8 Reasons Why Your Physician's Office Needs A Website

The list source is this article by Mary Pat Whaley, displayed at Manage My Practice resource blog.
 

1. Establish a digital presence for the practice, just as you have established a physical presence for your practice. Stake a claim that declares “I’m here!”
2. Establish your medical authority. Provide customized health information to existing patients and future patients.
3. Tell your story. Say hello and be real.
4. Be the connector. Connect patients to information, resources, and to each other!
5. Be a portal for your patients. Let them get their records, their lab tests, their prescriptions, and their appointments online, at a time convenient to them.
6. Communicate quickly. Make announcements. React to health news when it happens.
7. Give directions to your physical practice.
8. Provide your patients the convenience of paying their bill online

The High Cost of Healthcare: Infographic

Via: Medical Billing And Coding

The Patient Portal and Your Practice

A recent editorial article from Fierce Health IT notes the potential ways a patient can interact with a portal:

 "Among the benefits are the ability of patients to do the following online: request refills; make appointments; view lab results; receive reminders about needed preventive and chronic care; ask their doctor a question; fill out a medical history or a family and social history; view statements; and pay bills.

Article Source

A patient portal is more than a self-service option for patients. It is a secure and permanent platform for patient-to-provider communication. This increases the transparency of the healthcare relationship as well as limits the potential for communication breakdown. For this reason alone, the patient portal is a must have for every practice.

Is Healthcare Ready For Social Media?

A recent Capstrat-Public Policy Polling survey revealed that 84% of respondents would not use social media or instant messaging channels to communicate with their doctor. The survey was completed by 843 registered voters. Additionally, the results show that patients are more willing to complete healthcare related administrative tasks online. This trend has been increasing, along with the number of doctors offering patient portals to complete such tasks.


The boundary between social media interaction and personal privacy is increasingly difficult to identify. This is a large reason for the hesitance in social media adoption by both patients and doctors. Additionally, many doctors are unsure of the legal consequences involved with online interaction. The current framework of social networks is not designed to support the healthcare industry. A social media experience in healthcare requires a dynamic platform designed around compliance and security while at the same time allowing interaction with a wide range of providers, including physicians, hospitals, labs, insurance pharmacies and government agencies.

AcuMedSoft Selected to Participate in Bull City Stampede

We are very excited to announce our participation in the first annual Bull City Stampede. We are 1 of 11 selected participants out of 78 entrants. We want to thank the program leaders at the Durham Chamber of Commerce for all their hard work and preparation... it is shaping up to be a great 60 days. Check out the other participants below:

• Appuware – providing cloud-based tools and services for mobile publishers.
• Blink Coupons – Customer loyalty cards for small businesses.
• Bound Custom Journals – customizable journals for travel, sketching, writing etc.
• Clinical Ambassador – a cultural attaché connecting science and minority communities to advanced medical discovery.
• Finger Puppet Games Inc. – develops 3D games; built for mobile devices and monetized through microtransactions.
• Fitsistant – a service of on-call physical training coaches and scheduling assistants combined with personal fitness software.
• Haiti Hub – providing Haitian Creole e-language learning services to English speakers invested in Haiti’s future.
• LearnVC – VCHub.com (operated by LearnVC) simplifies raising capital by modeling investment scenarios to educate entrepreneurs and collaborate with potential investors.
• Little Green Software – develops apps for smartphones, tablets, game systems and online.
• Rippple – an online platform helping communities to support entrepreneurs.

Press:


Durham Herald Sun

Triangle Business Journal

Planning To Win: Success With Health IT

Study : The Benefits Of Health Information Technology

A recently released report, co-authored by the National Coordinator for Health IT, found that 92% of recent health IT articles showed improvements in healthcare through the implementation of IT. The specific improvements are noted in the chart below. It is important to note that the study only analyzed the effects of health IT on certain aspects of patient care. Further research is needed to address the possible benefits of health IT on information security and data analysis in determining health trends.

Source: Health Affairs

The overarching theme of successful implementation of any health technology is to have a plan that includes all stakeholders, including the patients. A complete plan includes consideration for IT leadership, budget, implementation, training and a road map that includes milestones for a smooth transition. Most of all, a plan requires full support from all who are involved. As the study states, the "Human Element" is the most important factor.

