But as we continue to see EHR flyers and marketing brochures outline the benefits of not using paper charts, we can pause and recognize that there are factors other than the typical benefit that will eventually drive physicians to seriously consider adopting EHR. There are several reasons that can put a medical organization who still relies on paper chart at risk. Especially when we are seeing the transformation that is currently happening the US healthcare system.

Following is a list of 6 items that can put the paper based practice at risk in the near future if they don’t adopt an EHR?

More patients will be asking for it: As more patients get exposed to the benefits of their physicians using EHR and see how a healthcare providers who uses EHR can communicate as well as share medical information with them electronically (such as: X-Rays Lab results, treatment plans, e-prescriptions, and PHR), many of these health service consumers will begin to ask and look for physicians who are using these technologies. This would provide many organizations with a competitive edge and enable them to differentiate themselves from others. This could potentially penalize physicians who are not using electronic health records by losing new patients to their competitor.

Telemedicine and servicing a broader geographic area: Several large health systems are beginning to provide basic health services and specialists consults over video conferencing and for a reduce rate. Many of these services are provided via secure communication channel and do not require for the organization to have a physical office near the patient they are servicing. But many of these physicians that will provide telehealth services will be in need for an EHR to be able to share information quickly. This provides them with a competitive advantage as they can efficiently service a broader patient base outside of their immediate community.

Everyone will be collaborating but you: Some states have already implemented an HIE and as more adopt the health information exchange and some of the care delivery models, many physicians are starting to exchange and collaborate on care. These physicians are able to receive complete patient summary of record electronically and share their information about a patient with others as well. This is also the vehicle that will used by physicians to communicate and collaborate on care as well. But for physicians who are still paper based, they may encounter more challenges when attempting to collaborate and be a member of the care team for certain patient population.

Using remote health monitoring to manage chronic conditions: With the increase in patients with Chronic disease and the current competitive market, many health organizations are looking to adopt technologies to assist with remote patient monitoring services. These would be ways to capture health information and monitor patient’s vitals real time. These technologies would require physicians to have some sort of EHR in place to be able to transmit the information to.

Recruiting new physicians: As part of the medical school curriculum, many new graduating physicians have had exposure to electronic medical records. This would most likely suggest that many of them would favor practices and health organizations utilizing EHR for their future employment opportunities. This would make it difficult for paper-based practices to recruit talent.

Penalties, employers and payers will demand it: Some of the current incentives through MU may not fully cover the costs associated with software and hardware for a new EHR, however some predict that penalties and lower reimbursements may cause more heartburn for physicians who elect to stay with paper charts.These pressures will continue to mount, as there is an increasing push for modernizing the US healthcare.

Fortunately there were several mobile apps that allow me to maintain all my devices in sync with my Outlook tasks, with one of my favorites being toodledo. The toodledo app allows me to apply some of the principles of proper time management outlined in Steven Covey’s “The four discipline of execution,” and allows all of my “toys” to maintain the same list.

But one challenge that some face lies in deciding when to separate and manage multiple to-do lists. For example, for those physicians who are still practicing and also participating in leadership roles, managing their calendar requires a tremendous amount of discipline and time management skills. In a perfect world, a physician’s EHR messages should be able to easily integrate and populate with their Outlook tasks and calendar (securely and without any patient info). Unfortunately, not all systems integrate or sync with Outlook tasks, which means that many times users need to manage multiple lists or else rely on manual synchronization between different systems.

The good news is that many can still successfully and efficiently manage their time even when having to work with multiple lists. Best practice should always be to review your to-do list(s) daily and stick to deadlines, as this will ensure that you are continually monitoring progress are are aware of changing priorities.

There are many online electronic prescribing certified systems that can allow physicians and PAs to use the web site and submit electronic prescription. These products provide a quick way to get on board, and with an easy web based GUI meet the requirements of CMS. Some of these products that are available are: Dr. First, AllScripts, Care 360, and few other ones. While AllScripts offer free e-prescribing (which they do), there are many areas that are not available for free on the site and can prove to be a major hassle for the practice. Things that require a monthly fee are: such as interfacing, or uploading patients files, viewing some of the medication’s detail and as well as some of the reports. But keep in mind that for something that’s free, they definitely have an advantage, they even offer easy to follow videos and tutorials to allow the group to self-train. Some of the other solution providers such as Dr. First that has packages that are very affordable and seem to work very well with the practices.

