Electronic Health Record – HEALTHCARE BEAT

EHR Alerts … and more!

Pew: Patient safety demands more robust testing of EHR usability

Healthcare IT News
Pew Charitable Trusts says not enough attention is being paid to electronic health record usability from a safety point of view. And given that federal certification requirements don’t address two key safety factors, it’s offering EHR developers and provider organizations a toolset to help boost patient protections. READ MORE

Few execs believe healthcare IT security tech will be disruptive

HealthITSecurity
Only 7 percent of executives surveyed by Reaction Data believe that healthcare IT security technology will have a significant disruptive impact on healthcare. Twenty-nine percent said that telemedicine will be the biggest disruptor, 20 percent said AI, 15 percent said interoperability, 13 percent said data analytics, 11 percent said mobile data, 3 percent said cloud, and surprisingly only 2 percent said blockchain would be the biggest disruptor. READ MORE

Hackers favor using vulnerable web apps to beat security perimeters

Health Data Management
For many organizations, vulnerable web applications may be their weakest link when it comes to an effective data security strategy. About three-quarters (73 percent) of successful perimeter breaches in 2017 were achieved using vulnerable Web applications, according to Kaspersky Lab’s analysis of penetration tests it conducted on corporate networks that year. READ MORE

HIMSS: Stark Law hinders care coordination, health data exchange

EHR Intelligence
The Physician Self-Referral Law, commonly known as the Stark Law, places unnecessary administrative burdens on providers while hindering care coordination and health data exchange, according to a letter from HIMSS to CMS Administrator Seema Verma. In response to the federal agency’s June request for information (RFI), HIMSS advised CMS to change Stark Law regulations to ensure they do not prohibit or interfere with health data exchange and care coordination.In its letter, HIMSS emphasized that alternative payment models (APMs) require a flexible regulatory framework to succeed. READ MORE

How blockchain could solve 4 major problems in healthcare

Health Data Management
The healthcare IT industry faces a host of challenges today, including silos within hospitals that restrict information sharing, integrating artificial intelligence into clinical practice, to solving the opioid crisis. While distributed ledger technologies such as blockchain won’t mitigate all of them, this technology can resolve a number of significant pain points associated with routine business processes. READ MORE

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What do patients and healthcare professionals think of EHRs?

A new survey from SelectHub, a technology selection management company, examined the thoughts of medical professionals and patients regarding electronic health records.

What do patients and healthcare professionals think of EHRs?

The team interviewed 1,007 Americans who have access to EHRs, as well as 107 healthcare professionals, including nurses, physician assistants, administrators, technicians and medical laboratory scientists. In an email, Chris Lewis, a creative partner of SelectHub, said the survey results were not limited to users of a certain EHR vendor or system.

Apparently, healthcare workers and patients both have a fairly positive sentiment of EHRs — at least according to the survey.

Among healthcare professionals, 53.5 percent said they had a positive outlook on EHRs, and 33.7 percent indicated they had a very positive stance. Approximately 10.9 percent had a neutral opinion, 2 percent expressed a negative opinion and 0 percent had a very negative outlook.

These results are surprising, given that electronic health records are often considered something healthcare workers love to hate.

Despite these favorable viewpoints, EHRs don’t seem to be cutting down on the amount of time professionals spend on health records. Among those who switched to using an EHR system, the average number of hours per week spent on health record work only decreased from 19.7 hours to 18.6 hours.

Additionally, 81 percent of professionals said EHRs have increased general workplace productivity.

The SelectHub survey included a wide range of healthcare participants, such as administrators, medical laboratory scientists and office receptionists. But it is interesting to note that a study out of the University of Wisconsin and the American Medical Association found that at least among primary care physicians, EHRs are time-consuming and only complicate matters. According to that study, EHR-related tasks take up nearly half of the average PCP’s workday.

Among patients included in the SelectHub survey, 60.4 percent expressed a generally positive opinion of EHRs, and 19.7 percent had a very positive opinion. Additionally, 16.6 percent had a neutral stance, 3 percent had a negative opinion and 0.3 percent indicated a very negative opinion.

“Perhaps the most surprising aspect of our research though was the reasoning behind patients’ support of EHR technologies,” Lewis said via email.

