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California and Florida leading the Healthcare Information Technology adoption - December 17, 2009
Orlando Florida -- California leads the nation in healthcare information technology adoption, but nearly three-quarters of medical groups in the state still rely on paper records, according to a new report by the California HealthCare Foundation.
Some 37% of physicians in California said they use electronic health records, compared with 28% nationally, according to the not-for-profit healthcare research foundation. The larger the medical practice, the more likely physicians are to use EHRs. For instance, 79% of Kaiser Permanente physicians said they use EHRs. But physicians in medium and solo practices reported much less EHR use, 25% and 13% respectively, according to the report.
Yet even those physicians using EHRs aren't taking full advantage of them, the report authors found, with only 12% using alerts to warn them about potential adverse drug events, electronic reminders to inform patients about follow-up care or electronic warnings on abnormal laboratory results, says Brian McCarthy CEO of Sencilo HealthIT Solutions in Lake Mary Flordia. Where is Florida on the list, they are running near the top of the list, but still below where California is.
In addition, only 13% of California hospitals have fully implemented EHRs and only 11% are using bar-coding technology to administer drugs, according to the report. "Institutions that lag behind on HIT are likely to continue seeing avoidable treatment errors," said Jonah Frohlich, senior program officer at the foundation.
The major barrier to EHR adoption is cost, reported 59% of respondents, followed by difficulty and expense of implementation (42%), uncertainty about health IT vendor selection (31%), and resistance to changes in practice style (30%).
The report was based on data from 2005 to 2007 from eight sources, including the American Hospital Association, California Medical Association, Harris Interactive and Manhattan Research.
For more information please call (407) 641-5199 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
Why Sencilo HealthIT Solutions
When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can get:
A dedicated customer team
A website customized for your institution
A full portfolio of robust solutions
Easy setup, implementation and maintenance
Simple ordering and delivery
Technology training
Flexible financing options
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services makes it easy In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan your healthcare computing from the ground up. By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time and money ÂÂand lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
Design
Procurement
Installation
Training
Maintenance
Support
About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City solutions include BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management
tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts,
NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech Electronic Healthcare IT Medical Records EHREHR Clinical Practices eClinicalWorks Allscripts
Florida EMR, EHR, electronic medical record, health, records, practice management systems solutions, medication services, PHR
Otolaryngology, Orthopaedics, Pain Nuerosurgery, Urology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Billing, Appointment Scheduling,
clinicalworks, eClinicalWorks, solutions for physicians, hospitals, clinical education and medical services Computerized Patient
CPR, Order Entry, CPOE, Document Clinical Information Informatics, Computer-based, SOAP, HIT, Healthcare Encounter Forms, web
based, online, clinical rules database, electronic prescribing, e-prescribing, eprescribing, athenaClinicals, certified EMR,
certified EHR, HITECH Act VAR Reseller Dealer hipaa privacy doctor, healthcare performance management, data security, hosting,
arra, free, InterFAX, MyWay, HIPPA, EasyPayMedicare, MedicAID, SureScripts, FNC, billing, superbill iMedica Tiger on Windows,
eprescribe pqri simple practice management revenue cycle e-cw e-clinicalworks greenway emds nextgen ge sage athena epic klas
Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault Health Internet
Why more than 150,000 physicians and growing are e-prescribers in 2009 - December 17, 2009
Orlando Florida -- The number of physicians using electronic prescribing will have more than doubled in 2009, executives of the e-prescribing network Surescripts said.
More than 150,000 – 23 percent of all office-based physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants in the United States – are e-prescribing today, officials said. And at the current pace, Surescripts projects that its active e-prescribers in 2009 will more than double the 74,000 that were e-prescribing at the end of 2008.
Surescripts officials also announced that physicians can choose from more than 200 types of e-prescribing and electronic medical record systems that have been certified and are connected to the Surescripts network – a 38 percent increase over the number available at the start of the 2009. The growth in certified software makes e-prescribing available to more physicians and the communities they serve, officials said.
Physicians and other prescribers use Surescripts-certified software to establish a secure, electronic link to pharmacy benefit managers and thousands of health plans nationwide. The connection makes it possible for them to confirm coverage and look up information such as prescription co-pays and the availability of generic alternatives for two-thirds of all Americans.
With a patient’s consent, prescribers can also access prescription history and use the Surescripts network to send e-prescriptions to any of 51,000 (84 percent) retail pharmacies or six of the largest mail-order pharmacies.
Harry Totonis
The network “benefits patients in every state in the nation,” said Harry Totonis, president and CEO of Surescripts. “Whether it is the convenience of making one trip to the pharmacy or receiving your prescription by mail, or the improved safety of legible prescriptions and providing doctors a more complete prescription history, or the savings that come from a patient and their doctor knowing about and selecting lower cost prescription alternatives, the Surescripts network makes these benefits available to millions of patients cared for by more than 140,000 physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants nationwide.”
New logo
Surescripts has also released a revamped company logo featuring the tagline “The Nation’s E-Prescription Network.” Available for restricted use by certified participants on the Surescripts network, the logo is the next step in a comprehensive re-branding and education campaign that seeks to raise the visibility and understanding of the benefits of e-prescribing for all Americans.
“Our brand reinforces the fact that Surescripts is at the center of the nation’s move towards digital healthcare,” said Rick Ratliff, executive vice president for customers and markets and group executive at Surescripts. “We believe that physicians and their patients are ready to leave the paper behind – and it starts with e-prescriptions.”
For more information please call (407) 641-5199 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
Why Sencilo HealthIT Solutions
When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology
With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources
that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can
get:
A dedicated customer team
A website customized for your institution
A full portfolio of robust solutions
Easy setup, implementation and maintenance
Simple ordering and delivery
Technology training
Flexible financing options
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services makes it easy
In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan
your healthcare computing from the ground up. By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time
and money ÂÂand lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
Design
Procurement
Installation
Training
Maintenance
Support
About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services
solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple
manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City
solutions include BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL
Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital
Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management
tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts,
NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech Electronic Healthcare IT Medical Records EHREHR Clinical Practices eClinicalWorks Allscripts
Florida EMR, EHR, electronic medical record, health, records, practice management systems solutions, medication services, PHR
Otolaryngology, Orthopaedics, Pain Nuerosurgery, Urology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Billing, Appointment Scheduling,
clinicalworks, eClinicalWorks, solutions for physicians, hospitals, clinical education and medical services Computerized Patient
CPR, Order Entry, CPOE, Document Clinical Information Informatics, Computer-based, SOAP, HIT, Healthcare Encounter Forms, web
based, online, clinical rules database, electronic prescribing, e-prescribing, eprescribing, athenaClinicals, certified EMR,
certified EHR, HITECH Act VAR Reseller Dealer hipaa privacy doctor, healthcare performance management, data security, hosting,
arra, free, InterFAX, MyWay, HIPPA, EasyPayMedicare, MedicAID, SureScripts, FNC, billing, superbill iMedica Tiger on Windows,
eprescribe pqri simple practice management revenue cycle e-cw e-clinicalworks greenway emds nextgen ge sage athena epic klas
Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault Health Internet
Why is EHR Privacy Still a Concern Among Health Care Providers? - December 17, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Although health care providers generally support the use of electronic health records, many still have concerns about the privacy and security of digital data, according to two new studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Healthcare IT News reports.
Family Practice and Specialist Physicians
For one study, researchers surveyed more than 1,000 family practice and specialty physicians about the potential benefits of health information exchange systems.
The study found that:
•86% of respondents believe health data exchange can improve care quality;
•75% believe health data exchange can improve efficiency; and
•70% believe the systems can help reduce costs.
However, the study also found that 55% of respondents were "somewhat concerned" about patient privacy breaches and that 16% of respondents were "very concerned" about such incidents.
The researchers note that survey respondents generally had lower levels of concern about patient privacy breaches compared with physicians in the United Kingdom. However, they also write that the issue could gain more traction if the U.S. begins experiencing more health data breaches.
Mental Health Practitioners
For the other study, researchers examined surveys submitted by 56 mental health professionals.
The study found that 81% of respondents believe EHR systems allow patients and health care providers to maintain open channels of communication.
However, researchers also found that:
•80% of respondents said that if they were a patient, they would not want health care providers to have the ability to routinely access their mental health records; and
•63% said they are less willing to record highly confidential information in EHRs compared with paper records.
For more information please call (407) 641-5199 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
Why Sencilo HealthIT Solutions
When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology
With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can get:
A dedicated customer team
A website customized for your institution
A full portfolio of robust solutions
Easy setup, implementation and maintenance
Simple ordering and delivery
Technology training
Flexible financing options
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services makes it easy
In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan your healthcare computing from the ground up. By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time and money ÂÂand lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
Design
Procurement
Installation
Training
Maintenance
Support
About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City
solutions include BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts, NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech Electronic Healthcare IT Medical Records EHREHR Clinical Practices eClinicalWorks Allscripts Florida EMR, EHR, electronic medical record, health, records, practice management systems solutions, medication services, PHR Otolaryngology, Orthopaedics, Pain Nuerosurgery, Urology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Billing, Appointment Scheduling, clinicalworks, eClinicalWorks, solutions for physicians, hospitals, clinical education and medical services Computerized Patient CPR, Order Entry, CPOE, Document Clinical Information Informatics, Computer-based, SOAP, HIT, Healthcare Encounter Forms, web based, online, clinical rules database, electronic prescribing, e-prescribing, eprescribing, athenaClinicals, certified EMR, certified EHR, HITECH Act VAR Reseller Dealer hipaa privacy doctor, healthcare performance management, data security, hosting, arra, free, InterFAX, MyWay, HIPPA, EasyPayMedicare, MedicAID, SureScripts, FNC, billing, superbill iMedica Tiger on Windows, eprescribe pqri simple practice management revenue cycle e-cw e-clinicalworks greenway emds nextgen ge sage athena epic klas Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault Health Internet
Electronic Health Records (EHR) Software Are Helping Physicians To Report Drug Safety Information - December 9, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Pfizer announced today results of a survey the company recently sponsored that shows physicians are more likely to report side effects through an electronic health records (EHR) system, as compared to traditional paper methods. Nearly 60 percent of physicians who responded to the survey also agreed that adverse event reporting through an EHR system would improve patient care.
“Patient safety continues to be a top priority at Pfizer,” said Freda Lewis-Hall, MD, Pfizer’s chief medical officer. “This survey furthers our understanding about how we can best use electronic health records systems to collect critical information about the safe and appropriate use of our products so that we can improve patient safety.”
Of the 300 physicians surveyed, two-thirds utilized some form of an EHR system and one-third used a paper-based system. Half of all respondents and 60 percent of fully-functional EHR users reported that they would be much more likely to submit information about adverse events using an EHR system. Of those still using paper-based systems, 80 percent cited cost as a deterrent to investing in an EHR system, says Brian McCarthy CEO of Sencilo HealthIT Solutions.
Ipsos conducted the survey online among primary care physicians in the United States who were categorized as basic electronic health record users, fully functional electronic health record users or paper health record users. The research was conducted during September and October 2009.
As part of the company’s ongoing efforts to improve patient safety, Pfizer is collaborating with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Partners Healthcare, CDISC, an international standards group, and CRIX International to improve the quality of data in safety reports. Earlier this year, the group conducted a pilot known as the ASTER (Adverse Drug Event Spontaneous Triggered Event Reporting) study, allowing physicians to use electronic health records to report adverse events directly to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). By exploring a combination of standards, technology and a new business model, the group intends to help physicians better recognize and report adverse events.
“These survey results confirm what we saw in the Partners Healthcare ASTER study,” said Jeffrey A. Linder, MD, MPH, FACP an internist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. “The system we used in that study was well accepted by the participating physicians, who felt the adverse event reporting was unobtrusive and who saw the public health potential of this type of reporting. While most of the participating clinicians submitted no reports in the year prior to the study, they submitted hundreds of detailed reports during the five months of the study period."
Physician-reported adverse events are critical to the safety profiles of products by FDA. In the current adverse event reporting process, it can take physicians as long as 40 minutes to fill out required paperwork. By transitioning to an electronic health record system for reporting these events to the FDA, the process is completed in a matter of minutes. For physicians, it is important for EHR adverse event reporting to be easy to use, convenient and safe for patients.
“Adverse event reports are a key component of our ongoing efforts in patient safety,” said Dr. Lewis-Hall. “One critical goal is to increase the number and quality of the reports we receive. By making it easier and more convenient for doctors, we anticipate meeting this goal. ASTER is an impressive step in demonstrating how we can leverage EHRs to do just that.”
