By Mike Millard, Healthcare IT News

DALLAS – A new survey from Anthelio finds that a majority of community hospitals report having low operating margins due to rising healthcare costs and lower Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement. Nonetheless, most hospitals surveyed are still working to put in place an array of health IT.

The report finds community hospitals targeting several priorities as they work to put in place technology solutions to improve operations, and improve patient satisfaction and performance:

• EMR implementation. Sixty-nine percent of community hospitals have acquired and started their EMR implementations, with 39 percent spending more than $8 million on their EMR implementations.
• ICD-10 conversion. Although 95 percent of community hospitals have begun the switch from ICD-9/HIPAA 4010 to ICD-10/HIPAA 5010, only 24 percent are currently undergoing remediation.
• Health information exchanges. Responding community hospitals expressed a strong interest in participating in HIEs, with 43 percent saying that they are participating in an HIE, plus another 28 percent saying they are not participating, but would like to – 29 percent reported not being interested in HIE participation.

By Bernie Monegain, Healthcare IT News

OREM, UT – The community hospital that still relies exclusively on a paper medical record is rapidly moving toward extinction, according to a new report from research firm, as meaningful use drives a jump in the adoption of electronic health records.

Larger hospitals and IDNs have led the adoption of EMR technologies over the past several years, but many vendors now see the community space as providing an opportunity for market share growth.

he KLAS Community Hospital CMS 2011: Rapid Adoption found that community hospitals – now motivated by meaningful use and the associated financial incentives – have awakened to the reality that clinical information technology is not only within their reach but may be fundamental to their sustainability. Where clinicians previously may have had exposure only to order entry and results, today the physician/clinician workflow is becoming increasingly dependent on technology.

For More Information click HERE

By Diana Manos, Healthcare IT News

WASHINGTON – Electronic health records will become the norm, sooner than later, experts said at a summit hosted Friday by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).

The bottom line, said many of the speakers at ONC’s Grantee and Stakeholder Summit, is that consumers are demanding EHRs. The government is helping with adoption, but this is not nearly as influential as the healthcare consumer’s pressure on providers.

National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, MD, said the patient is not just “a ticket holder crammed into economy.”

“The patient is the copilot” with his or her healthcare provider, Mostashari said. “Increasingly, we’ll hear patients, consumers, people expecting more out of their interactions with others. So we’re going to see all of the pieces come together for this.”

For more Information click HERE

Chris Gullo, Mobi Health News

More than 50 percent of physicians use a smartphone for work purposes, according to a new study by IT industry association CompTIA. CompTIA’s “Third Annual Healthcare IT Insights and Opportunities” study consisted of online surveys of 350 doctors, dentists and other healthcare providers or administrators, along with executives at 400 IT firms that work in healthcare IT. The association conducted the surveys over the summer.

Nurse.com

Identifying the changing roles and responsibilities of chief nursing officers and chief medical informatics officers, HIMSS Analytics announced the results of a research report that examined topics such as the roles of CNOs and CMIOs within a healthcare organization and their influence on IT decisions.

The report, “Medical Device Integration: CMIO and CNO Perspectives,” sponsored by Capsule, a leading provider of medical device connectivity, gathered the opinions of CMIOs, CNOs and senior nursing executives.

The study found that senior nurse executives will continue to have involvement in the lifecycle of IT in any future decisions such as medical device integration, but will need to find a balance with their many non-technology-driven responsibilities.

“Nurses are an integral part of successfully achieving improved outcomes, optimal wellness and overall population health management,” said Joyce Sensmeier, RN-BC, MS, CPHIMS, FHIMSS, FAAN, vice president of informatics for HIMSS. “Because of the breadth and depth of nursing engagement in all aspects of healthcare, nurse leaders are in a key position to influence advances in technology and the multidimensional needs across all care settings.”

For more information, click HERE

By Amy Norton, Reuters Health

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — Uninsured Americans tend to be discharged from the hospital somewhat sooner than those with health coverage, regardless of the medical condition itself, a new study finds.

Researchers are not sure what the reasons for the findings are. And it’s not clear that a shorter hospital stay is a bad thing.

Still, the findings suggest that financial factors are playing a role in hospital length of stay, the authors say.

Looking at records for nearly 850,000 adults discharged from U.S. hospitals between 2003 and 2007, the researchers found that uninsured patients had a slightly shorter stay than patients with private insurance or Medicaid — the government-funded health program for the poor.

When it came to potentially preventable hospitalizations — for worsening of chronic health problems like asthma or diabetes, for example — uninsured patients stayed in the hospital just under 2.8 days, on average.

Joseph Goedert, Health Data Management

Six more states launched their Medicaid electronic health records meaningful use programs during the first week of November. Arkansas, Delaware, Montana, New Jersey, New York and North Dakota were the latest to launch programs.

As of Nov. 7, 2011, 39 states are live on Medicaid meaningful use with 23 having made incentive payments. Several other states expect to go live by year-end.

States and territories with Medicaid meaningful use start dates either unknown or during 2012 include America Samoa, District of Columbia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, Puerto Rico and Virginia.

For more information on related topics, visit http://www.healthdatamanagement.com

Reuters  www.reuters.com

(Reuters) – Healthcare and the national deficit tied as the second-most important issue after job creation in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, a new survey said.

Forty-two percent of the 1,000 adults nationwide surveyed by PwC‘s Health Research Institute said they would prefer lower healthcare costs over an economic rebound.

Nearly half said they made the decision to not seek healthcare or pay for medication at least once in the past year because of how much that care cost.

In the fall of 2011, PwC’s Health Research Institute commissioned an online survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, representing a cross-section of the population in terms of insurance status, age, gender, income and geography. It asked about a variety of healthcare topics.

The survey found that 61 percent said they agree or strongly agree that pharmaceutical and biomedical research is an important engine for economic growth for the United States.

Three quarters said they think companies’ clinical trials should be conducted in the United States to support jobs and revenue, even if it meant longer approval time and higher priced drugs. About three-quarters said they would not trust or not be sure if they could trust the results of clinical trials conducted outside the United States.

Michelle McNickle, Healthcare IT News

A few months ago, we chronicled the 7 most deadly sins of EMR implementation. From ignoring nurses to declining help, these offenses can be hard to make right.

But, in an effort to help big and small practices alike avoid the most common EMR faux pas, we followed up with Rosemarie Nelson, principal of the MGMA Consulting Group, and asked for her opinion on the best practices for implementing an EMR system.

Here are Nelson’s six golden rules of EMR implementation: