Tuesday, June 30, 2009
President Obama Discusses Healthcare Reform at Town Hall Meeting
Last weekend the Obama Administration announced on its White House Blog that the President would take his healthcare reform message directly to the American people during an online town hall meeting on Wednesday, July 1, at 1:15 p.m. EDT. This will be a great opportunity to learn more about the Administration’s proposals, which will likely greatly impact the American healthcare system, including the health information technology sector. Prior to the meeting, individuals can submit their thoughts concerning the President’s proposals by watching a special message from the President here and posting their questions in the form of a 20- to 30-second video. Twitter users can ask questions with this hashtag: #WHHCQ or head to Facebook and ask your question there. Although the Obama Administration has not released many details about the town hall meeting, information on how to view it will likely be posted at either the main White House website or the Administration’s Facebook page.
AHDI and MTIA Begin Work with Dewey Square Group on Advocacy Strategy for Important Year Ahead
AHDI and MTIA recently began employing the services of the Dewey Square Group (DSG), a well-respected lobbying firm in Washington, DC. By working with DSG, we will hone our advocacy strategy and increase our access to members of Congress, officials at administrative agencies, and other important government decision makers. Our work with DSG has already begun to pay dividends. Based on a strategy we designed with DSG, we carried out the following advocacy efforts last week.
Over four dozen AHDI and MTIA members responded to the advocacy alert asking members to submit comments to the HIT Policy Committee concerning the body’ draft description of “meaningful use.” By doing so, we educated the Committee and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on the crucial role healthcare documentation professionals and medical transcription service organizations (MTSOs) play in ensuring the accuracy, completeness, and integrity of patient health information and the need for that role to be recognized within the definition of “meaningful use.” This week, with DSG’s support, we will spread our message even further by sharing the comments with federal legislators, including key members of the Congressional committees with jurisdiction over healthcare issues.
We also submitted written testimony to the House Small Business Committee’s Subcommittee on Regulations and Healthcare, which held a hearing last week concerning the challenges solo and small group practices face in adopting health information technology (IT) and the implementation policies in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to promote Health IT adoption. Our testimony addressed the importance of healthcare documentation professionals and MTSOs for quality documentation, shared concerns we have regarding the financial effects of new HIPAA standards on small MTSOs, and called for collaboration, technical assistance, and financial support in light of those concerns.
Such advocacy efforts will enable us to make a greater impact on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in Washington, DC. As we work with DSG more in the future, AHDI and MTIA members must continue to be strong advocates for the profession and industry. Together we can ensure that Congress and the Obama Administration realize we are vital to quality documentation and successful EHR adoption and take into account the sector’s valuable contributions when creating legislation and regulations.
Over four dozen AHDI and MTIA members responded to the advocacy alert asking members to submit comments to the HIT Policy Committee concerning the body’ draft description of “meaningful use.” By doing so, we educated the Committee and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on the crucial role healthcare documentation professionals and medical transcription service organizations (MTSOs) play in ensuring the accuracy, completeness, and integrity of patient health information and the need for that role to be recognized within the definition of “meaningful use.” This week, with DSG’s support, we will spread our message even further by sharing the comments with federal legislators, including key members of the Congressional committees with jurisdiction over healthcare issues.
We also submitted written testimony to the House Small Business Committee’s Subcommittee on Regulations and Healthcare, which held a hearing last week concerning the challenges solo and small group practices face in adopting health information technology (IT) and the implementation policies in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to promote Health IT adoption. Our testimony addressed the importance of healthcare documentation professionals and MTSOs for quality documentation, shared concerns we have regarding the financial effects of new HIPAA standards on small MTSOs, and called for collaboration, technical assistance, and financial support in light of those concerns.
Such advocacy efforts will enable us to make a greater impact on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in Washington, DC. As we work with DSG more in the future, AHDI and MTIA members must continue to be strong advocates for the profession and industry. Together we can ensure that Congress and the Obama Administration realize we are vital to quality documentation and successful EHR adoption and take into account the sector’s valuable contributions when creating legislation and regulations.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Are you Video-enabled? We’ll feature you at ACE!
AHDI is looking for webcam enthusiasts to generate welcome messages for our ACE attendees in Nashville. If you can’t attend the conference this year but would like to be featured in our exhibit hall video stream this year – greeting attendees as they enter and exit the vendor area – we’d love to feature you! Simply record your 1- to 2-minute video and upload it to the AHDI FTP folder designated below. Start your session with a greeting to ACE attendees, make sure to tell us your name and where you live, followed by whatever else you would like to say that demonstrates your love for the profession, enthusiasm for the association and the event, and perhaps a word of encouragement for your industry colleagues in attendance. Please use webcam videos only – no other format will be accepted. All videos subject to review for appropriate content. Upload to:
Address: ftp.aamt.org
Username: AHDIVideo
Password: acemovies
Port: 21
Please email Lea Sims (lsims@ahdionline.org) or Andrew Wolf (awolf@ahdionline.org) when you have uploaded your video.
Address: ftp.aamt.org
Username: AHDIVideo
Password: acemovies
Port: 21
Please email Lea Sims (lsims@ahdionline.org) or Andrew Wolf (awolf@ahdionline.org) when you have uploaded your video.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
"Meaningful Use" Public Comment Deadline - June 26, 2009
Last February, President Obama signed into law the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which provides $17.2 billion to physicians and healthcare enterprises that qualify as "meaningful users" of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology. This week, the HIT Policy Committee issued a draft definition of "meaningful use" and requested that members of the public submit comments concerning the definition. The committee’s request provides us with a tremendous opportunity to educate government decision-makers on the crucial role that medical transcriptionists play in clinical documentation by ensuring the accuracy and completeness of patient health records.
Please submit your comments to the HIT Policy Committee by sending an email to meaningfuluse@hhs.gov and placing "Meaningful Use" in the subject line. So that we are all sending a consistent, unified message on this subject, we strongly recommend that you incorporate some or all of the following points (in your own words) when you submit your comments to the Committee:
• EHR technology has the potential to improve quality of care, enhance patient safety, and reduce healthcare costs. However, successful adoption and implementation hinges upon the effective integration of technology and people, including physicians, other healthcare providers, and medical transcriptionists (MTs)/healthcare documentation professionals who work alongside physicians to ensure that patient records are accurate and complete.
• While these technologies have improved documentation, an "extra set of knowledgeable and skilled eyes" is still needed to ensure the accuracy and completeness of patient health records. To free up clinicians to focus on patient care, not data entry, in the new age of EHRs, healthcare documentation specialists will capture and correct errors that otherwise would become permanent and be perpetuated in a patient’s health record, potentially creating misinterpretation by other care providers and compromised care of the patient.
• Dictation has historically been and continues to be the documentation method of choice for physicians because it produces a complex, specific narrative that ensures accurate capture of patient history, as well as the care encounter. By allowing for uniformly formatted and coded narrative reports, EHR technologies will enable this vital piece of the patient health record to be shared across providers and enterprises.
• Incorporating dictation-transcription and uniformly formatted and coded narrative reports into the certification process for EHR technologies and the definition of "meaningful use" is a simple, yet proven and highly effective, way to ensure that improved health information capture supports and improves the quality of patient care delivery. It also will add no cost to the system and will likely save money using more cost effective healthcare documentation specialists to capture data rather than expensive clinicians.
Guidelines to consider when submitting your comments to the HIT Policy Committee:
1. Submit your comments no later than 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, June 26, 2009.
2. Add to the strength of your comments — if you are an MT, include a personal story or two detailing errors that you have captured and corrected, making sure you do not include PHI-sensitive references in your examples.