But one of the most important steps needed here is to review all the different vendors and their options. Many of them offer mobile Apps for e prescribing which can be critical if you are a surgeon and constantly on go. The good news is that many of them work well on the iPad/ and the Android Based tablets through the browser, so if you decide not to go the App route, the browser may just be what the doctor prescribed.

Original Article

Reda Chouffani is the Co-Founder of Biz Technology Solutions, Inc and an active Healthcare Information Technology writer for Healthcare IT Insider and TechTarget’s Health IT Exchange.

But what seems to get many IT directors and CIOs attention is the possibility that this product can potentially be a viable option to replace any existing phone systems. With the ability to use either a simple USB or Bluetooth headset, you can be on the phone from your desk or from home without having to use a traditional handset.

On the administration side Microsoft made it very user friendly. IT engineers have the ability to support the system in house without the need for third party vendors in most cases. While it may be required at first during the architecture and initial deploying, this platform is not out of reach for most system administrators.

Some of the features available are:

• Through the Microsoft Lync 2010 client users will have access to presence, instant messaging, voice, video, audio and web conferencing
• Integration with Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint
• Collaboration capability through application sharing, white boarding
• Schedule meetings with single click from Microsoft Outlook
• The availability of IP and USB devices for onsite or remote use
• The availability of E911 in the system
• For solution providers, the system APIs allows the developers to easily embed Communicator UI elements in your application
• The system offers mobile apps (currently only windows phone 7 is support and they are planning on releasing future mobile Apps for Android and Apple).

Microsoft Lync 2010 provides many features to facilitate and streamline communication within the organization. And with its integration capabilities with other Microsoft server and productivity tools integration it may provide to be a product worth reviewing.

Original Article

Reda Chouffani is the Co-Founder of Biz Technology Solutions, Inc and an active Healthcare Information Technology writer for Healthcare IT Insider and TechTarget’s Health IT Exchange.

There are several steps that one can take to help stay on track and in control of their time while keeping the distractions in check:

Turn off email pop up notification and set up different times throughout the day to check your emails. Especially with the volume of emails that are coming in when most of the spam is filtered out, there is plenty of other business spam that gets through that needs to be scanned through.

Help others with their time management to ensure they are more efficient and productive; this will also help them reduce the unnecessary interruptions to you.

Always use a to-do list or have all your goals listed while going through your day. This keeps you in full focus and on top of your deadlines.

When you are in a middle of a project and you are requested to assist on a task, it is ok to schedule it out. This will ensure to others that you can dedicate time to work with them, and give them all your attention, plus they will appreciate the fact that you are completing your own critical tasks.

Make meetings meaningful and ensure you have an agenda.

When others come to you with problem, look for a way to help them and help you. One of the best tips I have received was from one of Dale Carnegies in the book “Stop worrying and Start living”: When others come to you with problems, request that they ask themselves four questions prior to coming through the door: What is the problem? What are the causes of the problem? What are the possible solutions to the problem? What is the best solution to this challenge? This method has helped me a lot resolve challenges that face some of our team members as well as keep the meetings short and to the point.

“Come earlier and leave a little late” has always been a useful way to balance the daily work/life schedule. This helps get more work done during the mornings with very little interruptions and also gives just enough time to catch up at the end of the day with team members and late meetings. But also allows us to get home or to the Gym at a decent hour and sufficient time to spend with family.

Categorize your to-do list and group all items that are similar or required similar actions. This will help create more efficiency.

This list is a simple reminder of some of the habits that can help all of us throughout our daily work. By taking some simple steps we can continue to be efficient, productive and balance our time spent between home and work.

