February 17, 2012

Ivy Tech Community College, 200 Daniels Way, Bloomington, IN  47403

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We are pleased to announce Dr. Marjie G. Harbrecht as our keynote speaker. Dr. Harbrecht is a board certified Family Physician and currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Health TeamWorks. She has lead the organization since 1999, which is now focusing efforts on helping practices and communities transform healthcare delivery through multiple activities including two major national initiatives: Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP) and the Colorado Multi-Stakeholder, Multi-State Patient Centered Medical Home Pilot. Discover what being a certified Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) means for both patients and your practice.

 HealthLINC is also partnering with IVY Tech Community College to offer conference sessions that will provide a comprehensive overview of the impact ICD-10 will have on both physician practices and hospitals. These sessions will deliver the tools needed for you to initiate your journey. A successful transition to ICD-10 will be vital to transforming our nation’s health care system and essential to maintaining business operations.

You will not want to miss the opportunity to hear industry experts speak to the topics that are essential to providing a set of best practices that enable better point of care for the patient, less errors, and an overall lower cost of service.

The grant enables VIM to partner with NoMoreClipboard, a company based in Fort Wayne that operates “personal health records,” a complete summary of a person’s medical history accessible online at NoMoreClipboard.com; and a “health information exchange,” a system that electronically moves a patient’s clinical health care information among health care providers in a particular community or region.

NoMoreClipboard.com is an online, patient-controlled health record management system that consolidates medical information securely for easy retrieval and updates. It enables patients to share medical information with professionals electronically, reducing the need to complete repetitive paperwork.

“A personal health record provides a way for patients to actively manage and monitor their health information,” said Elizabeth Thompson, VIM’s executive director. “A patient can use it to keep track online of his allergies, chronic diseases, medications, family history and X-ray reports and print it out and take to the doctor’s office with him; or go to the doctor’s office and look up the information with a phone or smart phone.”

The partnership calls for the personal health record to be filled with health information that exists in the HealthLINC clinical messaging system used by more than 270 physicians and medical staff in Bloomington.

Within the next month, one group of VIM patients will be provided with a personal health record they’ll be able to access primarily by computer — either at home, a public library or the VIM clinic.

A second group will be provided with additional access to their personal health record via a smart phone with a data plan, and will be given a $20 monthly stipend to help subsidize their data plan. They will be asked to input their glucose readings into their phone, which will upload to their personal health record. A third group, which will serve as a control group, will not use a personal health record.

“This will enable us to determine the potential impact that using a personal health record can have in improving diabetic compliance, improving clinical outcomes and reducing costs,” Thompson said. “It will also will enable VIM to determine the potential value of offering a personal health record application to its entire patient population.”

Thompson said many VIM patients are referred to doctors and specialists in the area who provide free or low-cost care.

“But coordinating care can be a challenge because these patients move from provider to provider,” she said. “Without a means of easily sharing patient information, providers lack access to clinical data, including medication lists, allergies, conditions and lab results. This lack of data invariably contributes to service duplication, unnecessary costs and avoidable errors.”

Thompson said if the program involving diabetic patients goes well, VIM will expand its offer of personal health records to all its patients. That project will be funded by part of a $1.25 million federal grant to NoMoreClipboard and Indiana Health Information Technology Inc. that will provide patients in the state with access to health information exchange data.

Thompson said Indiana has five health information exchanges that routinely move health information among physicians, hospitals, and labs on behalf of patients — but without patients being active participants. The grant will enable patients to electronically monitor their personal health records.

“It’s exciting that VIM is part of this,” Thompson said. “It will be huge news if we can show that this program can help people, particularly highly vulnerable people like VIM patients, improve their health over time.”

Source:  HeraldTimesOnline.com 2011

In south-central Indiana, 107 providers have contracted with the Tri-State Regional Extension Center (REC) to receive assistance with electronic health records (EHR) adoption and achievement of meaningful use. If you are not yet moving in that direction, it’s not too late. Even if your practice is paper-based, your local REC can still help you succeed.

Several practices working with HealthLINC, one organization that comprises the Tri-State REC, are already close to meeting meaningful use and receiving their incentive from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Those practices leading the way have been designated meaningful use “MUvers.”

Why make the effort? Eligible providers who achieve meaningful use of an EHR can earn up to $44,000 in incentive payments from Medicare or up to $63,750 in incentives from Medicaid. The incentive payments will bring the region up to $7 million in additional funding.