3. To help with this important effort, please encourage others within our industry and the doctors for whom you provide documentation services to submit supportive comments to the Committee. It would be very powerful for the HIT Policy Committee to hear from doctors who want certified EHR systems to include a dictation-transcription option and to allow for uniformly formatted and coded narrative reports.
4. When you submit your comments, please send a copy to staff member Greg Doggett at gdoggett@ahdionline.org. He will make sure your Congressional District’s Representative and your state’s two Senators receive a copy of your comments. (Be sure to provide Greg with your mailing address for the purpose of identifying your Representative.) It is critical that as many as decision-makers as possible hear our message.
If you have any questions, please contact Greg at gdoggett@ahdionline.org or 703-663-8379. Thank you in advance for taking time out of your busy schedules to aid this important effort.
Please submit your comments to the HIT Policy Committee by sending an email to meaningfuluse@hhs.gov and placing "Meaningful Use" in the subject line. So that we are all sending a consistent, unified message on this subject, we strongly recommend that you incorporate some or all of the following points (in your own words) when you submit your comments to the Committee:
• EHR technology has the potential to improve quality of care, enhance patient safety, and reduce healthcare costs. However, successful adoption and implementation hinges upon the effective integration of technology and people, including physicians, other healthcare providers, and medical transcriptionists (MTs)/healthcare documentation professionals who work alongside physicians to ensure that patient records are accurate and complete.
• While these technologies have improved documentation, an "extra set of knowledgeable and skilled eyes" is still needed to ensure the accuracy and completeness of patient health records. To free up clinicians to focus on patient care, not data entry, in the new age of EHRs, healthcare documentation specialists will capture and correct errors that otherwise would become permanent and be perpetuated in a patient’s health record, potentially creating misinterpretation by other care providers and compromised care of the patient.
• Dictation has historically been and continues to be the documentation method of choice for physicians because it produces a complex, specific narrative that ensures accurate capture of patient history, as well as the care encounter. By allowing for uniformly formatted and coded narrative reports, EHR technologies will enable this vital piece of the patient health record to be shared across providers and enterprises.
• Incorporating dictation-transcription and uniformly formatted and coded narrative reports into the certification process for EHR technologies and the definition of "meaningful use" is a simple, yet proven and highly effective, way to ensure that improved health information capture supports and improves the quality of patient care delivery. It also will add no cost to the system and will likely save money using more cost effective healthcare documentation specialists to capture data rather than expensive clinicians.
Guidelines to consider when submitting your comments to the HIT Policy Committee:
1. Submit your comments no later than 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, June 26, 2009.
2. Add to the strength of your comments — if you are an MT, include a personal story or two detailing errors that you have captured and corrected, making sure you do not include PHI-sensitive references in your examples.
3. To help with this important effort, please encourage others within our industry and the doctors for whom you provide documentation services to submit supportive comments to the Committee. It would be very powerful for the HIT Policy Committee to hear from doctors who want certified EHR systems to include a dictation-transcription option and to allow for uniformly formatted and coded narrative reports.
4. When you submit your comments, please send a copy to staff member Greg Doggett at gdoggett@ahdionline.org. He will make sure your Congressional District’s Representative and your state’s two Senators receive a copy of your comments. (Be sure to provide Greg with your mailing address for the purpose of identifying your Representative.) It is critical that as many as decision-makers as possible hear our message.
If you have any questions, please contact Greg at gdoggett@ahdionline.org or 703-663-8379. Thank you in advance for taking time out of your busy schedules to aid this important effort.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Live Green. Work Green.
Did you know? In support of AHDI’s initiative to "go green" this year at ACE’09, InterFix will be offering attendees a special trade-in discount for new KB subscriptions. ACE’09 attendees can earn $10 off the annual KB subscription price ($199 nonmembers, $174 members) for every MT reference book they drop off in the recycle bin at the InterFix booth in Nashville (up to 5 books for a $50 discount). Don’t miss out on this amazing opportunity to green your workspace by transitioning from print resources to the best online resource toolkit available for the working MT—Benchmark KB!
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