ADA 2013 Photo Recap

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It was Halloween and the Rex Sox just won the World Series (go Sox!) as we arrived at ADA 2013, joining a crowd of more than 23,000 dental enthusiasts.  The three day Annual Session was nothing short of outstanding and we are pleased to say we accomplished each item on our bucket list while in New Orleans.  Between the wonderful dentists we met and the awesome food we ate, it was a meeting to be remembered.

Check out a compilation of pictures taken at ADA 2013 below of booth attendees writing their first mock e-Prescription and getting #DoseSpotted!

ADA 2013 Photo Recap

We’re working to compile answers to the most commonly asked questions about e-Prescribing at ADA for our next blog post.  Tweet any questions you have for us @DoseSpot and your question may be featured!

e-Prescribing Utilization Continues to Increase

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e-Prescribing has been on a steady growth curve for the past decade and a new study by the American Journal of Managed Care reveals it has increased eight-fold over the past five years.  Survey results highlight the percentage of doctors, nurses and PA’s e-Prescribing in the U.S. has increased from seven percent in 2008 to 54 percent in 2012.  Specifically, the number of e-Prescribers increased from 47,000 to 398,000.

From 2008 to 2012, retail pharmacies e-Prescribing on the Surescripts network increased 24 percent to more than 59,000 pharmacies.  According to the Surescripts website, that number has increased further to 64,000 retail pharmacies and six of the largest mail order pharmacies nationwide.

With meaningful use, e-Prescribing utilization is expected to rise even more.  In conclusion, “this study shows positive emerging trends in electronic prescribing by demonstrating accelerated growth in adoption of electronic prescribing at both provider and pharmacy level.  Continuous efforts and focused investments can be expected to diminish most of the barriers to implementation in the future.”

Click here to read the full summary.

Government Shutdown and Impact on HealthIT

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As we enter day three of the government shutdown, below are a few insightful healthIT and e-prescribing related articles that we think are great resources.

Also to keep in mind, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology website and Twitter handle (@ONC_HealthIT) are not being updated at this time.  You can find the Department of Health and Human Services contingency plan here.

Happy reading and keep up the awesome work!

ONC to take hit in government shutdown

‘Should Congress fail to pass legislation to continue funding the federal government, as it appears likely, the Department of Health and Human Services will be forced to furlough more than half of its employees. And the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT would be hit particularly hard.

Of the total 184 on-board staffers at ONC, only four would be retained and charged with handling “orderly phase-down and suspension of operations.”

Indeed, a government shutdown would mean ONC will put on hold its standards and interoperability work, privacy and security policy activities, clinical quality measure development, as well as maintaining the Certified Health IT Product List.’

According to Tom Sullivan, Editor, Government Health IT

What the Government Shutdown means for HealthIT Development

‘Non-essential US government operations are shut down as of last night.  That has some impacts on us in the Health IT Standards development space:

1. You won’t be able to test your CCDA documents or your implementation of the Direct transport.  TTT is down (the DNS name isn’t even found right now).
2. IHE testing supported by NIST will be offline (the servers are being shut down).
3. The Certified Health IT Products List won’t be updated.  It will still function, but you won’t see newly certified products after 9/27.  Certifiers can still operate if they have local copies of test tools.
4. Federal Employees engaged in standards development will not be on HL7 or IHE calls, or responding to e-mails.  You may see SOME e-mails today ensuring an orderly shutdown, but that will be it until things are resolved……..’

According to Keith Boone, Technology Blogger, Standards Architect at GE Healthcare, Director at large for Health Level Seven

Government shutdown could cause ‘chaos’ for ONC, health IT

‘John Halamka, FierceHealthIT Editorial Advisory Board member and CIO at Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, passed along an email to FierceHealthIT from one of his employees which said that, because the National Insitute of Standards and Technology is closed, certification of technology systems will be delayed. Document verification efforts, instead, will take place manually, it said.’

‘Meanwhile, FierceHealthIT Editorial Advisory Board member Todd Richardson, vice president and CIO at Wausau, Wis.-based Aspirus, Inc., said he isn’t too worried about the shutdown.”Perhaps I’m a mid-west pundit, but I don’t get too alarmed by all the noise coming out of D.C., and certainly am not about to make any rash decisions about which projects I need to look at stopping or slowing down,” Richardson, also a FierceHealthIT Editorial Advisory Board member, said in an email.’

