EHR In Health Care

The author, Judy Murphy, focuses mostly on how the government played a huge role in the adoption of EHRs into the medical world. Murphy brings up George Bush’s statement in his 2004 State of the Union address and Obama’s push to make that happen, but this is just scratching the surface of government interventions. The author discussed the money allocated by the acts such as “The Stimulus Bill” or “The Recovery Act” to help fuel the economy and rescue a struggling health care industry. She states how acts were passed, and how there were rules set in place to be followed by hospitals and providers around the United States. The article describes how the government is basically forcing these facilities to adopt EHRs by using a reward

In order to participate in stage 1 of the HITECH/ARRA incentive program, the Ambulatory care practice must choose an EHR that is specially certifies the EHR technology meets 100% of the CMS requirements. A CMS certification ID number must be provided. The factors to consider must include security, functionality and technical capability. CMS has provided a website to verify the certification of EHR products via the ONC website at oncchpl.force.com/ehrcert. Meaningful use is divided into 2 categories. The first is for hospitals and the second is for eligible professional. In order to qualify for incentive payments through Medicare EHR incentive program, Hospitals must meet 8 required core objective which Includes 1 public health objective (CMS.GOV, "2015 Program Requirements").

electronic health record (EHR) A secure real-time, point-of-care, patient centric information resource for clinicians allowing access to patient information when and where needed and incorporating evidence-based decision support.

eHealth is an application of information and communication technologies which can help manage and improve healthcare. According to McClure, “The global impact of e-Health is being manifested in the reduction of healthcare costs and improved efficiency through better retention and retrieval of records, better management of chronic diseases, shared health professional staffing, reduced travel times and fewer or shorter hospital stays” (as cited in Isabalija, Mayoka, Rwashana, & Mbarika, 2011). One of the most important factors that influences eHealth adoption amongst the healthcare organizations and providers is the financial incentives provided by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. The HITECH Act of 2009 was signed into law to promote widespread use of electronic medical records (EMRs) and supporting technologies. As per the provision in the HITECH Act, the healthcare providers who adopt EMR system and manifests the “meaningful use” (MU) criteria by 2015 will receive incentives under

Hence, EHR 's are inherently complex amalgamations of diverse subsystems targeted toward varied users. The stakeholders are the users and must have a role in implementing any IT or EHR system into its work flow. An EHR can be customized to accommodate any environment depending on the level of expertise of the vendor and how long they have been in the business of creating an optimum system that 's customized to fit the organizations needs. For the most part, EHR 's must be designed for efficient, error free use. Ideally, an EHR is a system that encompass all the subsystems that make a hospital meet "meaningful use" criteria to acquire incentives for adopting EHR into practice. In the next five years, EHR adoption will no longer be a luxury, it will be a "MUST". EHR 's and other health information technology will be a necessity to practice medicine (econsultant.com, 2010). Rather than purchase several standalone systems, it would behoove one , in my opinion , to purchase an EHR that would satisfy all the needs of the stakeholders, the physician , nurses and other hospital staff and all parties involved in the tertiary practice too. Although LWMS 's budget is not large enough to accommodate the full cost of implementing an EHR,

A significant investment to encourage the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) by healthcare providers was made by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The EHR Incentive Program, which financially rewards providers for using EHRs and meeting all CMS program requirements, was launched by CMS in the year 2011. All healthcare providers (private or public) are required to adopt and demonstrate ‘meaningful use’ of electronic health records for maintaining their existing Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement levels (Cite). A set of penalties for healthcare providers who fail to meet the deadline have already been defined by the U.S. government. Healthcare providers failing to introduce EHR systems by the year 2015 will experience a one percent reduction in Medicare reimbursements in that year, a two percent reduction in the year 2016, a three percent reduction in the year 2017, followed by a reduction of up to a 95 percent reduction in reimbursements over a period of

In today’s society, the accuracy of health information, the availability of health records, and the professional resources in which one live are vital in decision making for health conditions. Meaningful Use (MU) is a program developed by CMS Medicare and Medicaid that awards, incentives in the health care industry in which the certified electronic health records (EHRs) are used to improve patient care (Practice Fusion, 2016). These incentives are for professionals that care for about 30% of their adult patient volume or 20% of their children’s volume for Medicare and Medicaid patients (CMS, 2016). In addition, adjusting from paper charts to electronic charts of patient’s information is beneficial for MU. Furthermore, the American