Seventy-six percent of patients said they believe their doctor’s use of an EHR has either a positive or very positive impact on the healthcare they receive.

“Furthermore, those who received thorough instructions on EHR use and access reported accessing their records more than twice as frequently, suggesting a potential need for more information resources for patients,” Lewis added.

Photo: Mutlu Kurtbas, Getty Images

Providence worker to serve 2 years for giving medical records to drug dealer

By Tulsi Patil for KTUU.com

ANCHORAGE – An Anchorage woman was sentenced to two years in federal prison Monday for violations to medical privacy laws, U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler’s office announced in a press release.

According to prosecutors, 33-year-old Stacy Laulu was a financial counselor at Providence Hospital in March, 2013 when she was contacted by Stuart Seugasala who asked her to access private medical records of two patients at the hospital.

Seugasala was a video game parlor owner at the time and was also trafficking drugs on the side. On March 13, 2013, Seugasala and two others kidnapped, tortured and sexually assaulted two men who owed them money. The condition of one of the victims was so severe that he was admitted to Providence Hospital for treatment.

Two days later, on March 15, in an unrelated incident, Seugasala put another person in the hospital when he shot at a person driving on Seward Highway. The victim suffered from a severed fingertip and a neck-graze wound and was also admitted to Providence Hospital for treatment.

Prosecutors wrote that Seugasala then contacted Laulu and asked her to take a look at their private medical records.

“Laulu determined the identity of one of the victims (one of whom was still hospitalized) and provided Seugasala with confidential information about the victims, including what they had told hospital staff about how they sustained their injuries, the severity of the injuries and what was reflected in hospital records about their cooperation with law enforcement,” prosecutors wrote.

Laulu communicated all the information to Seugasala via text messages and police seized her phone at the request of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Laulu admitted to sending the information to Seugasala and Providence Hospital terminated her employment.

“Evidence at the trial established that Laulu’s husband was a close friend and former co-defendant with Seugasala in a federal drug case,” prosecutors wrote. “Witnesses at Seugasala’s and Laulu’s trial testified that, at times, Seugasala would arrange to drop off drug proceeds for Laulu and her husband’s benefit.”

Laulu was sentenced to two years in prison for violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Prosecutors wrote in the press release that this case was the first felony HIPAA prosecution in Alaskan history and one of the few in the country.

Seugasala was sentenced to life imprisonment on May 18.

Medical Document Services of Kansas, LLC (MDS) is a Wichita, Kansas healthcare document service specializing in Medical Billing and RCM, Medical Transcription, Pre-Certs with AzaleaHealth EHR. We provide efficient, accurate, affordable quality services for hospitals, clinics, and facilities of all sizes. Call 866-777-7264 today, or visit our website for more information. We have education programs in Medical Scribe Specialists. #medicaltranscription #azaleahealthEHR #revenuecyclemanagement

US House Bill Introduced to Stop ICD-10

Article by Chris Dimick, Editor-in-chief at the Journal of AHIMA. This article was originally published on the Journal of AHIMA website on May 4, 2015 and is republished here with permission.

A bill has been introduced into the US House of Representatives that would stop the implementation of ICD-10-CM/PCS.

The bill, H.R. 2126, would “prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from replacing ICD-9 with ICD-10 in implementing the HIPAA code set.” Introduced by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) on April 30, H.R. 2126 has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Ways and Means.

Rep. Poe is a long-time opponent of the ICD-10 implementation. In 2013 he introduced a nearly identical bill into the House of Representatives on April 24, 2013, H.R. 1701, that also called for prohibiting HHS from replacing ICD-9 with ICD-10. That bill failed to gain traction and was never taken up by the referred House committees, according to Congress.gov.

H.R. 2126 is co-sponsored by Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Rep. Mike D. Rogers (R-AL), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), Morgan H. Griffith (R-VA), Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), and Rep. David P. Roe (R-TN).

AHIMA and the Coalition for ICD-10 have called on ICD-10 supporters to continue their advocacy efforts and contact their representatives and senators to prevent any future delay of ICD-10.

Posted by Traci Miller on May 7, 2015