I’m not a big fan of reality shows, especially those that involve contestants singing, telling jokes, dancing, or anything else that could potentially result in public humiliation. I’m in the minority, of course, as this style of television programming shows no sign of abating anytime soon. It’s a worldwide epidemic, in my opinion.

I am a fan of creative marketing – applying concepts traditionally associated with one particular medium (like television) to something entirely different (like healthcare). Needless to say, the Big Break job recruitment program – you could also call them auditions – intrigued me.

In a nutshell, pre-screened candidates take part in a one-day audition process put on by recruitment firm Intellect Resources and participating hospitals. Candidates then compete to become trainers and instruct staff on the use of the sponsoring hospital’s electronic medical record system or related healthcare IT system.

Seems like a slam-dunk concept, in my opinion. Those who are unemployed get a job within their community, and also get a taste of what that popular 15 minutes of fame is like. Did I mention that candidates go through video interviews and public presentations during the daylong process?

I recently chatted with Tiffany Crenshaw, President and CEO of sponsoring organization Intellect Resources, about how the program came about and the impact it has had on its participants’ lives (and go-lives).

How did the Big Break come about?
Tiffany Crenshaw: The Big Break spawned out of a project we were working on at Mt. Sinai Hospital last year. Last fall, they were getting ready for their Epic training and called me in a panic. They were expecting to get 90 to 100 trainers, and were going to use nurses, but realized at the last minute that wasn’t a viable idea. So they called us and said, “We have to do something now – we have no budget and we have no time. And we want to do some sort of done-in-a-day type audition. What can you do?”

So we said this is right up our alley. We created a really cool event – it was at the big Marriott Marquis in Times Square. We had around 500 contestants, and they all went through a timed audition process – stressful for them, but it was still fun.

They had to go through seed interviews and get in front of cameras. They had to get in front of a boardroom of judges and do presentations. At the end of the day, we ended up with 100 trainers that worked at Mt. Sinai to help roll out the hospital’s Epic training and go-live.

So that’s really the model of Big Break. We created it as a solution for Mt. Sinai, and now other folks are getting the word about it. Ochsner Health System is our next one. We’ve got the Big Break event for them in just a couple of weeks (January 21).

Did they reach out to you?
A consultant and dear friend of mine that was actually helping them with their system selection and project planning for their Epic implementation recommended this business model, and brought us in as the vendor to run this product for them. So yes, they did reach out to us, but it was really a consultant that made it happen.

Are you an all-Epic recruiting firm?
At the moment, that’s just about all we’re doing. Through the years, we’ve worked with many other products – with McKesson, Cerner, Siemens. The demand right now is Epic, so by default we’re doing all Epic. That’s just where the demand is, and so that’s where we’re spending our time.

How have you seen this type of program impact sponsoring hospitals and surrounding communities?
We think it’s a business model that works very well for hospitals. It’s a very low-cost way to get good resources. It’s also a good marketing opportunity for them to promote the fact they’re installing an electronic health record to the benefit of their patients, and it’s a great way for them to reinvest in their own community.

At Ochsner, the idea is that this is really for the New Orleans community. They don’t like to hire outside consultants. They really want to empower and revitalize their own community.

Many of the folks that we worked with at Mt. Sinai have gone on to work at other places. Big Break was really their footprint in the door. The end result is that the consultants that come through with really good experiences.  Over 50 percent of them are now working in the industry. Mt. Sinai actually hired four full-time employees. There was a big project up in Rochester, N.Y., that a lot of the people went to after that first project. We redeployed probably 20 of them on several go-lives.

Is there an opportunity for this to work in other cities?
At our very first meeting with Ochsner’s project executive, we talked about the fact that there are several area hospitals in and around New Orleans gearing up for Epic implementations. Our original thought was, let’s do this together, but the go-live timeframes didn’t work.

