The healthcare reform legislation that is being debated in Washington will impact the way that healthcare institutions and physicians' offices are reimbursed for their services. These payer reforms at the center of the debate do not directly address the quality of patient care delivered. Legislation affecting the way services are provided was passed in early 2009 as a provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The HITECH Act of 2009 has a direct impact on the way that healthcare services are delivered.

The HITECH Act of 2009 includes incentive payments to physicians and hospitals who adopt and make “meaningful use” of electronic health record (EHR) systems. The most significant aspect of “meaningful use” is the ability to share patient data electronically with other healthcare institutions. 

Beginning in 2011 physicians’ offices and hospitals must meet the initial criteria established for meaningful use as defined by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS).  There are 25 distinct meaningful use criteria published by the ONS addressing objectives that can be categorized into four areas:

•                  Improving quality, safety, efficiency and patient care coordination among institutions

•                  Reducing health disparities

•                  Engaging patients and their families

•                  Ensuring adequate privacy and security protections for personal health information

Electronic health records technology is not a new concept. It has been available in various forms for over 15 years. An electronic health record is the digital version of all of the communication, legal instructions such as a DPOA, and paperwork such as prescriptions or lab test results, from anyone involved in your treatment as a patient. 

Today some of that information is stored in large filing cabinets at the physician’s office or at the hospital.  The HITECH Act raises the bar for companies who provide EHR technology and the institutions that use them by requiring 100 percent of the patient’s medical record to be stored in a format that can be securely exchanged electronically with any healthcare provider that is involved in your care.

Looking beyond the requirements of HITECH legislation there are other sound business reasons to adopt EHR technology: 

EHR systems provide a green environmental impact by eliminating the need to print millions of sheets of paper to document a patient’s record.  Blueware, a Michigan-based company in Cadillac, has been developing EHR systems for 16 years. They recently published a study identifying the green impact of their EHR system installed in Marlette Community Hospital. 

The hospital’s former paper-based records system generated 3.3 million sheets of paper each year—most eventually stored in a large file room in their basement. The new EHR system eliminated paper consumption, saving 38 mature trees each year. Blueware’s study documented the amount of oxygen generated by these saved trees as meeting the annual breathing needs of 1,900 people. 

New EHR systems are built to connect to other systems. Using this capability internally generates operational efficiencies that reduce the administrative workload doctors and nurses are required to perform. Lighter administrative workloads allow nurses to spend more time interacting with their patients.

A 400-bed hospital in Virginia automated the patient discharge process, reducing the time required to discharge a patient from six hours to three hours on average.  A communications solution integrated with their EHR system initiates the discharge process with a single interaction from the patient’s nurse. 

The system replaces dozens of nurse-initiated phone calls with automated notifications to primary care physicians, specialists, in- and outpatient pharmacy, housekeeping, nutrition, patient transportation and more. Each hour saved in the discharge process for their patients saved this hospital $1 million in costs annually. 

A physician’s office can also leverage an investment in EHR systems to make other administrative processes more efficient. Modern EHR systems can be easily connected to communications applications that will automatically make appointment reminder calls in the early evening when the phone is most likely to be answered and provide patients with the option to confirm or reschedule by pressing a button. Automated payment reminder calls can be initiated in a similar fashion and can be connected to secure credit card processing systems for payment over the phone.

Patient health, satisfaction and loyalty can be directly correlated with the efficiency and timeliness of care. By enabling better decisions to be made regarding treatment in less time, both the patient and the healthcare provider benefit. Updated EHR systems also provide protection against breaches of the new stricter HIPAA privacy rules that are included in the HITECH Act of 2009.

For physicians’ offices and hospitals there are federal financial incentives to adopt EHR technology. It is likely that many more benefits will result from streamlined business processes made possible with a 100 percent electronic record keeping system. Real healthcare improvements will be delivered by medical professionals with these systems at their disposal. At the same time the business of healthcare is improved by lowered costs, increased efficiency, reduced risks and higher patient satisfaction.  

		Robert Crane is an account executive at Strategic Products and Services focusing on emerging network technology and a 24-year veteran of information technology implementation projects.