The high road of HITECH

Electronic health records and industry vendors took center stage throughout the 4th annual Healthcare Trade Faire & Regional Conference November 19 in downtown Atlanta.

Sponsored by the Georgia chapter of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the healthcare-wide and impending EHR-focused issues of HITECH stimulus funding, meaningful use and implementation drew a record attendance of 500 healthcare professionals, according to chapter President Don Kinser.

Greenway Medical Technologies Vice President of Marketing, Corporate Development and Government Affairs Justin Barnes debuted the conference as keynote speaker. In his capacity as chairman of the HIMSS Electronic Health Records Association, Barnes detailed the stimulus incentives of EHR adoption in his presentation “ARRA-HITECH: Understanding & Optimizing the EHR Incentives for Georgia Healthcare Providers – Perspectives for all size Hospitals and Physician Practices.”

“The goal of the HITECH Act is a systemic interoperability across the country, reaching three hundred to three hundred and fifty thousand providers nationwide. It’s about managing the heartbeat of your practice,” said Barnes. While he diagrammed the high-profile Medicaid and Medicare EHR adoption incentives offered during coming years, Barnes also revealed less well known but sizable incentives also available for Health Information Exchanges, Regional Extension Centers, Federal Qualified Health Centers and the undertaking of broadband capabilities, all while noting, for example, the $1.5 billion alone that is available from the Health Resources and Services Administration

When practices review EHR vendors for stimulus implementation, he advised attendees to cross reference a system’s certification, KLAS scores and HIMSS Davies Awards among other criteria. And incentives don’t stop with implementation. “Only five percent of practices undertake clinical trials,” he noted. “Trials and research are a source of ROI and income per patient. Think of the clinical trials and research you could do.”

Barnes’ keynote dovetailed into conference sessions such as EHR rollout, eMAR in 90 days, the medical home and “liberating data.” At an overflow CIO roundtable session, panelists grappled with the conflicting objectives of data security and the exchange of patient records. Attendees agreed that systems need sustainable IT funding like that found in other industries, and pointed to the adoption of mobile banking models, both in technical terms and as an analogous strategy, to assure stakeholders of the stability of healthcare technology.

“This is a good time to have a good relationship with your vendor,” recommended panelist Ron Strachan, CIO of Wellstar Health Systems. “Should you make diagnostics from the view of an iPhone? No, that’s not meaningful use. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

A discussion of meaningful use capped the conference, as attendees were given a preview of the critical components of CPOE, e-prescribing, standardized information exchange, quality reporting and other tenets of EHR adoption to procure incentive funds. But, like in the other major sessions, attendees were urged to consider the idealistic and attainable goals of the HITECH Act.

“Meaningful use is understanding what an EHR is and should do,” said presenter Donna Schmidt, chief nursing officer of CSC Healthcare Group. “Meaningful use takes the ambiguity away and allows for prioritizing.”

Echoed presenter David Stewart, GAHIMSS board member, “Meaningful use is the enabler to define quality care and to survive and achieve under any healthcare reform scenario.”