It would make perfect sense if there were multiple hospitals that could do the event together, do the credentialing together, and then take people from a generic credentialing and deploy them to the individual hospitals to learn the individual builds. I think it’s a model that could be a really good collaboration.

I think one of the neatest things about Big Break is that this industry is so thin on the amount of really good resources that are out there. It’s a great way to breed new talent

I’ve blogged before about the importance of decreasing the digital divide in this country in order to truly move healthcare interoperability forward. As I mentioned last month, “Only those patients who have access to these digital healthcare technologies will begin to clamor for them at their next doctors’ visits. Only patients’ whose doctors in turn have reached out to them via email, text or social media regarding the switch to electronic medical records, development of health information exchange and the benefits to care these will hopefully bring will be ready and willing to go with the digital flow.”

When news came across my somewhat cluttered desk of Emdeon’s initiative to provide electronic health record (EHR) technology to physicians in New Jersey’s underserved communities, I first thought, “Yes! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Then I put on my journalist/blogger hat and thought, “Will this truly change anything in these particular communities, or is this just good PR?”

A quick bit of background: Emdeon is partnering with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Minority Health, New Jersey Health Information Technology Extension Center (NJ-HITEC), the state’s REC, and the HIMSS Latino Community. Through the initiative, Emdeon will donate Emdeon Clinician licenses to 100 healthcare providers who practice within medically underserved areas and/or healthcare provider shortage areas, as designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), according to a recent Emdeon press release. The company will waive the license fee for these physicians for one year.

The same press release also mentions “EHR adoption is lower among providers serving Hispanic patients who are uninsured or rely on Medicaid, and is lower among providers serving uninsured, non-Hispanic black patients than among providers serving privately insured, non-Hispanic white patients.”

The initiative sounds like a great idea, but the one-year stipulation got me thinking (a bad habit, I know). What will these physicians, who presumably can’t really afford this technology now, do after their year is up? I reached out to Miriam Paramore, Senior Vice President – clinical and government services at Emdeon, to learn more about the ins and outs of the program.

How did the initiative come about?
Miriam Paramore: During the fall of 2010, leaders from the Office of Minority Health (OMH) and Health Information Technology issued a public, written request to health IT vendors, asking them to pay special attention to healthcare providers within underserved communities. This initiative is known as The Alliance to Reduce Health IT Disparities. Emdeon is serving as a private partner with the OMH to offer access to health IT products and services to providers within undeserved communities in New Jersey. We were thrilled to volunteer and to work within these communities.

Has Emdeon ever done anything like this before?
We’re happy to do part of this effort with HHS and it is the first time we’ve partnered with them.  We have great empathy for the challenges of the physicians in underserved communities and we want to help.

What sort of challenges do small physician practices in underserved communities typically encounter?
In addition to challenges like poverty and health disparities amongst their patient population, providers in underserved communities and smaller practice offices face expensive costs associated with on-boarding EHRs. Emdeon created the Emdeon Clinician solution as an affordable EHR “lite” solution for these small practice physicians or those working in underserved communities. They now have an affordable, easy-to-use solution that will help them to qualify for federal HITECH stimulus dollars without unnecessary disruption and expense of a full-blown EHR system.

How will you work with these 100 physician practices to ensure they are able to continue using the donated EHR after the year-long license expires?
Once the 12-month period expires, providers will be able to continue using Emdeon Clinician for only $99 per provider, per month. Emdeon usually has a $500 implementation and training fee [that, for this program,] has been discounted to a one-time fee of $200 for the providers participating in this project. This is a considerable discount and the fee would only have to be paid once. We will begin outreach to these providers in advance of the expiration date so they are aware of the opportunity to remain with Emdeon Clinician for the low fee following the initial 12-month period.

How will Emdeon work with NJ-HITEC and the HIMSS Latino Community throughout this year to ensure that these practices receive continued training and support?
Emdeon has taken the lead with managing this initiative between all partners with monthly meetings to monitor progress. We have a dedicated project manager, who has mapped a process with the internal team to assist with implementing these physicians as soon as possible. Our custom phone number (1-855-840-7120) connects interested providers directly with a dedicated clinical sales executive who can assist them throughout the enrollment process.

