Patient-centric alerts close ‘prevention gaps’
According to a new study in Telemedicine and e-Health, sending alerts to patients was more effective than telephone or snail mail reminders for getting patients to schedule follow-up care. The study enrolled 584 patients with high cardiovascular risk from 73 different primary care practices into an active PHR that provided each patient support by sending cycles of alerts concerning prevention gaps.
The alerts were seen as extremely effective in closing gaps in care, such as the need for a mammogram or liver function testing. Prevention gaps were closed by 58%, ranging from 43% of colonoscopy gaps to 74% of liver function test. This “gap in care” is a major challenge in healthcare with many patients receiving less than optimal care.
Source: FierceEMR, 11/24/14
American adults increasingly interested in mHealth apps, devices
A new Harris Interactive survey found that American adults love to use their mobile devices for their fitness-related needs. 48% percent are interested in using their tablets and smart phones for checking blood pressure and 47% like to use their devices to monitor their heartbeats. The poll also showed that younger consumers are the most interested in these types of tools.
Analysts predict that 2015 will be the breakthrough year for mHealth tech. While many consumers are interested in fitness tracking, many believe the transition from fitness to healthcare will have taken place by this time next year.
Source: FierceMobile Healthcare, 11/22/14
CMS extends MU hospital attestation deadline to Dec. 31
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has given the providers struggling with Meaningful Use attestation additional help by extending the attestation deadline. The deadline extension to December 31st is for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals for the 2014 reporting year. The original deadline was November 30th.
They did not address the reason for the extension, however most assumed it was due to the very low attestation numbers. It was recorded on November 1st only 43,898 eligible professionals and 1,903 eligible hospitals had attested for this reporting year, even though there are more than 500,000 active registrants signed up for the Meaningful Use program.
Source: FierceEMR, 11/24/14
Health Systems move to solve data exchange problems on their own
Providers are now designing their own solutions to achieve interoperability after tirelessly waiting for vendors or the government to help foster data exchange.
Geisinger Health Systems has founded xG Health Solutions that uses a new draft standard developed by HL7 to connect software application to a Cerner electronic health record. Geisinger also developed a rheumatology app to interact with an Epic EHR.
Toby Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic recently announced in Lab Soft News, that his facility has also developed its own API in order to achieve interoperability.
These solutions are due to the increased accusations of vendors hindering interoperability in order to keep clients and increase profits.
Source: FierceEMR, 11/24/14
DirectTrust delivers interoperable messaging to healthcare
With healthcare’s move to interoperability, starting January 1st, 2015 clinicians must use Direct electronic messaging, a process designed to replace faxes, for at least 10% of their referrals. The key to the direct messaging is directories that list how clinicians, health systems, pharmacies, and others in the healthcare ecosystem contact one another.
Since the federal government didn’t mandate that health information service providers interoperate, some providers are non-collaborative. The nonprofit industry alliance DirectTrust and its members hope to encourage more providers to join its expanding program by showing them in its voluntary accreditation and audit program, digital certificates, and relationship with the federal government.
Source: InformationWeek Healthcare, 11/24/14
Health IT Graphic of the Week