But there are more than financial motives. “By helping us reach our goals through use of electronic medical records, the REC is helping us improve patient safety and increase communication with patients and other health care providers,” said ISMA member Hayley Wible, D.O., of IU Health-Southern Indiana Physicians.

“HealthLINC has been invaluable in our effort to meet these goals by educating our office managers about the process and assisting our users with Medicare registration,” said Dr. Wible. “They have also done a gap analysis for us, which has been a big advantage to working with them.”

If you have an EHR or you don’t
The Tri-State REC offers specially designed tools to help physicians evaluate and select an EHR system, implement that system as efficiently and smoothly as possible, and then make adjustments to achieve meaningful use and collect the maximum incentive funds. The REC charges paper practices $1,000 – with $250 due at the start and $750 due to the REC upon achieving meaningful use.

The Tri-State REC also serves practices that have already selected and/or implemented an EHR system, by coaching them on how to use their systems to their fullest capabilities and helping the practices meet meaningful use. This service is offered at no charge.

“It has been a personal pleasure to work with so many providers throughout Indiana with the regional extension center. We work hard to ensure primary care providers thrive in the era of electronic health care and emerging health care reform,” said Todd Rowland, M.D., executive director for HealthLINC.

The Tri-State REC with its HealthLINC partner serves south-central Indiana, southwestern Ohio and northeastern Kentucky. Learn more about how they can help your practice here, email or call (513) 469-7222, option 3.

South-central Indiana EHR MUvers
Offices attesting to meaningful use – so far
Heartland OB GYN – Washington
Southern Indiana Family Practice – Linton

Offices planning to attest to meaningful use in 2011
Family Medical Center – Seymour
Southern Indiana Community Healthcare – Paoli
Legacy Primary Care Physicians – Seymour
John Labban, M.D. – Bloomington
IU Health Southern Indiana Physicians – Bloomington
Stephen Glaser, M.D. – Batesville
Internal Medicine Associates – Bloomington
Charles McGovern, M.D. – Batesville
Southern Indiana Pediatrics – Bloomington
Switzerland County Nurse Managed Clinic
Philip Crooke, M.D. – Bloomington
Indian Creek Family Health Center – Brookville

ISMA e-Reports, July 25, 2011

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The grant will be implemented the following way:  one group of patients will be provided with a VIM PHR that they will access primarily via computer.  Patients in this group would have home access to a computer and internet connection or regular access at another location, such as the public library or at the VIM clinic. The second group will be provided with additional access to the PHR via a smartphone.  Patients in this group would either have a smartphone with a data plan or be in a position to upgrade easily to such a phone/plan.  These patients would be provided with a  monthly stipend (approximately $20 per month) to help subsidize their data plan with the stipend contingent on active participation/use of the PHR.  One of the tasks required would be to input their glucose readings into their phone, which would upload to their PHR.  The third group would not utilize the PHR and would serve as a control group.   All the patients who have their PHR activated would have it populated with the existing information that is held within the HealthLINC Clinical Messaging system now, so that historical data is available for comparison.

http://www.vimmonroecounty.org/

The new effort is designed to enable the Beacon communities to generate in a systematic way “actionable, rigorous evidence” that shows how to use health IT to enhance patient care and reduce costs, according to the network sponsors, ONC, AcademyHealth and the Commonwealth Fund, in a July 26 announcement.  

Academy Health promotes healthcare research and policy, and the Commonwealth Fund is a foundation that advocates for a high-performing healthcare system.

Beacons, which are funded by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, are communities of healthcare organizations around the country using electronic health records (EHRs) to improve specific patient outcomes.    

Examples of some of the Beacon goals are involving diabetic patients to participate in managing their health and reducing emergency department visits and hospital readmissions.

The network will enable the Beacons to build a knowledge base through increasing the yield of evidence from projects by coordinating evaluators with external experts to resolve research challenges and expand distribution of the information.

The network will also bring together leaders and experts on topics like reducing hospital readmissions, measuring provider performance using multiple data sources, and getting the most out of the use of EHRs in physician practices. The participants will also develop issue briefs and case studies examining tough policy and evaluation challenges and emerging promising strategies and early trends.

The Beacons offer a critical opportunity to gather data on what works and what doesn’t when building a health information infrastructure, said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, the national health IT coordinator. “The Beacon Evidence and Innovation Network will help ensure that we have strong evidence to support decision making moving forward on ways to improve health and health care,” he said.

[Also: ONC 'beacons' and exchanges build footing for future ACOs.] 