The NJ-HITEC and HIMSS Latino partners are assisting in the recruitment of providers who practice within medically underserved areas for this program from their vast networks across New Jersey communities. These partners are working cooperatively with Emdeon to create a strategy that focuses upon identifying and recruiting providers within underserved communities who are willing to adopt EHRs, especially those interested in qualifying for federal incentive dollars.

How many practices do you anticipate being eligible, and how many do you expect will apply?
While we aren’t sure how many will apply, the HHS OMH recognized that the counties of Camden, Essex and Passaic have the largest percentage of underserved communities. Through our collaborative efforts with the OMH, HIMSS Latino and NJ HITEC, we hope to reach many of those physicians within those counties to take advantage of the 12-month program.

How will Emdeon and its partners determine if this program is a success?
Together with our partners, we believe success will be donating all 100 licenses to providers in underserved communities. The reporting element of this project will help OMH understand the progress of EHR adoption in the context of how long implementation takes in its entirety.

So it seems that Emdeon and its partners certainly have their ducks in a row when it comes to aiding and abetting these physicians before, during and even after the program is technically over. I’ll be interested to see if this model will, in fact, be successful, and if it can be supported in other underserved areas across the nation.

For more information on participating in the program, check out: http://www.emdeon.com/newjersey/

Earlier this year I had the good fortune (and the support of my employer) to join the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), an organization that offers interest groups for every possible IT niche you can think of. I’ve attended a few of their health society events, and at every one I’m confronted with statistics and anecdotes surrounding the dearth of qualified healthcare IT professionals in the city and surrounding areas. Much attention at these events is also given to the fact that these professionals are needed now more than ever to help smaller physician practices and larger healthcare systems demonstrate Meaningful Use and achieve associated electronic medical record (EMR) adoption goals.

I’ve commented before on the disconnect between the increasing number of healthcare IT educational opportunities being created by the government and vendors’ willingness (or unwillingness, as the case may be) to hire fresh grads. EJ Fechenda of HIMSS JobMine posed a question related to this conundrum better than I ever could have: “With federal deadlines looming, healthcare organizations need to get moving and there are a lot of job seekers out there ready for the challenge. Are there organizations or companies willing to extend opportunities to these candidates? Is there a training or job-shadowing program that can be used as a best practice for other organizations to implement? Who are the champions already doing this or willing to lead the charge?”

I may have found a champion in Rich Wicker, HIMS Director at Shore Memorial Hospital in New Jersey. Wicker is also an adjunct professor at two HITECH-affiliated community colleges, teaching students who already have strong backgrounds in healthcare or IT the basics of process, analysis, redesign, installation and ongoing maintenance to prepare them for second careers in physician office EMR implementations.

He certainly seems to have a passion for the subject. “I’m devoted to the EMR,” he told me during a recent phone interview. “That’s why I started teaching, really, because I want to see that [adoption] happen so badly.”

He tells me his students are guardedly optimistic about their future job opportunities, which he believes will surge this summer alongside an expected increase in physician adoption of EMRs – six months before the deadline to qualify for Meaningful Use incentives.

As we discussed the state of the HIT job market, we both wondered if what type of organization might have a greater role to play in ensuring that graduate from programs like Wicker’s find jobs.

“We had to really battle our way to get one [software] copy from one EMR vendor,” he explains. “I wish they were more amenable to providing educational software/packages like Apple does throughout all their PCs. I know a few different schools have joined with a vendor. One place I know of is showing Vista, another is showing eClinicalWorks, and another partnered with a local hospital that happens to use Sage.

“I have a relatively limited view, but from what I can see, the vendors are not really engaged with the HITECH student development program. I think they’d probably rather do it themselves.”