Original Article

Reda Chouffani is the Co-Founder of Biz Technology Solutions, Inc and an active Healthcare Information Technology writer for Healthcare IT Insider and TechTarget’s Health IT Exchange.

For the healthcare software market there are several strong giants that provide robust products with every feature known to man. And we continue to see the blurring line between the differentiators of these products. It is common to hear the same sales pitch from each and everyone and not be able to really see why product XYZ is better than product ABC.

So the question to be asked is should healthcare organizations be concerned and careful to whether the product they are purchasing is going to last? Should there be concerns around the acquisitions that are happening? Well the good news is that EHR vendors are not going anywhere. Many of which that were considered too small to get certification and be on the certified EHR list made the mark and are worker even harder to maintain their market share.This is due to the fact that most of the requirements from the certification bodies for meaningful use are functionalities that good healthcare software firms should have in their products to start with. And thanks to faster development life cycle many application developers have been able to meet almost all requirements from the certification bodies.

The one thing that continues to be a critical aspect to whether a software solution will survive the ever-changing market is simply put how the actual EHR product is designed. Is it an open architecture? Can it easily adapt to changes without major redesigns? Examples are the ability of the product to support web services, cross platform, web capable, strong database engine as well as written using OOP (Object Oriented Programming).

But of course there are still top performing EHR vendors that have products that were built using old development platforms and non-SQL based databases. Some of these products have been very successful and in high demands in hospitals.

We have seen many software vendors today in a race to provide mobile apps for their products in order to ensure that the you are not the odd one out. But it remains to be seen weather the “App” is worthy of its title. These mHealth apps must provide first and for most VALUE to the end user (in this case care givers) and not be another marketing bullet in the products brochure or another costly feature on the price schedule.

Original Article

Reda Chouffani is the Co-Founder of Biz Technology Solutions, Inc and an active Healthcare Information Technology writer for Healthcare IT Insider and TechTarget’s Health IT Exchange.

Nurse calling systems have seen several changes throughout the years. Some of the early models were based on simple light indicators — some still being used in doctors offices today — where a patient has the option to press one of few color coded buttons, causing a board at the nurses’ station to light up, indicating the room number and the color pressed.

But in today’s market, there have been many new solutions that can do more than just light exchange. Many are IP based systems that can exchange messages, voice and data.

Some of the newer nurse calling systems offer several advantages, such as:

• The ability to use RTLS (Real-time Location System) to locate a nurse on the floor
• Two-way communication between patient-nurse or physician-nurse
• Integration with heart monitors and other medical devices to alert nurses of a patient’s critical condition
• Computerized dashboards that show real-time location of nurses, room status, patient info and current staff distributions
• Wireless communication as the backbone to utilizing existing infrastructure without incurring additional wiring costs
• IP based
• Scalable, which enables the system to grow with demand
• Ease of manageability and enabling IT departments to manage and support the solution
• “There is an App for that” — well I have not seen a system with a mobile app yet, but I am certain there has to be one out there
• Interoperability where the system can interact with other medical devices as well as HIS (Hospital  Information System)

It is very clear that new nurse calling systems will help improve patient care, as they are a good way to increase efficiency, drive positive outcomes, and help nurses provide better care for their patients.

Original Article

Reda Chouffani is the Co-Founder of Biz Technology Solutions, Inc and an active Healthcare Information Technology writer for Healthcare IT Insider and TechTarget’s Health IT Exchange.

With the ability to capture sales information and provide analysis tools, these products have been a critical piece for many customer service departments and business development teams. And we have seen an increasing number of hospitals turn to these tools to help them track several key pieces of information and identify an outcome measure for their marketing efforts.

It is not uncommon to see a hospital or IDN needing to “Sell” services since what they really do is provide patient care reactively once a patient is sick and is admitted. With the shrinking reimbursements, increased competition and increasing operational costs, hospitals must attempt to win more new “clients” or patients over.