Prior to the federal mandate of EHR, research continued to show the fallacies of the healthcare system like the report published from the Institute of medicine, stating that “medical errors are the 8th leading cause of deaths in the U.S. and cost approximately forty billion dollars a year” (Overview, 2012). This was one of many indicators that healthcare needed to be reformed and in 2009, the president signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or HITECH Act, which mandated that all healthcare providers must comply and begin to transition to electronic medical records (EMR) and demonstrate “meaningful use.” This act set up a timeline, which established that practices and hospitals needed to be up and running with EMR in order to continue receiving reimbursements from federal programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 identified three main components of meaningful use: the use of a certified EHR in a meaningful manner, electronic exchange of health information to improve quality of care, and the use of technology to submit clinical outcomes and quality measures (Heath Resources and Service Administration, n.d.). ARRA includes many measures to modernize our nation’s infrastructure, with the “Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act” being an example. The HITECH Act is an effort led by Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) in support of electronic health records and meaningful use (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC 2016). According to Galbraith (2013), the HITECH Act aims to promote the use of EHRs by providing over $27 billion in monetary incentives for health care providers that become “meaningful users”. CMS uses these core objectives to determine if a health care provider has satisfied meaningful use and is eligible to receive financial incentives (Galbraith, 2013).

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law in 2009, includes the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act known as the HITECH Act. The act defined specific requirements for receiving financial incentives for ‘meaningful use’ of the electronic health record (EHR). Hospitals and providers could begin implementation of the requirements in 2011 to receive the incentives by meeting specific objectives, after 2015 failure to meet meaningful use requirements will result in penalties. Meaningful use is divided into 3 stages and each stage has objectives and requirements specific to that stage. Hospitals and providers must meet requirements for Stage 1 of meaningful use for two years before

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) states that in order to realize meaningful use of the EHR technology, healthcare providers are obliged to apply the technology in a approach that enriches quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare delivery; ebbs healthcare inconsistencies; involves patients and families; enriches care coordination; expands population and public health; and guarantees sufficient privacy and security guards for personal health information. (U.S Department of Health and

In 2009, more than $30 billion dollars in incentives was allocated by congress for hospitals to institute meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs) by 2011 (Adler-Milstein, Bates, & Jha, 2011) (Murphy, 2010). The Meaningful Use Act is a complicated principle that is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) as well as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) act.

HITECH Act provides billions of dollars in incentive payments through Medicare and Medicaid programs to providers that meaningfully use EHR. The HITECH Act also revised many segments of the Social Security Act (SSA) and in doing so, recognized the accessibility of incentive payments to providers to encourage the acceptance and Meaningful Use of Certified Electronic Health Record Technology (CEHRT). The ARRA provides the incentives to the following groups: hospitals, healthcare clinics, private practices, nursing facilities, long term health care facilities, and metal institutions.

It is necessary to be attentive in entering data elements that you may not have a clear relationship to the work you are doing because any error that you make could end up hurting the company you work for or even threaten your job. On page twenty the reading assignment states that third party organizations set standards for healthcare providers to use when measuring the quality and cost of services they provide to their patients. I personally believe that it does not only make your company look bad if you enter wrong information on someone’s EHR because you are not familiar with the work that your company has you doing, but it also causes liability between the company and the patients rights. The reading also states on page twenty that the

While the EHR system collects and stores PHI without paper records, there have been new initiatives that encourage use of the EHR. One of the major initiatives is from The Centers of Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS). Meaningful Use (MU) is a program based on if the provider is using the EHR in a “meaningful way”. Providers have certain requirements they have to meet by using the EHR such as: electronic prescribing, clinical visit summaries, asking about advanced directives, reconciling medications and allergies, and smoking status, for example. The system then generates a report that automatically calculates the percentage of patients the provider sees whom have been asked the MU standards. Each MU standard has a different percentage requirement, and based on providers meeting those percentages determines if they are eligible for financial