“Here’s an idea that I came up with,” he adds. “I’ll throw out the RECs (Regional Extension Centers). That’s another entity that’s funded – it’s kind of their job to get the docs to convert. If they could partner with the colleges and the graduates to possibly divert some of their funding to supplementing the graduates’ income while they worked at a physician practice … So the physician, let’s say, for $5 an hour, they could hire a qualified, certified person. These people are pretty good, too. They know what it is to work. They’ve probably worked 10 or 20 years already, either in IT or in healthcare. So they’re mature employees and highly motivated. They would be great to go in and do a 6-month installation. I think it would be great for the physician if, for $5 an hour, you get somebody that would probably cost you $30 an hour somewhere else.

“Let’s say the student can get another $10 an hour supplemented from the REC or somehow through the government. So they get $15 an hour to go in there … they get four or five months of experience doing an installation and then the physician can make a decision … maybe they ultimately hire the person. That’s just a crazy idea that I had that seemed like the pieces are out there that kind of potentially could work. I sent it into the ONC a couple of days ago.”

Could the RECs have a bigger role to play in ensuring that HITECH graduates gain on-the-job experience and employment? I’d love to hear from any readers out there who may work for or with RECs . Is Wicker’s idea doable? Have we found our champion?

There’s a lot of talk in the healthcare industry right now about bringing health management tools to the consumer. Whether it’s apps for your iPhone or iPad, games to play on your Wii, or free-standing health-and-wellness kiosks at your local pharmacy, digital applications seem to the delivery method of choice right now. I think those of us in the healthcare IT industry sometimes take for granted that not everybody in the US has a smartphone, computer or even Internet access, which to me always begs the question: How great are these bright and shiny health apps if the populations that need them most don’t have access to them? And aren’t Meaningful Use and Accountable Care incentives/payments targeted towards government-sponsored healthcare recipients? The most likely patient population to NOT have reliable access to the Internet?

It’s this concept of a digital divide in healthcare that I am starting to believe will truly bend the curve when it comes to absolute interoperability – the secure sharing of information between patient, provider, payer, vendor, government, etc., anytime, anywhere. Only those patients who have access to these digital healthcare technologies will begin to clamor for them at their next doctors’ visits. Only patients’ whose doctors in turn have reached out to them via email, text or social media regarding the switch to electronic medical records, development of health information exchange and the benefits to care these will hopefully bring will be ready and willing to go with the digital flow.

I was intrigued by a recent news story on NPR the other morning that detailed a recently unveiled government plan – the Connect to Compete Initiative – to offer cheaper broadband access and computers to low-income families. The story pointed out that “about one-third of Americans – that would be 100 million people, give or take – do not have Internet access in their homes.” (I’d be interested to know how many of that population are on Medicare or Medicaid, or have no insurance at all.) Participating companies will offer broadband service to eligible families for $10 a month, while others will offer computers for as little as $150.

Further investigating into the story dug up a more detailed report from Reuters, which explained that eligible families will be those who have at least one child enrolled in the National School Lunch Program. According to a recent Commerce Department report on U.S. broadband adoption, only 43 percent of households with annual incomes below $25,000 had broadband access at home, while 93 percent of households with incomes exceeding $100,000 had broadband.

I think this is a step in the right direction, and am pleasantly surprised that it’s being enacted by the government – who got this digital healthcare ball rolling downhill fast in the first place.

As more and more low-income/average/middle-class Americans – or whatever we want to call ourselves – begin to speak out about the systemic inequalities we experience in this country’s financial, healthcare and educational systems, it’s nice to think (naively perhaps) that somebody just might be listening. As we see an increase in adoption of digital technologies in the consumer space, so too do I think we’ll see a correlating increase in adoption of healthcare IT by the providers that care for them.