Online Meaningful Use Resources

Information about the EHR Incentive Program is widely available on the internet. The websites below contain highly valuable health IT resources, news, opinion and regulatory information.

• The Center for Medicare and Medicaid - EHR Incentive Program
• Main site and primary resource available to learn about the programs.  A very useful feature of the website is the Frequently Asked Questions database.

• ONC Health IT - Meaningful Use Resources
• Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. Links to studies and press releases, all current and relevant, about meaningful use and EHR topics.  Valuable sections include : Talking to Your Patients about EHRs and the Benefits of EHRs.

• HIMSS Meaningful Use
• Links to hundreds of documents, tools and other websites all discussing the EHR incentive program and meaningful use. A complete visit to the site will answer all your questions about meaningful use criteria, how to receive the incentive money and the best practices for implementing processes and achieving meaningful use in your office. We particularly like the Emerging Technologies section, which has articles about future trends in health IT.

• Life as a Healthcare CIO
• A popular blog written by hospital CIO John Halamka, MD. With approximately 240-250 posts per year, this blog is a must read. The topics are mostly pertinent to healthcare and HIT, but often include macro themes about health IT infrastructure and government policy. Additionally, he writes about insights from his personal life and includes a weekly post of his favorite new technology.

• Kevin MD
• Physician Kevin Pho runs this popular blog with the tagline "Social Media's Leading Physician Voice". It is updated multiple times a day and features articles and commentary written by a wide range of healthcare experts. Sometimes the debate raging in the comments of the article is another great source of information. Less Health IT, but still a great read.

• Twitter
•  The vibrant social media network is the place to search for popular topics in healthcare and health IT. Simply search any keyword and instantly find relevant recent tweets from people in the industry. Popular healthcare keywords include "Health IT,  EHR, EMR, HIE,  Meaningful Use, HIT, CCHIT, HIMSS, ONC"
• Don't forget to follow us @AcuMedSoft

Lower IT Costs with Cloud Hosting

Medical providers are currently evaluating their office IT systems to determine if they can benefit from moving their data, web and e-mail servers into the cloud. Whether current systems are outdated or due to the EHR incentive program, providers of all sizes are looking for next generation, low cost technology solutions that will help simplify IT management. 

Previous infrastructure upgrades have populated medical offices with in-house servers requiring a large upfront capital investment, maintenance and replacement contracts. These servers are resource heavy, meaning that they cost money to maintain. Additionally, in-house servers require physical and virtual security safeguards to protect patient's personal health information. Finally, the space required to house these servers often could be used as an extra exam room or a staff break room. The in-house server was an affordable model to many providers at the time of their previous tech upgrade however the costs associated with cloud hosted servers have fallen and it is a logical and secure alternative for those interested in breaking away from in-house IT.

The affordability, security, and accessibility of remote hosting is a reality that all medical providers can benefit from. The major difference between the hosted and in-house model is that with a hosted solution you no longer  have the physical server in your office. The servers are located in a data center and all applicable information is encrypted and transmitted through the internet to your office computers.

All server maintenance and upgrades occur over the internet or physically at the data center and can be handled by your vendor. Most hosted server vendors offer a backup and archiving service for your data at low cost. Instead of using your office storage to archive paper records, digitally convert them and place on the hosted server for quick access and search.

The hosted server model is also scalable with your practice, providing growth opportunities without the need for upfront capital investment. The hosted server offers many benefits compared to the in-house server, but much of the total value is derived from relieving your practice of the IT maintenance and costs.

AcuMedSoft is serious when it comes to ensuring the safety and security of your patients personal health information.. We utilize a SAS-70 type II data center and our hosted servers are designed for HIPAA compliance. For more about the security of our data center and the most complete hosting package available, please check out our HIPAA Hosting Solution.

Medical Record Conversion Benefits

What do we hear most from medical practices? Too much paper. Even from the practices with an established electronic health record. This paper overload has already been fixed in many offices by implementing digital solutions including computerized fax, patient kiosks, and the conversion of paper medical records to digital files.

