quality of care.

The electronic medical records segment is by far the largest segment in the HIS market – valued at $3.4 billion in 2009 and expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.3 percent over the next seven years.

Practice management is the second largest segment, valued at $1.2 billion in 2009 and growing at a CAGR of 10.8 percent over the same period. Computerized physician order entry (CPOE), pharmacy information systems (PIS) and laboratory information systems (LIS) are projected to grow at a CAGR of 12.1 percent, 9.7 percent and 10.6 percent, respectively.

Current hospital systems are not delivering sufficiently safe, high-quality, efficient and cost-effective healthcare, according to the study, and computerization, with EMR at the center, is effectively the only way forward.

Physicians and healthcare organizations around the world looking to adopt more EMR technologies, and major companies in the market are vying for various collaborations to reach office-based physicians.

Governments in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and Finland are implementing plans to build integrated computer-based national healthcare infrastructures based around the deployment of interoperable EMR systems. Many of these countries aim to have EMR systems deployed for their populations within the next 10 years.

The HIS market in the United States was valued at $2.6 billion in 2009 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 19.3 percent over the next seven years. Economic stimulus provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is expected to increase the adoption rates to 90 percent for physicians and 70 percent for hospitals in the United States.

Source: http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/global-his-market-grow-18b-2016

Urology is a surgical specialty where the doctor focuses on the urinary tract of humans and the reproductive organs of specifically males. EMR is an electronic medical record which has been developed to replace old school medical records. Urology EMR software has been developed to specifically assist doctors in this field.

EMR stands for Electronic Medical Record and is a computerized version of the old paper records and filing system.

The reason that many doctors are switching to electronic versions of medical records is mainly due to the amount of space they take up and the financial implications which come with old school paper records take up. In most places it is common law that medical records need to be held for at least seven years, this can become extremely costly to a doctors office if you add up the various materials it takes to create and upkeep medical records over that period of time.

Paper files can often require an art and some skill to locate and keep tract of. A busy doctors office accumulates hundreds of records and this can become complicated when you need to pull a certain patients file. By switching to EMR, you and your staff will be able to easily locate any file with one simple online search and a few clicks of a mouse.

Above are listed but a few of the many advantages of going online and switching to the electronic method of doing things. There are of course many more benefits that any office can experience such as increased legibility and less room for error, room is allowed for the standardization of medical terminology and abbreviations. These can also be used in medical research for data collection and storage.

One possible downfall of EMR software is that as with any technology it can be accessed by anyone with the power, will and know how. This can result in a problem with patient confidentiality. There are various laws which have been put in place to protect patient privacy so this should not be seen as too big of a concern. All current leading Urology EMR software solutions will have the best security measures in place.

Urology EMR or urology electronic medical records represent computer software available to capture access and store information in busy hospitals and clinics. Urology EMR focuses directly on those records related to urology specialists and patients.

Source: http://www.bmi-resources.com/why-is-urology-emr-so-important-to-urologists/