As if healthcare executives don't have enough worries about implementing electronic health records, yet another issue is starting to ramp up. "What's been happening more frequently in the last few years is that certain plaintiffs' lawyers – a kind of group of them who communicate with each other – have started to see the medical record as an opportunity for litigation," said Mary Re Knack, a Seattle-based attorney for the firm Ogden Murphy Wallace. Knack will be presenting an exploration of these emerging litigation troubles in the session "Just Press Print: Challenges in Producing EHRs in Litigation" with colleague Elana R. Zana at HIMSS16, beginning in late February.
States have been playing catch-up. As recently as 2011, only 11 states had telehealth parity laws, which require that insurers reimburse telehealth providers exactly as they would for an in-person visit. Today, 29 states and the District of Columbia have parity laws. In those jurisdictions, if a patient with a sore throat wants to confirm she has a strep infection and receive a prescription for antibiotics, it makes no difference to insurance companies whether the visit occurs over the computer or in an office. Forty-eight state Medicaid programs (every state but Connecticut and Rhode Island) offer some form of coverage for telemedicine. Congress is expected to take up legislation this year that would expand telehealth coverage for Medicare enrollees.
Like so many in his profession, Dr. Jason A. Tracy used a pager to send and receive urgent messages every day. It was by his side for nearly 20 years, ever-present on his belt, vibrating with purposeful vigor whenever Tracy was needed by a patient or colleague. That was until a couple months ago, when, for the first time in his medical career, Tracy took off his pager and never put it back on. He turned instead to a secure application that allowed him to text colleagues on a sleek and decidedly 21st-century device, his iPhone. The change, said Tracy, the chief of emergency medicine at South Shore Hospital, was "freeing."
West Chester Hospital has launched a program that allows patients to view detailed information about their own medical care and hospital stay as well as access entertainment apps and the Internet. The My UC Health Bedside tablet program was distributed at the hospital today via 145 Samsung tablet computers, letting patients navigate the Epic MyChart Bedside system. That system allows them to monitor vital signs and lab results, access educational materials about various health topics specific to their diagnosis and learn more about their care team.
While financial incentives influence physician behavior and moderately improve quality measures, non-incentivized providers targeted with other quality measure efforts have greater performance improvement, according to a recent study published by the JAMA Network. A combination of interventions, IT advancements and close contact support are responsible for greatest improvements in quality measures, said Sean Gleeson, MD, medical director, Partners for Kids at Nationwide Children's Hospital and one of the study's authors. "P4P is good, but it's not enough to make the greatest impact," he adds. "What's important is that all groups saw positive impacts. All physicians are growing in a positive direction."
A health care startup made a wild pitch to Cara Waller, CEO of the Newport Orthopedic Institute in Newport Beach. The company said it could get patients more engaged by "automating" physician empathy. It "almost made me nauseous," she said. How can you automate something as deeply personal as empathy? But Waller needed help. Her physicians, who perform as many as 500 surgeries a year, manage large numbers of patients at various stages of treatment and recovery. They needed a better way to communicate with patients and track their progress.