CRM’s value comes in many different flavors in the healthcare setting:

• Tracking patient’s feedback and measuring patient satisfaction through survey responses
• Tracking the outcome of campaigns (phone, mailers, online ads) and applying BI and linking new patients to the different campaigns.
• Streamlining the process of converting prospects to clients (Patients)
• Tracking referrals from different sources (While ensuring that the hospital is inline with the current regulations associated with referrals and kick backs).
• Keeping patients informed of new physicians, new specialties, new procedures and new physician practices through mailers and newsletters.
• Improving patient satisfaction through automated follow up activities after discharge

As search engines continue to be one of many places patients first turn to for medical advice, hospitals must ensure they have a strong online presences and employ creative ways to draw patients to their doors. But in order to succeed and better track the outcomes of these efforts they must utilize a CRM products to help maximize the conversion rate of prospects to patients.

Original Article

Reda Chouffani is the Co-Founder of Biz Technology Solutions, Inc and an active Healthcare Information Technology writer for Healthcare IT Insider and TechTarget’s Health IT Exchange.

Up until June of 2010, all controlled substance prescriptions were required to be on paper. Fortunately, after that date, and with the final ruling from the Drug Enforcement administration (DEA), all schedule II and V substances can now be transmitted electronically to pharmacies. Unlike other prescriptions, controlled substances have some additional requirements in order to ensure compliance with the DEA regulations and state laws.

With this change, there are some tangible benefits from an EPCS (Electronic Prescription of Controlled Substance). For many physicians, having one workflow for all prescriptions clearly makes for a simpler process. It will also ensure efficiency as well as reduce double data entry. In addition, under the new ruling, new programs in collaboration with several pharmacies will be put in place to help reduce fraud and abuse of these substances. There are still several questions around some of these programs, however, such as PMP (Prescription Monitoring Program), since physicians can’t pull a patient’s medication history unless given prior permission, and this would require patient consent if physicians suspect a case of a drug seeking.

Participation for electronically prescribing controlled substances is voluntary, but with that comes few requirements from participants such as:

• Two-Factor Authentication (Something you have, you know or you are)
• (A password + fingerprint or palm scan)
• (A password + generated token)
• (A token + Biometric authentication)
• Secure Network (Secured connection to the prescription Hubs or clearinghouse)
• Access control

At this point, there are several things that are going to be taking place to ensure the security, including third party security and technology auditors for pharmacies and the certification of products being used. But with much of the progress already made in some of the pilot programs, and value of digitizing these prescriptions, the timeline that have been put in place are aggressive. At this stage the goal is get certification by the first quarter of 2011 and plan to have all pharmacies live with electronic controlled substance prescription by 2013.

Original Article

Reda Chouffani is the Co-Founder of Biz Technology Solutions, Inc and an active Healthcare Information Technology writer for Healthcare IT Insider and TechTarget’s Health IT Exchange.

1. Assign the job to the right person. Each individual has a different set of skills, personality, experience and strengths to perform the job at hand. Make sure the task matches their capabilities.  Don’t assign a task that requires attention to detail to an unorganized individual.
2. Define end goal. Set expectations clearly. Explain the project or task in detail along with the expected outcome.  Don’t ask them to achieve too many goals at one time. Prioritize tasks.
   
3. Define timeline. Define time lines for both the final deadline and progress reports. If you are managing too many complex tasks at the office, then use some type of scheduling software such as Microsoft Project Manager to get a better handle on progress and deadlines.
   
4. Define authority boundaries. Make sure your employee knows what level of authority they have including decision-making, approvals and budgets. Let them know who they can seek help from if needed.
   
5. Be available for questions and coaching, but don’t micro manage. Expect Mistakes. Taking on new responsibilities and learning new skills comes with a learning curve. Use mistakes as teaching opportunities.
   
6. Provide detailed honest feedback once the task is complete. Praise and reward success. Discuss ideas for improvement if needed and when providing feedback, maintain staff self-confidence. Publically congratulate them on their achievement.

This simple system should increase productivity in the workplace and help in meeting task/project deadlines and goals. However, in the case of trying to work with a particular individual where attitude, work ethic or skill set is not up to par, “formal documented warnings” must be given and employee dismissal is justified if there is no improvement.