The most beneficial is the digital conversion of paper medical records. This is done with scanning and indexing the paper medical records you have on site. The digital copies of your paper records are encrypted for total security of your patients health information and can be stored on your local computer or remotely hosted in a secure environment. These files can be accessed and viewed similarly to the paper charts and will be integrated into your existing or new electronic health record. Physicians also digitize records and archive them for compliance to free up office space.

Increased security and an organized work flow are additional benefits of the digital records. All patient records are in one location for search and reference. Traditional faxing and copying is replaced with digital equivalents for an organized and efficient office. The digital files are protected from the threats of floods and fire for they are located in multiple locations with daily backups.

Next Generation Technology Implementation for Small Medical Providers

Recent years have seen the patient to small medical provider relationship remain largely unchanged despite advancements in cloud (remote) hosting security and health information technology.  Current HTML web based forms and low security online payment systems fail to provide the level of interactivity that patient’s desire. Additionally, small providers still rely on costly in-house IT, creating a burden for the office and staff. These technologies, once viewed as a “must have” are now the barriers to evolving the patient-to-provider relationship.

Consumers access online banking from their smart phones, read books from their tablet PC library, and shop for groceries at an online store. The shared characteristic between these actions, disregarding their simplicity and accessibility, is the presence of a secure portal to access and interact with technology. The portal allows for personalization of data, which creates a bond between the product and the consumer. 

The patient portal technology has been adopted with great success by most of the large local and regional medical providers. Patients can interact online to schedule appointments, transfer messages, view lab results, view their personal health record and complete copayments. The powerful aspect of the portal becomes apparent when it is integrated with a HL7 standardized electronic health record, such as the open source OpenEMR, allowing for worldwide transferability of patient information between providers. 

The widespread availability of high speed internet has paved the way for health IT vendors offering low cost cloud based on demand software. Small healthcare providers previously priced out of the patient portal and EHR market can now implement these remotely hosted technologies for less than $10,000. 

Serigne Ndiaye, CTO of AcuMedSoft LLC, a provider of HIPAA compliant cloud hosting and acuPortal, a web based patient portal, believes that the Medicare EHR Stimulus Program will provide motivation for small medical providers to update their technology systems. Ndiaye says “Eligibility for the $44,000 in individual physician grants for demonstrating meaningful use of an electronic health record requires a patient portal to exchange specific information with patients. If a small provider upgrades their system in 2011, and fully participates in the program until 2015 and receives the full grant, they basically receive a free upgrade to next generation technology.”

The problem is that many of the small medical providers have not had the time to evaluate value derived from the patient portal and have viewed it as a luxury that only large providers can afford. These assumptions are no longer valid, and it is time for patients to demand from their physician access to a patient portal.

EHR Quality Improvement

Electronic Health Record Adoption and Quality Improvement in US Hospitals

This report analyzes approximately 2000 US hospitals with varying levels of EHR capability in an attempt to determine the quality improvements derived from "use" of EHRs. While the conclusion is discouraging -- EHR implementation has limited effects on quality improvements in hospitals -- it is important to analyze the documented limitations of the study to determine a future solution to improving the results.

Limitation 1: EHR implementation has different effects on quality improvement for conditions other than the 3 studied.

This limitation is a barrier to developing standards for measuring the effects of EHR quality improvement because of the amount of clinical data needed. Developing condition specific metrics is crucial to fully evaluate the quality improvement of EHR.

Limitation 2: Approach to measuring EHR capability did not account for the adequacy and frequency of EHR use or variation of EHR functionality between hospitals.

The report makes note that "Moving forward, metrics of meaningful use of an EHR should make it possible to better assess and identify which elements of EHR use have the greatest effect on clinical quality." This will be possible when more data becomes available, which will only occur when standards exist for measuring EHR quality improvement. Once standards are in place, it will be easier to identify the performing and lagging metrics.

The report lays solid framework for developing nationwide standards for measuring the effects of EHR use. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is responsible for delivering an effective standardized method and has the help of IT vendors and the health care community in doing so. The challenge will be to sync these standards with current vendor offerings while adapting future standards to technology changes.