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
Why Sencilo HealthIT Solutions
When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology
With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can get:
A dedicated customer team
A website customized for your institution
A full portfolio of robust solutions
Easy setup, implementation and maintenance
Simple ordering and delivery
Technology training
Flexible financing options
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services makes it easy
In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan your healthcare computing from the ground up. By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time and money ÂÂand lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
Design
Procurement
Installation
Training
Maintenance
Support
About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City
solutions include BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts, NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech Electronic Healthcare IT Medical Records EHREHR Clinical Practices eClinicalWorks Allscripts Florida EMR, EHR, electronic medical record, health, records, practice management systems solutions, medication services, PHR Otolaryngology, Orthopaedics, Pain Nuerosurgery, Urology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Billing, Appointment Scheduling, clinicalworks, eClinicalWorks, solutions for physicians, hospitals, clinical education and medical services Computerized Patient CPR, Order Entry, CPOE, Document Clinical Information Informatics, Computer-based, SOAP, HIT, Healthcare Encounter Forms, web based, online, clinical rules database, electronic prescribing, e-prescribing, eprescribing, athenaClinicals, certified EMR, certified EHR, HITECH Act VAR Reseller Dealer hipaa privacy doctor, healthcare performance management, data security, hosting, arra, free, InterFAX, MyWay, HIPPA, EasyPayMedicare, MedicAID, SureScripts, FNC, billing, superbill iMedica Tiger on Windows, eprescribe pqri simple practice management revenue cycle e-cw e-clinicalworks greenway emds nextgen ge sage athena epic klas Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault Health Internet
Securing Electronic Health Records (EHR) per HIPAA - December 9, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Policing medical records is difficult. Developers are working on algorithms to search for potential data breaches. For example, software searchers for healthcare workers accessing medical records of people with the same last name, or living at addresses near their own home, based on the possibility that they might be snooping on family members or neighbors. "Suppose a woman's partner is an abuser, she's left him, she goes to the hospital for treatment. If the abuser is an employee of the hospital, how is her privacy going to be protected, asked Brian McCarthy CEO of Sencilo HealthIT Solutions and national known speaker on data security.
Amendments to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule in 2002 removed earlier privacy protections. "In the paper world, you were told by your doctor's office every time he got a request to release information. You were asked to sign off on that. But in the electronic world, your ability to do that has been taken away," she said. "This is very important, because once health information is out there, you can't put it back in the bottle."
Earlier, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (a major contributor to the current financial meltdown) permitted companies to share medical records the way they share financial records, Peel said.
Medical privacy regulations, however, have been getting new teeth, said Lisa Gallagher, senior director of privacy and security for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Under the Bush administration, the U.S. Justice Department said that HIPAA could not be applied against individual employees of healthcare providers, but ARRA said individuals can be prosecuted.
HIPAA now provides criminal penalties of fines up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison for disclosing or obtaining health information with the intent to sell, transfer or use it for commercial advantage, personal gain, or malicious harm, Gallagher said.
The law now requires patients must have access to their medical records, in electronic form. Providers are required to give an accounting to the patient any time medical information is disclosed.
"All in all, what you're seeing here is that there are significant privacy rules that have been put in place now," Gallagher said.
But Peel said more is needed. Patients need to have complete control over their own medical records. Patients' consent should be required to release medical records--to anyone. "We're still, essentially, voyeurs into our own medical records," she said. "Now, with audit trails, we're going to be able to see who's gotten into our medical records, but voyeurism isn't the same as control."
But it's not that simple, Gallagher said. "Consent puts most of the burden on the patient. The patient has to be involved in every transaction, and the patient needs to be knowledgeable enough to make the consent, and aware that they're not leaving out things through inaction that might hurt them later on," she said. Some people--like Peel--believe that's essential to privacy; others believe the issues are too complex to leave to patients. "In my view, Congress weeded out consent as a solution to the privacy problem," Gallagher said.
Celebrities aren't immune. Last year, more than a dozen staff at the UCLA Medical Center faced disciplinary charges for prying into the medical records of Britney Spears. The same hospital got in trouble again when employees accessed Farrah Fawcett's medical records after she went there for cancer treatments, say McCarthy of Sencilo HealthIT Solutions.
Healthcare providers and other health businesses aren't stepping up to protect privacy, according to a recent study. Some 80% of healthcare organizations have experienced at least one incident of lost or stolen health information in the past year, according to a study released this month from security management company LogLogic and the Ponemon Institute, which conducts privacy and information management research.
Furthermore, some 70% of IT managers surveyed said senior management doesn't view privacy and data security as a priority, and 53% say their organizations don't take appropriate steps t protect patient privacy. Less than half judge their existing security measures as "effective or very effective."
Unauthorized use of medical records has created a new kind of crime: medical identity theft, where a criminal poses as another person to obtain medical treatments using another person's insurance. This is a crime with multiple victims: The actual person with insurance coverage, whose medical records are updated with incorrect information, and the insurance company, which is paying for the criminal's medical procedure. Medical identity theft cuts twice, causing both potential medical risk and financial harm to its victims.
John Halamka, CIO of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, is one of the people trying to solve the privacy problem.
Halamka is chair of the US Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) and co-chair of the HIT Standards Committee, for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. HITSP is developing standards for EMRs that balance patients' right to control their information and keep it confidential against healthcare providers', insurers, and other businesses' needs to share information to improve patient care and do business.
"You want to protect the patient's preferences for confidentiality," Halamka said. But you also need to get information where it's needed. "If you come to the emergency department in a coma, and you have a record that includes psychiatric treatment, HIV, drug abuse, and other information, would you share part of it or all of it? My preference would be all of it, with the hope that emergency workers would use it discreetly, to save my life." But other people may feel differently, Halamka said, and healthcare policy needs to serve all those needs.
While electronic medical records promise massive opportunities for patient health benefits and reductions in administrative costs, the privacy and security risks are equally huge.
The Obama administration has set an ambitious goal--to get electronic medical records on file for every American by 2014. The administration is offering powerful incentives: $20 billion in stimulus funds as per the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, and stiff Medicare penalties for healthcare providers that fail to implement EMRs after 2014.
EMRs offer tantalizing benefits: Improved efficiency via the elimination of tons of paper files in doctors' offices, and better medical care through the use of the same kinds of database and data mining technologies that are now routine in other industries. One example: EMR systems can flag symptoms and potentially harmful drug interactions that busy doctors might otherwise miss.
But the accompanying privacy and security threats are significant. When completed, the nation's EMR infrastructure will be a massive store of every American's most personal, private information, and a potential target of abuse by marketers, identity thieves, and unscrupulous employers and insurance companies.
Regulators are attempting to craft rules that would unlock the benefits of EMRs while protecting Americans from the security risks. Healthcare IT pros will be required to implement systems and business processes that conform to these regulations, or face lost funding, institutional fines -- and, in some cases, personal criminal penalties.
The new regulations come as the healthcare industry faces big privacy problems, going back years. In 2003, a medical transcriptionist in Pakistan threatened to post patient records from the University of California San Francisco's Medical Center on the Internet unless she was paid for her work for a transcription service company hired by the university.
The dispute was resolved, but in the meantime, patients had no idea their records were being sent overseas. In another breach, two computers that held the confidential records of close to 200,000 patients of a medical group in San Jose, California, were posted for sale on Craigslist.org. The FBI recovered the information and the medical group informed current and former patients of the theft, according to a 2006 report in the HIPAA Bulletin.
Privacy conditions include access logs, and encryption requirements for data that resides on mobile devices. Healthcare providers and other health businesses will be required to keep records of everyone who has access to a file, and the patient has a right to who saw the record, who accessed it, and why, Halamka said.
