The Positive Impacts of EHRs and MACRA on Patient Care – #KareoChat

If you were to look at the Twittersphere or read a lot of the healthcare IT publications out there, you might think that nothing good has come from EHRs or MACRA. While there are plenty of points of criticism that are worthy of discussion about both of these things, I think the negative discussion overwhelms many of the positive things that have come out of EHRs and MACRA (and it’s predecessor meaningful use).

With this in mind, I recently did a blog post for Kareo which looked at some of the ways EHRs and MACRA can improve patient care. The intro to the post summarizes what’s happening well:

When healthcare pundits talk about MACRA they often offer a basic analysis of how the move to value-based reimbursement will be a good thing for healthcare, since then we are only spending money on care that provides value. Many doctors disagree and suggest that value-based reimbursement won’t create the value it purports to create. Either of these analyses overlooks many of the benefits that MACRA and the move to EHR software offer healthcare. The reality is that many of the most exciting initiatives in healthcare would not be happening today and would not even be possible if it weren’t for programs like MACRA and the implementation of EHR software. Let’s take a look at some of these improvements.

Be sure to check out the full blog post to read about a number of ways we’re benefiting from EHRs and MACRA.

This idea became a theme for me this month and so when Kareo asked me to host their weekly #KareoChat I thought it would be a great topic of conversation for the larger healthcare IT Community as well. I’m sure many of you can offer a lot of great perspectives on how patient care has been improved sthanks to these programs and technology. If you’d like to join the discussion, I’ll be hosting the #KareoChat on Thursday, July 27th at 9 AM PT. Just hop on Twitter and join in!

During the #KareoChat we’ll be discussing the topic of “The Positive Impacts of EHRs and MACRA on Patient Care.” Here are the 5 questions that will serve as the framework for the discussion:

1. Are you planning to participate in MACRA? At what pace? And why or why not?

2. Where do you see MACRA having a positive impact on patient care?

3. What are the short term benefits to patient care from having an EHR?

4. What are the long term benefits to patient care from having an EHR?

5. What other things beyond MACRA and EHR can we do to improve patient care?

I have a feeling that this chat is going to be a challenge for many. It’s so easy for us to see the negative. It takes much more work to see the positives. I think that’s largely because we start to take the positives for granted. Hopefully, during this chat we’ll take a step back and realize all the positives of EHRs and MACRA.

Full Disclosure: Kareo is a sponsor of Healthcare Scene.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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