I was on the phone recently with an insurance company representative, inquiring about their policies, premiums and hidden caveats. During the middle of my call, the rep tells me his computer seems to have frozen up, and that he can’t move forward with answering my questions because he literally can’t move to the next screen containing the answers. “But wait,” he says excitedly, “I do have some paper to read off of.”

I chuckled to myself thinking of how many times physicians have had a similar experience, much to the consternation of electronic medical records (EMRs) vendors. Ah, good ‘ole paper. Healthcare’s last bastion of pre-HITECH document keeping. It’s always there when you need it – if you still have it.

This thinking transitions nicely into the topic of “old-school” technologies physicians should consider before going completely digital with their documentation in the form of an EMR. Culled from several recent and not-so-recent articles (See “10 technologies to embrace before EMRs,” and “HIT Projects You Can Implement Today”), with a few of my own suggestions thrown in for good measure, the list below goes from extremely low-tech to on-the-verge-of-clinical technologies.

1. Copy Machine/Printer Combo
You may laugh at the simplicity, but if a doctor’s computer ever freezes up, a copy of a patient’s paper chart will come in very handy.

2. Fax Server
Again, simplistic in nature, but elemental in sharing data with other offices. Perhaps we’ll see resurgence in fax technology now that the government has eased EMR requirements associated with participation in accountable care organizations.

3. Instant Messaging
So 2008, but still a very effective method of communication amongst an office’s nurses, clinicians and front-desk staff.

4. Email
For the love of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, who didn’t have access to such an easy form of communication, set up an email account – at least for the business side of your office. It would be nice if ALL physicians (including my daughter’s pediatrician) had secure email messaging with their patients, but that’s a whole other blog.

5. IT Infrastructure
You’ve got to build the foundation before you can start wiring the house. As John Lynn mentions in the second article referenced above, “Good IT companies will come and do an analysis of your current IT setup for free.”

6. Microsoft Office and Google Apps
As HIT consultant Shahid Shah mentions in the first article referenced above, free tools will help an office get its feet wet before diving into a full-fledged EMR. These two in particular have “dirt simple” documentation management that allows everyone in the office to be on the same page.

7. Document Imaging
Most scanners come with basic imaging software already included, Shah explains, adding that once physicians are good at scanning and paper digitalization, they can move on to “medical grade” document management that can improve productivity.
What other tools would you suggest to providers looking to ease their way into EMR adoption? Please share your comments below.

A number of themes have been prevalent at this year’s AHIMA show, taking place this week in Salt Lake City. Healthcare information management professionals have a number of big priorities – the transition to ICD-10 being the most prevalent, at least from what I’ve seen on the show floor so far. Recruitment is a close second. With a number of colleges and healthcare systems present as exhibitors, it’s obvious there is a need for trained HIM professionals. In speaking with folks from the Region D Health IT Workforce Development Program, part of the Community College Consortia Program, which hopes to train more than 10,500 healthcare IT professionals by the end of this year, it is evident that there are resources out there to train folks, and they are willing to get the word out about it.

AHIMA has recognized this need for job creation. It announced at the show on Monday that it has created the HIM Jobs for America Initiative, and has entered into a public-private partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services and North Shore Medical Labs.

In announcing the initiative, Bill Rudman, vice president, educational visioning at AHIMA and executive director of the AHIMA Foundation, explained that “AHIMA wants to build a partnership with business, academia and the federal government to create the estimated 40,000 jobs required to properly build and maintain a national electronic health records initiative.”

As part of the initiative, AHIMA will provide six hours of free healthcare IT training to healthcare professionals in underserved communities, first focusing on physicians in small practices in North Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama. The program will provide 100 participants with EHR licenses for one year. North Shore will donate electronic health record software and services via Nortec Software, a provider of EHR technology, as well as medical billing and transcription services.