The Office of Civil Rights enforces standards, and the Federal Trade Commission has the authority to process consumer complaints. ARRA also permits states' attorneys general to prosecute HIPAA violations.
Money is a major incentive for healthcare companies to protect patient privacy. ARRA provides financial incentives for healthcare businesses to meet its privacy guidelines, and punishment for people and businesses that fail. Every doctor in American can claim $44,000 for health IT implementations that meet federal privacy, security, and other standards, between 2011 and 2015. Every hospital can claim $2 million for four years under the same conditions. Organizations that fail the ARRA tests get nothing.
The regulations have a zero-tolerance policy for data breaches. If authorized people access records inappropriately, they are terminated, and can face criminal charges and fines, Halamka said.
"There is also a requirement to notify prominent media. If there are more than 500 records compromised, you have to notify the prominent media of the region. I would have to call the New York Times to say, 'look what we did.' Of course I respect federal law, but I'm more afraid of the Boston Globe and New York Times because if I lose the trust of my patients, I'm not going to be given a second chance."
But the ARRA regulations aren't enough, said Deborah Peel, founder and chair of the political group Patient Privacy Rights.
"Hospitals let thousands and thousands of employees see millions of patients' data," she said. Hospitals have rules-based systems governing who gets to see patient data -- for example, doctors and nurses get to see data, but not clerks and office workers. If someone is accessing records inappropriately, often the only barrier is a pop-up warning--and often not even that.
"That's why people looked at the Octomom's records," Peel said. Fifteen hospital workers were fired and another eight disciplined in March for unauthorized access to the medical records of octuplet mother Nadya Suleman. "And a hospital employee was able to get into Farrah Fawcett's records and leak the story before she even told her own family. Typically, the nurses get fired and the doctors don't."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
Why Sencilo HealthIT Solutions
When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology
With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can get:
A dedicated customer team
A website customized for your institution
A full portfolio of robust solutions
Easy setup, implementation and maintenance
Simple ordering and delivery
Technology training
Flexible financing options
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services makes it easy
In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan your healthcare computing from the ground up. By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time and money ÂÂand lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
Design
Procurement
Installation
Training
Maintenance
Support
About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City
solutions include BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts, NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech Electronic Healthcare IT Medical Records EHREHR Clinical Practices eClinicalWorks Allscripts Florida EMR, EHR, electronic medical record, health, records, practice management systems solutions, medication services, PHR Otolaryngology, Orthopaedics, Pain Nuerosurgery, Urology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Billing, Appointment Scheduling, clinicalworks, eClinicalWorks, solutions for physicians, hospitals, clinical education and medical services Computerized Patient CPR, Order Entry, CPOE, Document Clinical Information Informatics, Computer-based, SOAP, HIT, Healthcare Encounter Forms, web based, online, clinical rules database, electronic prescribing, e-prescribing, eprescribing, athenaClinicals, certified EMR, certified EHR, HITECH Act VAR Reseller Dealer hipaa privacy doctor, healthcare performance management, data security, hosting, arra, free, InterFAX, MyWay, HIPPA, EasyPayMedicare, MedicAID, SureScripts, FNC, billing, superbill iMedica Tiger on Windows, eprescribe pqri simple practice management revenue cycle e-cw e-clinicalworks greenway emds nextgen ge sage athena epic klas Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault Health Internet
Improving Healthcare with the use of Electronic Health Records - December 2, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Electronic health records (EHRs) have received a lot of attention since the Obama administration committed $19 billion in stimulus funds earlier this year to encourage hospitals and health care facilities to digitize patient data and make better use of information technology. The healthcare industry as a whole, however, has been slow to adopt information technology and integrate computer systems, raising the question of whether the push to digitize will result in information that empowers doctors to make better-informed decisions or a morass of disconnected data, says Brian Mccarthy CEO of Sencilo HealthIT Solutions and national known speaker on the subject.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) knows firsthand how difficult it is to achieve the former, and how easily an EHR plan can fall into the latter. UPMC has spent five years and more than $1 billion on information technology systems to get ahead of the EHR issue. While that is more than five times as much as recent estimates say it should cost a hospital system, UPMC is a mammoth network consisting of 20 hospitals as well as 400 doctors' offices, outpatient sites and long-term care facilities employing about 50,000 people.
UPMC's early attempts to create a universal EHR system, such as its ambulatory electronic medical records rolled out between 2000 and 2005, were met with resistance as doctors, staff and other users either avoided using the new technology altogether or clung to individual, disconnected software and systems that UPMC's IT department had implemented over the years.
On the mend
Although UPMC began digitizing some of its records in 1996, the turning point in its efforts came in 2004 with the rollout of its eRecord system across the entire health care network. eRecord now contains more than 3.6 million electronic patient records, including images and CT scans, clinical laboratory information, radiology data, and a picture archival and communication system that digitizes images and makes them available on PCs. The EHR system has 29,000 users, including more than 5,000 physicians employed by or affiliated with UPMC.
If UPMC makes EHR systems look easy, don't be fooled, cautions UPMC chief medical information officer Dan Martich, who says the health care network's IT systems require a "huge, ongoing effort" to ensure that those systems can communicate with one another. One of the main reasons is that UPMC, like many other health care organizations, uses a number of different vendors for its medical and IT systems, leaving the integration largely up to the IT staff.
Since doctors typically do not want to change the way they work for the sake of a computer system, the success of an EHR program is dictated not only by the presence of the technology but also by how well the doctors are trained on, and use, the technology. Physicians need to see the benefits of using EHR systems both persistently and consistently, says Louis Baverso, chief information officer at UPMC's Magee-Women's Hospital. But these benefits might not be obvious at first, he says, adding, "What doctors see in the beginning is that they're losing their ability to work with paper documents, which has been so valuable to them up until now."
Opportunities and costs
Given the lack of EHR adoption throughout the health care world, there are a lot of opportunities to get this right (or wrong). Less than 10 percent of U.S. hospitals have adopted electronic medical records even in the most basic way, according to a study authored by Ashish Jha, associate professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, and published in the April 16 New England Journal of Medicine. Only 1.5 percent have adopted a comprehensive system of electronic records that includes physicians' notes and orders and decision support systems that alert doctors of potential drug interactions or other problems that might result from their intended orders.
Cost is the primary factor stalling EHR systems, followed by resistance from physicians unwilling to adopt new technologies and a lack of staff with adequate IT expertise, according to Jha. He indicated that a hospital could spend from $20 million to $200 million to implement an electronic record system over several years, depending on the size of the hospital. A typical doctor's office would cost an estimated $50,000 to outfit with an EHR system.