According to FierceHealthIT

Government Shutdown Halts Health IT

‘The shutdown’s impact on health IT goes much deeper than the lapse in social media activity. It’s also being felt by multiple key ONC programs. For example, the administration of the Certified Health Information Technology Product List (CHPL) has stopped reporting to work. The CHPL maintains a public repository of EHR systems that have been tested and certified to ONC standards. Providers can only use products from this list to qualify for MU and receive payments under the program.

Work on the federally-funded Standards and Interoperability Framework has also ceased. This program is a collaboration of government agencies and private organizations geared toward improving the interoperability of health IT systems. In addition, the ONC will be unable to continue other standards, testing, and policy activities — all of which could have a marked impact on health IT privacy, security, and clinical quality measure development.

Finally, even though MU incentive dollars are still being paid out to providers during the shutdown, a lengthy government standoff could stall provider efforts to meet current Stage 1 and upcoming Stage 2 MU requirements. For example, without continued certification and testing, many health IT systems will remain uncertified, potentially stalling a healthcare provider’s ability to meet MU targets.

While the government shutdown isn’t “halting” health IT, it’s definitely an unwelcome obstacle standing in the way of continued health IT progress. Hopefully, the shutdown is short-lived.’

According to Ken Congdon, editor-in-chief, Healthcare Technology Online

Healthcare Hashtags and Trends

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Utilizing social media in Health IT has its challenges with complex terminology and acronyms.  Every time we tweet from @DoseSpot, the age old debate of whether to use #healthIT or #HIT comes up.  Recently launched, the Healthcare Hashtag Project curated by Symplur, a leading Healthcare Social Media Consultancy, created the project to help individuals and companies address these issues and to:

• Find where healthcare conversations are taking place
• Learn who to follow within a specialty or disease
• Follow trends from conferences in real-time or in archive

The project measures everything from trending hashtags and topics to the most talked about disease states and who is leading the conversations.  We plan to utilize this tool in the following ways:

1. Track trending hashtags when curating Tweets to increase readership
2. Follow influential health IT voices in social media
3. Get involved in conversations at medical meetings by utilizing official conference hashtags

Health Disparities to be Tackled in Meaningful Use Stage 3

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While EHR companies are working to meet Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 criteria, industry leaders have been collaborating to develop MU Stage 3 requirements.  Last week, the Consumer Partnership for eHealth published an action plan, Leveraging Meaningful Use to Reduce Health Disparities Plan, to leverage MU Stage 3 requirements to reduce health disparities.

According to Healthcare IT News, the proposed action plan:

1. Recommends that EHRs have the ability to stratify patients’ specific conditions by variables such as race, ethnicity, language, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status and disability status.
2. Calls for greater use of patient data collected and shared through devices such as smartphones.
3. Emphasizes the need to ensure that electronic health information is effectively communicated to patients, so they are better able to utilize its benefits.

The goal is to address health disparities as part of Stage 3 requirements resulting in improved health outcomes and measurement nationwide.  Notable statistics surrounding disparities highlighted in the action plan include:

• 58 million people ages five and older speak a language other than English at home
• 56 million people live with a disability
• Women account for 50.8 percent of the population
• The U.S. Hispanic population reached 50.5 million, increasing 43 percent from the year 2000 and accounting for over half of the total population increase in the U.S.

Medication Lists: Important for Prescribers and Patients

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Lists are a part of our daily lives, from to-do lists to grocery lists.  But what about maintaining an active medication list?

Having a personal medication list readily available is vital in the case of an emergency.  The FDA recommends people taking medication:

• Keep the list of your medications with you at all times and let a loved one know.
• Keep a list of your medications and dietary supplements with you at all times, such as in your wallet or purse, and keep a copy in your home.
• Share a copy of the medication list with a family member or friend, or let them know where you keep the list. In an emergency, that person will be able to inform your doctors of the medications and dietary supplements you use.

Make a medication list today and bring it with you to your next doctor’s appointment.  Knowing your medication regimen will allow physicians that e-Prescribe to check for drug and drug-allergy interactions as well as adverse drug reactions.  Get more tips from the FDA at http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm096403.htm.