As I mentioned above, the transition to IDC-10 has been THE big theme in the exhibit hall. I’ve noticed solution after solution exhibited at booth after booth created to help physicians make the transition. As John Lynn mentioned in an earlier post, some companies are taking a light-hearted approach in marketing their ICD-10 solutions. Take QuadraMed, for example, which kept attendees happy Sunday night during the evening reception with special ICD-9 and ICD-10 cocktails. Or, as John mentioned last week, Conifer Health, which has quickly run out of its ICD-10 stickers.

All kidding aside, the transition to ICD-10 and the impact the new codes will have on patient care is no joke. Paula Lawlor, RHIA, President of Clinical Revenue Cycle Services HIM at Conifer, spoke with me briefly about what Conifer is doing in the area health information management and clinical revenue cycle services:

I’ll be walking the show floor today, and hope to have a wrap-up of EMR-related technologies for next week’s post.

In celebration of National Health Information Technology Week –  proclaimed by President Obama earlier this week in an effort to “urge all Americans to learn more about the benefits of Health IT by visiting HealthIT.gov, take action to increase adoption and meaningful use of Health IT, and utilize the information Health IT provides to improve the quality, safety, and cost effectiveness of health care in the United States – I’m hitting the road and heading to North Carolina.

Actually, it’s pure coincidence that my annual Fall road trip to Charlotte and Chapel Hill coincides with this newly official week of celebratory activities. (You can view a list of events here.) But it did prompt me to ponder the state of North Carolina’s EMR and overall healthcare IT utilization. My first stop was the HIMSS State HIT Dashboard, a handy resource that provides an overview of all 50 states’ utilization of healthcare IT.

According to HIMSS, as of September, 2011, North Carolina has six Health Information Exchanges (HIEs):

•  NC Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance Inc. (NCHICA)
•  Carolina HIE
•  Coastal Connect
•  Western NC Health Network (WNCHN Data Link)
•  Southern Piedmont Partnership for Public Health (SoPHIE)
•  Sandhills Community Care Network

The state’s regional extension center, which assists the state’s physicians with selecting and implementing EMRs, has at this point recruited 50% of the providers in its target group of 3,500 priority primary care providers, according to the NCHICA website. The NCHICA seems to be the main governing/advisory body over the state’s HIT activities. Its 239 member organizations will converge in just over a week at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville for its annual conference and exhibit. The lineup of sessions looks pretty interesting, especially “So You’ve Decided to Implement an EHR, Now What?” I’m sure conference attendees will have a great time at the Brews Cruise as well.

My next stop was Google, where a quick search yielded the fact that North Carolina, and the Duke Center for Health Informatics in particular, is home to MindLinc, an EMR for behavioral health. It is now the world’s largest codified behavioral health database, and provides information for research and benchmarking purposes.

My last stop was YouTube, where I found an interesting video created by Janet Apter, an RN and member of the faculty at the Duke School of Nursing, for Duke’s Doctor of Nursing Practice Program. Entitled “Electronic Health Record – a Promising Solution,” the video shares the perspective of one nurse/patient’s frustration with a lack of interoperability between facilities in the same health system, and makes a simple case for the need for a nationwide EHR system.

Folks, today I thought I’d take things in a different direction in share links to my favorite health IT bloggers.  Each brings insight, straight talk and deep experience in the healthcare business to the table.

By the way, just to avoid bragging too much, I haven’t included the other blogs in the Healthcare Scene network, but I recommend them highly!

Now, without any further ado, here’s the list:

* The Candid CIO:  This blog offers a rare view into the mind of the IT leader of a large health system.  It’s written by Will Weider, CIO of Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System. As he notes, the system includes 14.5 hospitals and 400 employed physicians across northern and central Wisconsin. Weider delivers as promised: he’s candid, conversational and quite willing to share his frustrations when things don’t go well.  Definitely a worthwhile read.

*  The Healthcare IT Guy:  This blog, which is written by health IT consultant Shahid Shah, is always an interesting read. His goals are ambitious — he calls the blog a “healthcare IT, EMR, EHR, PHR, medical content, and document management advisory service” — but believe it or not, he manages to cover pretty much all of this territory. Shah is an entertaining writer with a very long health IT resume, and he knows his stuff.  I learn something new whenever I visit.