The cost of getting it wrong
The difference between the projected cost savings and the reality of the situation stems from the fact that the EHR technologies implemented to date have not been designed to save money or improve patient care, says Leonard D'Avolio, associate center director of Biomedical Informatics at the Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center (MAVERIC), located at the VA Boston Healthcare System center in Jamaica Plain. Instead, EHRs are used to document individual patients' conditions, pass this information among clinicians treating those patients, justify financial reimbursement and serve as the legal records of events.
This is because, if a health care facility has $1 million to spend, its managers are more likely to spend it on an expensive piece of lab equipment than on information technology, D'Avolio says, adding that the investment on lab equipment can be made up by charging patients access to it as a billable service. This is not the case for IT. Also, computers and networks used throughout hospitals and health care facilities are disconnected and often manufactured by different vendors without a standardized way of communicating. "Medical data is difficult to standardize because caring for patients is a complex process," he says. "We need to find some way of reaching across not just departments but entire hospitals. If you can't measure something, you can't improve it, and without access to this data, you can't measure it."
To qualify for a piece of the $19 billion being offered through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), healthcare facilities will have to justify the significance of their IT investments to ensure they are "meaningful users" of EHRs. The Department of Health and Human Services has yet to define what it considers meaningful use (this is on the HHS agenda for December).
Aggregating info to create knowledge
Ideally, in addition to providing doctors with basic information about their patients, databases of vital signs, images, laboratory values, medications, diseases, interventions, and patient demographic information could be mined for new knowledge, D'Avolio says. "With just a few of these databases networked together, the power to improve health care increases exponentially," D'Avolio suggested in the September 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). "All that is missing is the collective realization that better health care requires access to better information—not automation of the status quo." Down the road, the addition of genomic information, environmental factors and family history to these databases will enable clinicians to begin to realize the potential of personalized medicine, he added.
"Much of the information contained in electronic records is formatted as unstructured free text—useful for the essential individual communication but unsuitable for detecting quantifiable trends," such as outbreaks of infections, D'Avolio wrote in JAMA.
Data analysis experiments performed by Ben Shneiderman, a University of Maryland computer science professor and founder of the school's Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL), and his colleagues indicate what the future holds if EHR systems are improved and implemented. "If there's enough information available, and it's able to be searched effectively, a doctor could essentially be running a virtual clinical trial for each patient by studying existing patient data," he says. "The real power of [EHRs] comes not from looking at just one patient but rather being able to analyze similar information across millions of people."
And although there is criticism that electronic medical records today are little more than digitized versions of paper forms, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Director Patrick Gallagher is optimistic that the ARRA money, combined with the $80 million in grants HHS is offering to train health IT workers, will push EHR adoption in the right direction. "The way I've been thinking about it, it simply would not have risen to the level of priority it has if it was simply about digitizing records in a doctor's office," says Gallagher, who took over as NIST director in early November. "I don't think we'd be investing as much as we're investing. This is about using technology to bring health care information together to reduce medical error, reduce the need for testing, put information in front of patients, and put information in front of researchers."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
Why Sencilo HealthIT Solutions
When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology
With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can get:
A dedicated customer team
A website customized for your institution
A full portfolio of robust solutions
Easy setup, implementation and maintenance
Simple ordering and delivery
Technology training
Flexible financing options
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services makes it easy
In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan your healthcare computing from the ground up. By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time and money Âand lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
Design
Procurement
Installation
Training
Maintenance
Support
About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHREHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City
solutions include BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts, NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech Electronic Healthcare IT Medical Records EHREHR Clinical Practices eClinicalWorks Allscripts Florida EMR, EHR, electronic medical record, health, records, practice management systems solutions, medication services, PHR Otolaryngology, Orthopaedics, Pain Nuerosurgery, Urology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Billing, Appointment Scheduling, clinicalworks, eClinicalWorks, solutions for physicians, hospitals, clinical education and medical services Computerized Patient CPR, Order Entry, CPOE, Document Clinical Information Informatics, Computer-based, SOAP, HIT, Healthcare Encounter Forms, web based, online, clinical rules database, electronic prescribing, e-prescribing, eprescribing, athenaClinicals, certified EMR, certified EHR, HITECH Act VAR Reseller Dealer hipaa privacy doctor, healthcare performance management, data security, hosting, arra, free, InterFAX, MyWay, HIPPA, EasyPayMedicare, MedicAID, SureScripts, FNC, billing, superbill iMedica Tiger on Windows, eprescribe pqri simple practice management revenue cycle e-cw e-clinicalworks greenway emds nextgen ge sage athena epic klas Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault Health Internet
Online storage of your Medical Records with Google Health and Microsoft Healthvault - December 2, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Microsoft and Google are taking their rivalry to the doctor's office, running competing services that allow people to store their medical records online for access by family members and healthcare providers.
Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault are similar approaches: They let patients input their own medical data either by typing it in or by giving permission for the vendor to get the information from a healthcare provider or insurer with which it's partnering.
Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault then provide tools for those partners to give the patient personalized health advice and other services built around the person's records, says Brian McCarthy CEO of Sencilo HealthIT Solutions and well known speaker on Electronic Health Records and archiving.
These "personal health records"--PHRs for short--complement electronic medical records. Both types of records contain a lot of the same information on the patient's conditions, test results, prescriptions, and other medical data. But PHRs are compiled and controlled by the patient, while EMRs are compiled and, for the most part, controlled by the doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare organizations, says McCarthy.
Google's Approach
Google Health aims to let consumers "get more directly involved in their healthcare," said Roni Zeiger, product manager for Google Health. "Medicine continues to become more complicated, doctors have less and less time to spend with patients in the exam room, and each of us as a patient has greater responsibility to take care of ourselves and our loved ones."
Google has been a leading player in e-health simply because searches on healthcare topics have always been popular. When people get sick--or think they getting sick--one of the first things they do is go online for information.
"What I hear from a lot of my doctor friends is that people are often coming in with a pretty big pile of questions that they've gotten from reading online or elsewhere," said Zeiger, who's a practicing doctor. "Sometimes those are well-informed questions, sometimes less so. Part of our mission is to narrow down the 20 pages worth of questions to perhaps one page of more informed questions."
That's good for the patient, and it also lets doctors see patients more quickly without compromising quality of care. And sometimes patients find treatments in their research that their own doctors aren't aware of.
Google Health, which was launched last year, provides an interface where users can type in data. Users can also give Google Health permission to access data held by various healthcare companies. For example, more than 100 million people in the U.S. can give Google Health access to electronic copies of their prescription histories at a pharmacy or pharmacy benefit manager, such as CVS Caremark, Walgreens, and Medco Health Solutions.
Google Health lets people organize all relevant health information in one safe place, Zieger said.
