HealthyData Blog
In healthcare, there are so many regulations and technologies to stay current on. In our HealthyData blog, you will read everything from CMS meaningful use to EMR news, clinical best practices and QAPI program initiatives.
Do you ever find yourself asking "how could we still be processing so much paper and faxes in the year 2017?" Sometimes, it can feel like there are mountains of paper that need to be climbed and processed with no summit in sight. There are EMR's, Care Everywhere, FHIR, HIE's, reference lab interfaces, and hundreds of other ways to exchange information electronically. But here we are…still seeing hundreds or even thousands of actual faxes per day in clinics and HIM departments.
It seems that every day you’re hearing of a new cyber-attack to hit a large company. These cyber-attacks are happening frequently in healthcare databases too, resulting in your information being held in a ransomware’s data encryption. This malware will prevent organizations from being able to enter specific parts of their system. The ransomware typically works one of two ways. It either works to prevent you from accessing important data or encrypts it entirely, jeopardizing your data security. How do you then get your data back? Fork over your wallet… and that’s not even a guarantee that you will see your data again.
For years, healthcare’s financial incentive framework has been based on a fee-for-service model. This means that providers and hospitals are paid based on the number of healthcare services they provide. A higher volume of tests or procedures results in greater payments to the entities that provide them. The seemingly important element that is left out of this equation is whether the patient, who is being subjected to these tests and procedures, is experiencing improved health.
I can guarantee that anybody reading this blog uses machine learning dozens of times each day without even realizing it. When you perform a web, search using Google or Bing, for instance, the search engine works so well because their software has figured out how to predict searches and rank pages for you.
Focusing on the quality of healthcare you/your organization provides is extremely important. There has been a lot of buzz around the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) this year. “What is MIPS? How do we maximize our incentives? Who can help us?” are just a few of the common questions we have run into. Dedicating 100% of your attention to patient-centered needs is possible with the right technology.
It is a way for healthcare organizations to prove that their patients are their number one priority. By proving the quality of compliance, organizations can prove that year over year their quality in care is constantly improving. By being able to prove compliance is important within an organization, there is a direct correlation to better patient satisfaction, more patients, better opportunities for successful outreach, and staying in business.
The Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) has been in place for over 4 months now. It consolidated and improved Meaningful Use, PQRS, and VBPM and added some new Improvement Activities to your to-do list. By all accounts, it's a better system that will hopefully improve the healthcare we receive across the nation. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a lot of work!
Googling the phrase “Clinical Data Capture” leads to an entire page of results dedicated to “Electronic Data Capture” for clinical trials. There is a vast number of articles and vendors that suggest they cover the existing challenges, technologies and innovations happening this area. But is this really true?