Checking For Drug Interactions

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Drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checks are becoming a new standard in electronic health record and e-Prescribing solutions.  Interaction checks are required for meaningful use and are being used by more physicians every day.

Online drug-interaction checking tools are a great at home resource.  They evaluate both prescription and over the counter medication regimens including vitamins and supplements and flag all interactions in real-time.  As online resources continue to pop up, the latest being from CVS, we compiled a list below of valuable drug interaction tools to jumpstart your search:

• CVS
• Drugs.com
• Healthline
• Medscape
• Walgreens

e-Prescribing State By State – Texas

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Featured e-Prescribing State: Texas

Office Based Physicians e-Prescribing in Texas

Interested in another state’s e-Prescribing statistics? Just Contact DoseSpot.

Source: Surescripts State Progress Reports

Health IT in the Greater Boston Area

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DoseSpot is in the healthcare zone along with 9 other awesome health IT companies here in the Greater Boston area. Learn more about what we’re all up to!  

Athenahealth (Watertown, MA): Cloud-based services for EHR, practice management and care coordination.

Claricode (Waltham, MA): Medical software development and application integration services exclusively for the healthcare industry.

CoPatient (Waltham, MA): Web platform to help consumers identify and resolve medical billing errors and overcharges.

DoseSpot (Waltham, MA): Surescripts Certified e-Prescribing platform offering solutions to medical and dental software companies.

Eyenetra (Somerville, MA): Eye care platform enabling on-demand eye testing, remote access to vendors and providers through eye diagnostics on mobile phones.

Ginger.io (Cambridge, MA): Web-based dashboard for researchers and healthcare providers and a mobile phone app for patients.

iMD-soft (Needham, MA): Clinical information systems and EMRs for critical, perioperative and acute care.

iQuartic (Cambridge, MA): EHR analytics for risk profiling, disease management, and quality benchmarking.

QMedic (Cambridge, MA): Passive wearable sensing platform and personal emergency response solution that provides 24/7 connectivity between seniors and remote caregivers.

QuantiaMD (Waltham, MA): Free online community where practicing physicians share practical medicine.

…Congrats to this week’s DoseSpot #TuesdayTweetup winner Michael Planchart, @theEHRGuy.  Stay tuned for next week’s #TuesdayTweetup for another chance to be featured on eprescribing.org.

Meaningful Use: Stage 1 vs. Stage 2

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With Stage 2 right around the corner many EHRs, physicians, dentists, and other ‘eligible professionals’ are seeking guidance. So here it is! Today’s blog post features a Stage 1 vs. Stage 2 Comparison Table for 3 Meaningful Use Core Objectives.

More comparisons are coming…stay tuned!

….Congrats to last week’s DoseSpot #TuesdayTweetup winner @jasmith1437 and runner up @techydoc.

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Stage 1 Objective: CPOE

Use CPOE for medication orders directly entered by any licensed healthcare professional who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local and professional guidelines

Stage 1 Measure: CPOE

More than 30% of unique patients with at least one medication in their medication list seen by the EP have at least one medication order entered using CPOE

Stage 2 Objective: CPOE

Use computerized provider order entry (CPOE) for medication, laboratory and radiology orders directly entered by any licensed healthcare professional who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local and professional guidelines

Stage 2 Measure: CPOE

More than 60% of medication, 30% of laboratory, and 30% of radiology orders created by the EP during the EHR reporting period are recorded using CPOE

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Stage 1 Objective: e-Prescribing

Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx)

Stage 1 Measure: e-Prescribing

More than 30% of unique patients with at least one medication in their medication list seen by the EP have at least one medication order entered using CPOE

Stage 2 Objective: e-Prescribing

Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx)

Stage 2 Measure: e-Prescribing

More than 50% of all permissible prescriptions written by the EP are compared to at least one drug formulary and transmitted electronically using Certified EHR Technology

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Stage 1 Objective: Record Demographics

Record demographics: Preferred language, Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Date of birth

Stage 1 Measure: Record Demographics

More than 50% of all unique patients seen by the EP have demographics recorded as structured data

Stage 2 Objective: Record Demographics

Record demographics: Preferred language, Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Date of birth

Stage 2 Measure: Record Demographics

More than 80% of all unique patients seen by the EP have demographics recorded as structured data

Source: http://go.cms.gov/12r3Gsc