Beyond Certified EHR Technology: Attaining and Demonstrating Meaningful Use

Beyond Certified EHR Technology: Attaining and Demonstrating Meaningful Use

Tuesday, December 7, 2010
1:00 pm Central Standard Time

Program: McKesson Enterprise Intelligence Web Conference Series, (this webinar is part of a 4 part webinar program)

Measuring meaningful use requires more than IT adoption. The cultural and workflow transformations are complex. This session reviews the IT functionality and clinical quality measures and McKesson's approach to supporting them.

Topics include:

* Transformations required for success
* IT functionality
* Clinical quality measures

McKesson to acquire US Oncology

Who would have thought that this would happen?

According to Modern Physician, McKesson, a healthcare information technology company and pharmaceutical distributor, has reached a $2.2 billion deal to acquire US Oncology, according to a news release from the companies.

McKesson Foundation Launches Mobilizing for Health

McKesson Foundation Spotlights Role of Mobile Technology in Chronic Disease Management Through Unique Grant Program

Call for Letters of Intent for Grant Consideration
Due August 13, 2010

San Francisco, CA – July 28, 2010 – The McKesson Foundation today announces Mobilizing for Health,  an initiative which will play a critical role in disseminating knowledge and understanding of mobile health (mHealth), with its first area of focus spotlighting the growing diabetes epidemic in the United States among low income and minority populations.

At the core of the initiative is the Mobilizing for Health grant program that will fund U.S. based pilot research projects and ongoing studies in need of additional funding focused on mobile phone-based interventions for low-income patients with chronic diseases. The first grant program aims to build the evidence base for using mobile phones to improve chronic disease management in the nation’s healthcare system. 

Interested applicants have until August 13, 2010 to submit a Letter of Intent and can do so via the grant program’s web site. As part of the Mobilizing for Health program, the McKesson Foundation will seek to unearth effective mHealth technologies and advocate for policies and practices that enable the adoption of scalable mHealth interventions as a component of chronic care management for under-served populations.

EHR implementation consultants and specialists

This is republished from NonClinicalJobs.com Electronic health record (EHR) vendors are looking for implementation consultants and specialists. The nice thing is that most of these EHR companies will train you, but you should expect to travel quite a bit for this type of job. The majority of these clinical informatics positions are being filled by nurses, but physicians can play a unique role when it comes to interacting with other physicians. You see, physicians generally like to learn from other physicians. They want a colleague to provide them with pointers and tips on how a system can improve the clinical workflow. Many hospitals are cultivating physician "champions." These champions are influential advocates and have a unique way of communicating with other physicians in the hospital system. We need more champions, don't we? So, if you're thinking about a career in health IT, consider how you can play a role in the EHR implementation process. Implementation is just the first step. Maybe you could be instrumental in helping physicians and hospitals reach "meaningful use" so they can receive financial incentives from the government through the HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act) within ARRA. Who are some EHR vendors? Here are a few (in no particular order or preference): Allscripts, GE, Epic, McKesson, NextGen, eClinicalWorks, Practice Fusion, athenahealth, Cerner, ChartLogic, Eclipsys, Greenway, Ingenix, MedConnect, and many others.

Robots in hospitals improving patient safety

I love robots. R2-D2 from Star Wars is my favorite robot. When I retire someday, I'm planning on building a full-size R2-D2 that will move around my house and fetch me my slippers.

We're seeing more robots in the hospitals. Most of these won't be roaming the halls (except for the slow robot that delivers the mail), but quite a few are being used to dispense medications and to perform other tasks in the inpatient setting. A few months ago, Forbes had an article titled, "R2-D2 Has Your Pills." They mentioned how the Robot-Rx (medication-dispensing robot made by McKesson) is being used in a John Muir hospital to reduce medical errors related to drug dispensing. According to that article:

McKesson has installed 400 medicine-dispensing robots at hospitals around the country. They cost between $750,00 and $1 million. McKesson builds the robots at a factory in Pittsburgh, PA. 

Speaking of robots, I'm still waiting to see some iRobot Roomba and Scooba robots in the hospitals. They're great for floor cleaning. Speaking of iRobot, did you know that several members of the management team and Board Members are MIT graduates? No surprise, is it? Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like had I pursued a career in robotics and biomechanical engineering.

Health IT and Political Generosity

There's an interesting article in BusinessWeek about Health IT (or HITECH if you prefer). There's a diagram that show the political generosity associated with some of the major companies that develop EHRs (electronic health records) and e-prescribing solutions. Specifically:

• Allscripts: 100% support to democrats
• Cerner: 35% support to democrats
• Epic: 98% support to democrats
• GE: 61% support to democrats
• McKesson: 44% support to democrats
• Siemens: 60% support to democrats

I don't like to get into politics in my blog, so I won't. However, I find this data to be fascinating. I was reading about how Glen Tullman, the CEO fo Allscripts, used to exercise and play basketball with Obama at the same gym.

The economic stimulus plan includes $19.6 billion towards health IT. How do you think hospitals and physicians will leverage this opportunity?

What's the Best Electronic Health Record (EHR) for My Practice?

What is the best electronic health record (EHR) or electronic medical record (EMR) for your clinical practice? Can you confidently answer that question? Which vendor will you choose? Nextgen? GE Centricity? Allscripts? Epic? Cerner? eClinicalWorks? e-MDs? MedPlexus? McKesson? Hopefully you're only considering EHRs that are Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology or CCHIT certified. ASP of server-based?

Maybe you're even considering some free EMR options like Practice Fusion. How do you plan to make your decision? Do you feel like you could make an informed, educated decision about EHR selection? When you start adding billing and other practice management capabilites. Have you considered e-Prescribing? What if you're a cardiology or oncology practice? Do you know what type of subspecialty solutions are available? I feel like there are so many questions that need to be answered for hospitals and clinicians who are looking for an EHR solution.

Jobs in Health IT

There are a growing number of jobs in health IT. If you have an interest in that industry, then start getting familiar with companies like:

• GE Centricity
• Nextgen
• Kronos
• Cerner
• McKesson
• Lawson
• Meditech
• Epic
• Eclipsys

Hospital Pharmacy Performance Index by McKesson

McKesson has a new survey called the Hospital Pharmacy Performance Index. There's been a lot of talk about increasing physician performance, but there are significant needs to improve corporate performance at hospital and pharmacy levels. So how does your local hospital score? To find out, have your hospital take the online assessment here:
http://www.highperformancepharmacy.com/

The assessment is based on the 8 dimensions of pharmacy practice: leadership, medication preparation and delivery, patient care services, medication safety, medication use policy, financial performance, human resource management, and education.