Partnering Up
Google is teaming with other organizations that can use its PHRs to offer personalized information and services. For example, the American Heart Association--with your permission--will check your blood tests imported from another partner, Quest Diagnostics, to find out your cholesterol level, blood pressure readings, and correlate those with other health data, such as whether you have diabetes. It then can compile all the information to determine your ten-year risk for a heart attack, and what you can do to lower the risk.
Another example: Google Health partner MDLiveCare, which offers video consultations with doctors, let a patient click a button on the MDLiveCare site to import all of his or her medical history from Google Health. That way the doctor has some background on the patient's medical condition.
Cleveland Clinic, a not-for-profit academic medical center, lets patients export their records into Google Health. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, has linked its PatientSite patient portal to Google Health.
Other partners that are letting Google import medical and drug prescription information, with a patient's permission, include Allscripts, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.
Google Health is free to consumers and partner organizations. Google expects that, as more people use Google Health services, they'll do more searches, which will increase the company's ad revenue.
Microsoft HealthVault's mission is similar to Google Health. "Your health information is fagmented," said George Scriban, senior global strategist at Microsoft Health Services Group. An person's medical records are scattered among every doctor who's ever seen them, every pharmacy that's filled a prescription, labs, employers--even devices, like diabetics' glucometers, for people managing chronic conditions. The situation is exponentially complicated for parents managing health records for their entire families. "All of these are records you need on a reasonably frequent basis, if not every day. You need a place to keep it all," Scriban said.
Like Google, Microsoft HealthVault is partnering with other companies. It has created a set of APIs and interfaces to HealthVault data repositories that let third parties communicate with HealthVault. Some of these third parties are just engaged in data exchange. But in a lot of cases, organizations like the Mayo Clinic, American Heart Association, and American Cancer Society have written applications using HealthVault medical records. "It's a storage service, but it's also a platform," Scriban said. "It provides personalized and individualized guidance just for you."
New York Presbyterian Hospital links HealthVault with its patient portal, and Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine, EMR provider Allscripts, and others are partnering with Microsoft for Internet services.
HealthVault offers the same channels for inputting health records as Google Health: If healthcare providers are partners with Microsoft, then individuals can give HealthVault permission to access the records. Alternately, patients can type in the information themselves. Compatible devices such as glucose meters, blood pressure cuffs, and pedometers can send information to
HealthVault.
Also, Unival, which provides EMR services, lets healthcare providers fax records to them, and then Unival transmits those faxes to HealthVault, where they're stored digitally. "It's not machine-readable, but at least it's in one place," Scriban said.
Big Differences
So far, Microsoft and Google's health offerings look pretty much the same, offering the same types of services, and in some cases even with the same partners, such as the American Heart Association.
But they're really very different, said John Moore, analyst at Chilmark Research. "Microsoft has been putting enormous investment into HealthVault and into its health solutions group," he said. "The same cannot be said of Google. Google has been more of a hands-off approach, letting it grow organically. Every now and then they announce a partnership and someone who has joined the ecosystem."
Microsoft is also ahead on allowing biometric devices to feed into HealthVault, using its Connection Center software for Windows.
Google has partnered with the Continua Health Alliance to achieve the same goal, but so far with fewer compatible devices, Moore said. "Right now, I think there's one device on the market," he said.
Likewise, staffing levels are different. Microsoft has more than 550 people in its Health Solutions Group. "If you look at Google it's not more than 18 people, I bet," Moore said.
"Microsoft is taking more of a structured and clinical approach. Google Health is more of a loose-knit health and wellness platform," Moore said.
Microsoft and Google are both going after the big pot of stimulus money set aside for healthcare spending, in the U.S. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and elsewhere, which totals $44 billion, Moore said. Some of that money is targeted at getting physicians, practices, and hospitals to provide personal health records by 2013, and healthcare providers may be able to qualify for that money by partnering with Microsoft or Google.
Dossia, a consortium of employers offering PHRs for their employees as part of health benefits is a potential competitor to Microsoft and Google, but it's taking a very different approach. Dossia performs the same function as HealthVault and Google Health--but only if you're an employee or family member of one of the companies in the alliance. So far, only Wal-Mart is live on Dossia. Other members, like Intel, Pitney Bowes, and Vanguard Health, are likely to go live in 2010. All told, Dossia covers 8 million employees and family members. "It can be a fairly substantial platform if employees sign onto it," Moore said.
The biggest obstacle to PHR adoption is consumer and healthcare provider resistance, said Dr. Paul Abramson, a San Francisco doctor.
"Patients are confused, they don't see how this relates to healthcare," Abramson said. "If you go into an ER, they're not going to log into Google Health to get your records. There's no integration to any live, real-time health systems that are used clinically." In hospitals "no one thinks to ask the patient if they have a Microsoft HealthVault account when we access records,"
he adds.
PHRs will take off when they're better integrated with medical practitioner systems, Abramson said. "Right now, it's pretty much a novelty."
HealhVault is the more flexible solution, said Abramson, who is also a former professional programmer. He's consulting on developing Hello Health a Web-based medical practice app that will synch with Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health.
HealthVault stores any kind of XML-based patient data in its Repositories, Abramson said, letting you import an XML file, store it, and then retrieve it from elsewhere. The service can be used as a data repository and pipeline between e-health systems, even if it doesn't understand all the data it's storing, he said. Google Health, on the other hand, takes the XML files, strips out the
subset of data it can understand, and discards the rest. It stores basic information like diagnoses, medications, and allergies, but it doesn't understand or store a broad range of additional information that might be useful to a medical practitioner, including family medical, social, and psychological histories, Abramson said.
The Mayo Clinic is partnering with Microsoft on its PHR system, the Mayo Clinic Health Manager. Launched in April, it integrates with HealthVault, storing medical records, immunizations, and information on conditions being managed such as allergies. It also makes recommendations for health based on the patient's personal medical history.
Mayo Clinic partnered with Microsoft because of Microsoft's reputation and expertise. "They tend to be frontrunners in the things that we do," said Michael Greenhalgh, senior manager of product management for Mayo Clinic Global Products and Solutions. "We had a shared vision. We were looking to make things better in the health field." Mayo is looking to improve the service by increasing the range of conditions it covers.
Mayo is also looking to partner with Google Health on a future project, the details of which haven't been worked out yet, Greenhalgh said.
Privacy Concerns
Neither Google Health nor Microsoft HealthVault is covered by the U.S.'s chief health privacy regulations, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). "This is because Google doesn't store data on behalf of health care providers.
Instead, our primary relationship is with the user," according to an e-mailed statement from a Google spokesman. But both companies say that patient privacy is paramount.
"Although Google Health is not covered by HIPAA, we are committed to user privacy and have in place strict data security policies and measures, and ensure that users control access to their information," Google said.
Google explained its privacy policy with regard to Google Health in a May, 2008 blog post. The company said it doesn't sell health user information, and has "strict data security policies and measures in place to limit access to sensitive information and to protect against data breaches."