* HISTalk:  Something’s always bubbling away at HISTalk, an influential site where insider industry folks come to hang out. Mr. HISTalk, an anoymous health IT administrator, not only provides interesting content, but also draws out juicy gossip from readers. For example, check this item out:  ”Re: Cerner. Word on the street is that Cerner is getting ready to announce some big organizational changes and these are not good kind of changes for the employees (may be good for Wall Street, however). This is supposed to hit the CareAware division pretty hard.”  I don’t know if any blog is a “can’t miss” but it’s a good idea to visit now and then.

So, I hope you enjoy these sites — I have for years. Meanwhile, I’m open to hearing about other great health IT blogs as well. Please feel free to let me know if there’s others you admire.

A new study sponsored by the American Hospital Association has concluded that developing an Accountable Care Organization is likely to be substantially more expensive than CMS has projected.  Not surprisingly, the AHA expects buying and managing EMRs and clinician decision support systems to be a major percentage of the added expense.

CMS has estimated it will cost an average of $1.8 million to start and sustain an ACO.  But the AHA dismisses that number as far short of the mark. Its own research, conducted by McManis Consulting, concluded that the actual startup and first-year costs for ACOs range from $11.6 million for a 200-bed, one-hospital system to $26.1 million for a 1,200 bed,  five-hospital system.

The AHA estimates that hospitals will spend anywhere from $2 million to $7 million to buy an EMR, and hundreds of thousands to integrate the system and build a health information exchange.  Not only that, health systems are likely to spend anywhere from $1.5 million to $3.9 million per year to maintain the EMR, manage the integration process and keep building out the HIE.  (My instinct is that the study’s estimates of systems integration and HIE linkages are rather low;  check out page two of the report and let me know what you think.)

If the AHA has it right — and I suspect it does — something is out of order here.  It’s hard for me to imagine how the agency could underestimate health IT costs so significantly, unless there’s some political game afoot here.

I’m not surprised to read that HIT costs are just as heavy a burden as recruiting, managing and and supporting affiliated physicians.  And I’m pretty sure that hospital CIOs aren’t kidding themselves on this front either.

Somehow, though, the Medicare folks have made some rather flawed assumptions and embedded them in the proposed  Medicare Shared Savings Program for ACOs.  If you agree that CMS is on the wrong foot here, I encourage you to submit comments on the proposed rule.  (See the beginning of the document for how to file those comments.) You have until June 6, so have at it!

Here’s a refreshing story — the tale a medical group which has officially, formally endorsed digital patient data management. It’s not clear to me how much real-world difference the endorsement will make, but with few medical organizations taking the lead here, it’s still noteworthy.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a statement supporting the use of EMRs and HIT generally, arguing that patient data management is important to the future of pediatric care.   The group contends that HIT is needed to support critical medical home functions, including lifetime tracking of health services for patients, coordination of data between multiple repositories and quality tracking.

Not surprisingly, the AAP also suggested that the federal government should reward its 60,000 members with financial incentives that “appropriately recognize the added value of medical homes to pediatric care.”

From reading the statement, I’m not sure if it means that peds doctors should get standard HITECH incentives, or that they should be paid an additional sum for medical home services.

If the AAP is trying to gin up federal support for getting higher incentive payments, I’m not sure how sympathetic a reception they’ll get from HHS.  But to be fair, the group doesn’t seem to be saying “pay me more or I’l take my bat and go home.”  After all, with the group offering excellent reasons for EMR use, they’re pretty much admitting that EMRs are a must-have even without added cash.

At this point, I’m puzzled as to why more medical societies haven’t taken highly-public positions on EMR use. After all, EMRs are the future, and most trade associations are savvy enough to get ahead of trends before they’re steamrolled.  I guess it will take even more pressure to get them off the dime.