Spring Break
Doctors switch to electronic health records
Chris Davies
Issue date: 11/13/07 Section: News
Earlier this month the United States Department of Health and Human Services announced that they would begin a five-year plan to encourage small-to-medium sized physician practices to adopt electronic health records.
The reasoning behind the effort is to reduce the amount of medical errors and improve the quality of care for patients.
Mike Leavitt, Health and Human Services secretary, said in a press release that more than 60 percent of Americans receive their health care at community health centers. Leavitt also anticipates by adopting electronic health records that there will be a significant amount of savings within the Medicare system.
Starting next spring the program would be open to 1,200 practices. Over five years the plan will provide financial benefits to physician groups who use and meet quality measures while using certain types of electronic health records.
Additional bonuses will be available for treating patients with Medicare and scoring well on standardized tests measuring their knowledge of the system. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of Health and Human Services, will be conducting these tests and giving out the bonuses to the practices. Health and Human Services hopes to see private insurers following their lead to spread electronic health records, to reduce medical errors even further. An expected 3.6 million Americans could benefit from this change, more if private insurers follow suit.
Once a practice has accepted the system from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, they will have two years to get their clinical information technology systems in place. The systems must be checked by Health and Human Services to ensure functionality, security and interoperability.
In the second year bonuses will be given for reporting on the performance of the electronic health records. In the third year more can be earned for improving performance with the system.
The cost of implementing these systems is expected to be offset by fewer medical errors, unnecessary hospitalizations and emergency room visits. Laura Manley Knoblauch, associate director of SHS, said that SHS was taking steps to use electronic health records at ISU. "SHS currently uses a paper medical record filing system. However, a request for proposal was sent out last week to obtain bids for an electronic health record system. It is our goal to install an electronic health record in summer 2008," Knoblauch said.
The reasoning behind the effort is to reduce the amount of medical errors and improve the quality of care for patients.
Mike Leavitt, Health and Human Services secretary, said in a press release that more than 60 percent of Americans receive their health care at community health centers. Leavitt also anticipates by adopting electronic health records that there will be a significant amount of savings within the Medicare system.
Starting next spring the program would be open to 1,200 practices. Over five years the plan will provide financial benefits to physician groups who use and meet quality measures while using certain types of electronic health records.
Additional bonuses will be available for treating patients with Medicare and scoring well on standardized tests measuring their knowledge of the system. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of Health and Human Services, will be conducting these tests and giving out the bonuses to the practices. Health and Human Services hopes to see private insurers following their lead to spread electronic health records, to reduce medical errors even further. An expected 3.6 million Americans could benefit from this change, more if private insurers follow suit.
Once a practice has accepted the system from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, they will have two years to get their clinical information technology systems in place. The systems must be checked by Health and Human Services to ensure functionality, security and interoperability.
In the second year bonuses will be given for reporting on the performance of the electronic health records. In the third year more can be earned for improving performance with the system.
The cost of implementing these systems is expected to be offset by fewer medical errors, unnecessary hospitalizations and emergency room visits. Laura Manley Knoblauch, associate director of SHS, said that SHS was taking steps to use electronic health records at ISU. "SHS currently uses a paper medical record filing system. However, a request for proposal was sent out last week to obtain bids for an electronic health record system. It is our goal to install an electronic health record in summer 2008," Knoblauch said.
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