The Google Health Privacy Policy, on the company's Web site, is short and in plain English. It gives users control of their information, says that the user is by default the only person who can view and edit information, but can choose to share with others. Users can completely delete their information at any time, and immediately. Users can also revoke sharing privileges at
any time.
Microsoft uses four privacy principles for HealthVault: The user owns and controls information they create. The user gets to decide what goes into the records, and what leaves it. And "Microsoft is just the steward of this information. We work on your behalf. We won't commercialize it unless we ask and you consent," Scriban said. The company won't use the information to deliver targeted advertisements, and consent to share information must be given on an individual basis; users can't give permission to share information to a whole class of entities, like all doctors, for example.
But Phil Cox, principal consultant at SystemExperts, a network security consultancy, said security at both Google Health and HealthVault is lousy.
For starters, both services use generic credentials, the Windows Live ID and Google ID, which have had security violations in the past. Also, the data being protected in a PHR repository is much more sensitive than the e-mail and calendaring information the Windows and Google credentials mainly protect, Cox said.
Both companies "place the security burden on the user, and have specific language in their respective use agreements that hold them harmless for any breach of data caused by a compromise of a user account," Cox said in an e-mail. Given the security issues with generic credentials, "I worry that individual users will have little recourse if their information is compromised. I do think this will cause some very interesting legal challenges."
He said he believes that both services will eventually be brought under HIPAA rules, which might cause Google and Microsoft to drop the services rather than bring them up to regulatory standards.
Google and Microsoft plan to evolve their services to a complete data repository of health information, which would be a "HUGE collection of highly sensitive data" with "inadequate" protection, Cox said.
He added, "One last concern I have is over the language that basically states there is no guarantee of accuracy or timeliness of information, and that they can drop the service at any time. With those two 'stipulations,' I do not see how any user will take them seriously. I certainly would not rely on the service, and if I can't rely on it, why use it."
But analyst Moore said he believes the privacy and security concerns for services like HealthVault and Google Health are overblown. Sure, a major security breach of either of those services, should they become popular, would be a disaster. But the companies will use top-of-the-line security to protect data. And right now the data is scattered around small physician practices and hospitals, which have data breaches regularly. "I am of the opinion that your records will actually be safer and more secure than what is happening today," Moore said.
Both Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health are vying to become the chief repository for personal health information. They appear similar on the surface, but have differences underneath, and privacy and security are ongoing issues for both. Individuals will have to take the pulse of both services and decide for themselves.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
Why Sencilo HealthIT Solutions
When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology
With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can get:
A dedicated customer team
A website customized for your institution
A full portfolio of robust solutions
Easy setup, implementation and maintenance
Simple ordering and delivery
Technology training
Flexible financing options
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services makes it easy In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan your healthcare computing from the ground up. By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time and money and lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
Design
Procurement
Installation
Training
Maintenance
Support
About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHREHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City solutions include BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts, NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech Electronic Healthcare IT Medical Records EHREHR Clinical Practices eClinicalWorks Allscripts Florida EMR, EHR, electronic medical record, health, records, practice management systems solutions, medication services, PHR Otolaryngology, Orthopaedics, Pain Nuerosurgery, Urology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Billing, Appointment Scheduling, clinicalworks, eClinicalWorks, solutions for physicians, hospitals, clinical education and medical services Computerized Patient CPR, Order Entry, CPOE, Document Clinical Information Informatics, Computer-based, SOAP, HIT, Healthcare Encounter Forms, web based, online, clinical rules database, electronic prescribing, e-prescribing, eprescribing, athenaClinicals, certified EMR, certified EHR, HITECH Act VAR Reseller Dealer hipaa privacy doctor, healthcare performance management, data security, hosting, arra, free, InterFAX, MyWay, HIPPA, EasyPayMedicare, MedicAID, SureScripts, FNC, billing, superbill iMedica Tiger on Windows, Health Internet
eprescribe pqri simple practice management revenue cycle e-cw e-clinicalworks greenway emds nextgen ge sage athena epic klas Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault
Best practices for EHR and Data Protection - December 1, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Regardless of how universal health care legislation now being debated by the U.S. Congress turns out, it is a certainty that the coming decades will be characterized as the age of health care, where an increasingly older population will demand a greater number and variety of medical services, offered in a more cost-effective way. In spite of the rancor associated with the health care debate, just about all parties agree that a significant source of cost in health care delivery is associated with simply managing medical records -- by some estimates, as much as $1 billion to $2 billion annually. Reducing cost associated with electronic medical record (EMR) retention and manipulation, therefore, is attractive to all parties. Management and storage of EMR data, consequently, have become of increasing interest to storage solution providers, who through economies of scale and scope can promise lower storage costs. There are, however, several significant considerations that may make EMR storage services problematic for some providers, says Brian McCarthy CEO of Sencilo HealthIT Solutions and well known speaker on the subject of Storage.
Security. It goes without saying that medical records are not like ordinary business data. In the first place, such records must be absolutely secure. There is an increasing body of regulation such as HIPAA as well as a judicial record of successful lawsuits that make the penalty for revealing personal medical data very painful and expensive. As a result, the potential liability of providing EMR storage services can be very high. And while liability insurance is available for such breaches, liability prevention -- having the appropriate security protocols and data integrity checks to prevent data leakage in the first place -- is critical. Hardened storage with extensive access restrictions is a must, as is extensive background research on every employee having access to such records.
Retention period. Medical records also have very high retention requirements. In many cases, they may outlive the patients whose health care history they represent. Storage arrangements will need to recognize that such records will have to remain viable for many years or decades. This includes ensuring that the storage media are consistent with existing technology, through regular audits of existing and industry-standard media and storage techniques, as well as ensuring that, if necessary, storage can be assumed by a third party. Depending on how viable in the long run you believe your operation to be, this may involve contractual arrangements with long-term archival providers or obtaining insurance that would pay for such long-term storage should your company fail.
Data integrity. EMR data can literally represent life-and-death information. Data integrity is paramount, especially if such data represents files such as high-resolution imaging. Introduction of errors can corrupt images that will need to be reproduced, sometimes in ways that may threaten a patient's health. As with any data type, ensuring integrity can involve hot backups and routine consistency checks -- even if the data is encrypted.