AcademyHealth laid the groundwork for the network by performing assessments to identify the evidence gaps and information needs of community and national policymakers and another to highlight the capacity of participating Beacons to produce quality evidence on their intended outcomes. The Beacons’ data will inform “real-world strategies to improve the delivery, quality and value of health care,” said Lisa Simpson, AcademyHealth CEO.

The Commonwealth Fund will provide evaluation expertise and gather the knowledge gained from the Beacon projects, which have “the potential to lead the nation in accelerating innovations and improvements in the way health care is delivered” said Dr. Anne-Marie Audet, Commonwealth Fund vice president.

View Original Article on Government Health IT  

The practice is on track to qualify for incentive payments for reaching “meaningful use” under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009. Practices can earn up to $44,000 by 2015, and the assistance Dr. Fain has received from the Tri-State Regional Extension Center (REC) has cost him nothing.

Tri-State assists practices in 19 southeastern Indiana counties (see here), showing them how to use EHRs to achieve meaningful use and earn incentives. Practices in other counties can access the Indiana Health Information Technology Extension Center at Purdue University (see May 16 ISMA Reports or visit the ISMA website) for help.

“If a physician plans to accept payment from third-party payers, the EHR is going to be as important a tool as the stethoscope,” said Nicholas R. Lemming, M.D., one of six physicians at Seymour Family Medical Center. The practice has used Allscripts EHR since 2008 and signed with Tri-State last December.

“They have been available and accommodating to our schedule,” Dr. Lemming said of Tri-State. The REC‘s knowledge and experience helped his practice understand the details of meaningful use and find their shortcomings.

“The gap analysis done with Tri-State was insightful to guide our forward progress,” said John Fye, M.D., one of Dr. Lemming’s partners.

Getting started
Shannon Maddock, Indian Creek office manager, first heard about the Tri-State REC in an email from the ISMA. “A Tri-State representative came to visit and explained what they could do to help us achieve meaningful use,” she explained. “Now when I run into things I don’t understand, I can call our representative and she gets the answers for me.”

Practice Manager Kathy Franklin in Seymour said when an issue or problem arises, Tri-State is quick to offer solutions. “They say here’s what worked with another practice, let’s try it.”

Maddock and staff are now hitting about 70 percent of their marks and printing reports. “We couldn’t have done what we’ve done without help from Tri-State,” said Dr. Fain.

Physician, nurse practitioners and staff agree they were already doing many things required for meaningful use of their e-MD Solution Series EHR. It’s pushing the right buttons to generate a report that’s new to them.

“Take, for example, tobacco use,” said Dr. Fain. “We’ve been recording patients’ use of tobacco since we opened our practice, but we could not print a report to show it. Now we must re-document to reach meaningful use requirements.”

Reaching goals
Franklin’s office is very close to attesting to achieving meaningful use, which involves using a certified EHR, electronically exchanging health information and submitting clinical quality and other measures. What’s the process been like?

“Our staff has spent quite a bit of time working with Tri-State, but I feel it is time well spent,” said Dr. Fye. “Our physicians have made only small time commitments, usually confined to within our regular partner meetings.”

Maddock expects the practice will be ready to meet objectives Aug. 1. They’ll make adjustments in September and do reporting in the last three months of the year.

Dr. Fain remains “skeptical” about whether some criteria are “meaningful” or “useful,” yet he arrives at the office early and stays late to reach the objectives. “I think we all need to make certain sacrifices to improve the delivery of health care for the future,” he said. “I have no doubt we will achieve our goals.”

Dr. Fye summed up the process: “I can see that in the future the path to meaningful use will improve the delivery of health care by keeping a more concise picture of current overall health and the need for preventive services, and by reducing duplication of services.”

Read Full Article

Reprinted with permission from the Indiana State Medical Association

Dr. Todd Rowland, Executive Director at HealthLINC HIE, provides an overview of how HIE can help community based physicians. Dr. Rowland addresses the importance of office managers in HIE adoption and tactics to increase adoption of EMR and HIE technologies by rural healthcare providers. Listen to this podcast to learn ways to use data standards to enhance revenue cycles and how to obtain optimal use of federal dollars to obtain meaningful use of EMR and HIE technologies. Dr. Rowland also provides his insight on ingredients to ensure that technology helps providers improve direct patient care and investments that should be made by the private and public sector to ensure that this more widespread. This interview was conducted by Dr. Jack Varga, Physician Informaticist, Veterans Health Administration.

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Source:  HIMSS

To view the PowerPoint slides used by speakers, click on the presenter’s name.

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