Scalability. Medical records can be voluminous, with each record set containing many megabytes of information. Patient databases can be very large, running to terabytes for even a modest hospital. Such volumes demand a great deal of available storage and, since every visit to the doctor can generate large chunks of new data, the storage has to be very scalable.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
Why Sencilo HealthIT Solutions
When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology
With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can get:
A dedicated customer team
A website customized for your institution
A full portfolio of robust solutions
Easy setup, implementation and maintenance
Simple ordering and delivery
Technology training
Flexible financing options
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services makes it easy
In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan your healthcare computing from the ground up. By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time and money Âand lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
Design
Procurement
Installation
Training
Maintenance
Support
About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHREHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City
solutions include BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts, NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech Electronic Healthcare IT Medical Records EHREHR Clinical Practices eClinicalWorks Allscripts Florida EMR, EHR, electronic medical record, health, records, practice management systems solutions, medication services, PHR Otolaryngology, Orthopaedics, Pain Nuerosurgery, Urology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Billing, Appointment Scheduling, clinicalworks, eClinicalWorks, solutions for physicians, hospitals, clinical education and medical services Computerized Patient CPR, Order Entry, CPOE, Document Clinical Information Informatics, Computer-based, SOAP, HIT, Healthcare Encounter Forms, web based, online, clinical rules database, electronic prescribing, e-prescribing, eprescribing, athenaClinicals, certified EMR, certified EHR, HITECH Act VAR Reseller Dealer hipaa privacy doctor, healthcare performance management, data security, hosting, arra, free, InterFAX, MyWay, HIPPA, EasyPayMedicare, MedicAID, SureScripts, FNC, billing, superbill iMedica Tiger on Windows, eprescribe pqri simple practice management revenue cycle e-cw e-clinicalworks greenway emds nextgen ge sage athena epic klas Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition
Can your Medical Office or Hospital connect to this? - December 1, 2009
Orlando Florida -- The Veterans Affairs Department will begin exchanging patient medical records this month with Kaiser Permanente as part of a demonstration of large-scale health data exchange, agency officials announced.
The pilot program connects Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect and the VA's electronic health record system (EHR), known as VistA, two of the largest electronic health record systems in the country.
The VA is participating in a dialogue with industry on the possibility of making VistA available to the private sector
The VA-Kaiser Electronic Health Record system will exchange information using the federal government’s Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) and its set of security and interoperability protocols created by the Health and Human Services Department (HHS).
The goal is to share VA patient data with private-sector health care providers, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said in a news release. The Defense Department will join in the demonstration in early 2010.
"Utilizing the NHIN's standards and network will allow organizations like VA and the Department of Defense to partner with private sector health care providers to promote better, faster and safer care for veterans,” Shinseki added.
The VA and Kaiser are asking veterans in the San Diego area to volunteer to participate in the data exchange program scheduled to begin in mid-December. If your hospital or medical office is not connected they are doing you a disservice and you should find another office.
Through the economic stimulus law, the Obama administration is distributing $19 billion to hospitals and doctors who buy certified EHRs and use them to participate in health exchanges. HHS is preparing rulemaking on how vendors’ systems will be certified and on how to define the terms of participation and health exchange; some privacy and security issues are still under consideration.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
Why Sencilo HealthIT Solutions
When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology
With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can get:
A dedicated customer team
A website customized for your institution
A full portfolio of robust solutions
Easy setup, implementation and maintenance
Simple ordering and delivery
Technology training
Flexible financing options
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services makes it easy
In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan your healthcare computing from the ground up. By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time and money Âand lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
Design
Procurement
Installation
Training
Maintenance
Support
About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHREHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City
solutions include BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts, NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech Electronic Healthcare IT Medical Records EHREHR Clinical Practices eClinicalWorks Allscripts Florida EMR, EHR, electronic medical record, health, records, practice management systems solutions, medication services, PHR Otolaryngology, Orthopaedics, Pain Nuerosurgery, Urology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Billing, Appointment Scheduling, clinicalworks, eClinicalWorks, solutions for physicians, hospitals, clinical education and medical services Computerized Patient CPR, Order Entry, CPOE, Document Clinical Information Informatics, Computer-based, SOAP, HIT, Healthcare Encounter Forms, web based, online, clinical rules database, electronic prescribing, e-prescribing, eprescribing, athenaClinicals, certified EMR, certified EHR, HITECH Act VAR Reseller Dealer hipaa privacy doctor, healthcare performance management, data security, hosting, arra, free, InterFAX, MyWay, HIPPA, EasyPayMedicare, MedicAID, SureScripts, FNC, billing, superbill iMedica Tiger on Windows, eprescribe pqri simple practice management revenue cycle e-cw e-clinicalworks greenway emds nextgen ge sage athena epic klas Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition
Electronic Health Records (EHR) May Lead to Rise in Medical Identity Theft and What to Do - December 1, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Although some people have touted electronic health records as a strategy to improve health care efficiency, others are expressing concern that EHRs could make patients more vulnerable to medical identity theft, says Brian McCarthy CEO of Sencilo HealthIT Solutions and leading security expert.
McCarthy say EHR systems might actually facilitate identity theft because the tools make patient medical information more easily accessible. Hackers who steal patient data might file false medical bills to obtain money from insurance companies, Medicare and other payers. As a result, individuals who experience identity theft might face mounting medical bills and could exhaust their lifetime coverage benefits. In addition, insurance companies might label such individuals as uninsurable because of their perceived high medical costs.
Medical identity theft also could alter crucial information contained in a patient's EHR, such as allergies, blood type and medical history. Such data manipulation could have serious consequences if physicians use the faulty information when treating the patient. Having the right partner work with the Hospital and Medical Office someone who can identify security holes, monitor and keep updates current is escentual, say McCarthy.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
Why Sencilo HealthIT Solutions
When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology
With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can get:
A dedicated customer team
A website customized for your institution
A full portfolio of robust solutions
Easy setup, implementation and maintenance
Simple ordering and delivery
Technology training
Flexible financing options
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services makes it easy
In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan your healthcare computing from the ground up.
By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time and money Âand lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
Design
Procurement
Installation
Training
Maintenance
Support
About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EHREHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including Allscripts, VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Orlando Lake Mary Daytona, Medical City
solutions include BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts, NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech Electronic Healthcare IT Medical Records EHREHR Clinical Practices eClinicalWorks Allscripts Florida EMR, EHR, electronic medical record, health, records, practice management systems solutions, medication services, PHR Otolaryngology, Orthopaedics, Pain Nuerosurgery, Urology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Billing, Appointment Scheduling, clinicalworks, eClinicalWorks, solutions for physicians, hospitals, clinical education and medical services Computerized Patient CPR, Order Entry, CPOE, Document Clinical Information Informatics, Computer-based, SOAP, HIT, Healthcare Encounter Forms, web based, online, clinical rules database, electronic prescribing, e-prescribing, eprescribing, athenaClinicals, certified EMR, certified EHR, HITECH Act VAR Reseller Dealer hipaa privacy doctor, healthcare performance management, data security, hosting, arra, free, InterFAX, MyWay, HIPPA, EasyPayMedicare, MedicAID, SureScripts, FNC, billing, superbill iMedica Tiger on Windows, eprescribe pqri simple practice management revenue cycle e-cw e-clinicalworks greenway emds nextgen ge sage athena epic klas Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition
