Why Aren't Records Digital Yet?

An excellent article on the challenges of a fully-implemented national electronic record system.  And it doesn't matter if this particular author is speaking about records in Canada.  The challenges are the same here in the States.

Will Electronic Records Save Healthcare?

This fictional case study spotlights potential problems with electronic health records. While the error in this particular "study" is not a true failure of the EHR, per se, it does point to complications that arise when multiple systems are not fully integrated or intraoperable. As so often happens when technology is deployed as a solution, it fixes one problem but creates new ones.

Another interesting article, written by a physician with 30 years of experience, wonders if the debate around the rising cost of healthcare is focused on the wrong things. The author, Dr. Tom Shragg, states, "It is not that the current debate tries to address too many problems and attempts to kill too many birds with one stone. Rather, it is that the debate is aimed at the wrong birds – the focus is on the wrong issues."

Dr. Shragg complains that charting through an electronic medical record takes him away from time with his patients. He also believes, "These computer records may improve accounting, but not health care."

But his larger concerns center around the focus on reducing pay for specialists and the concept of moving to a single-payer national health insurance plan. "When a patient needs surgery for colon cancer or breast cancer, when she gets pneumonia or has a heart attack, will paying less to the specialist for treatment improve health care? I may wish there were fewer fires, but reducing the number of firefighters won't make it so. We could do more, perhaps, to prevent fires (and illness), but when prevention fails, we still need people trained and ready to respond."

"Finally, creating a national health insurance to cover everyone will probably increase costs, not decrease them, just as feeding the world's hungry three full meals a day would not reduce our grocery bill. Personally, I think instituting universal health care is the humane thing to do, but let's be honest: Somebody will have to pay for it."

This debate is far from over.

Does the title "Medical Transcription" fit anymore?

AHDI, the premier professional association representing the practitioners in the healthcare documentation industry, is conducting a survey of current practitioners. You are invited to participate in this survey to determine a possible updated work/career title that more effectively encompasses the evolving scope and practice of the present and future healthcare documentation professional. Make your opinion known at: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/147016/career-title-survey

Please share this link with anyone you know working in the field.

From The Headlines: Hospital CEO Guilty of Bribery

This just landed in my inbox:

Breaking News

Robert Urciuoli, former president and chief executive officer of 146-bed Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence, R.I., was again found guilty of conspiring to bribe a state senator to use his public office to press the hospital’s interests. Frances Driscoll, the hospital’s former senior vice president, was acquitted of a charge related to the scheme. Their previous convictions on the same charges were overturned on appeal last year. Read more soon at modernhealthcare.com.

I can't help but think that the healthcare system is so broken that hospital executives can't compete without cheating. Something has to give.

From the Headlines: AMA Issues Report Card on Insurers - and Costs are Going Up

Perhaps spurred by the recent trend of insurance companies rating physicians on a variety of performance measures, the docs are getting even. The American Medical Association released their first report card on insurers. They reviewed Medicare and seven national commercial health insurers, focusing primarily on the accuracy and timeliness of payments. They based their findings on a random sampling of 3 million claims.

Medicare came out on top - with 98% of the services billed being paid. UnitedHealthcare had the lowest rating, with only 62% being paid at the contracted rate.

The article claims that 14% of a physician's total revenue is spent trying to get paid. You can read the full story here.

In another report, a "study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers predicts that medical costs will increase 9.9 percent in 2008 and an additional 9.6 percent in 2009." More than 500 employers and health plans were surveyed for this report.

Dr. David Chin, leader of the Health Research Institute at PriceWaterhouseCoopers said, "Health care providers, insurers and employers will have to monitor medical costs carefully if we are to avoid a resurgence of the double-digit annual increases seen in the past." You can read this story here.

Passing off the increases to employers and/or the insured will not be a sustainable solution, in my humble opinion. With the current state of the economy - record high gas prices and the cost of groceries climbing - hard-working Americans and business owners (particularly small businesses) will not be able to shoulder the burden.

From The Headlines: NY Medicaid To Stop Paying For 'Never Events'

Last September I blogged about Medicare's decision to suspend payments for hospital-caused second surgeries (see my 9/4/07 post) that will start this October. At that time I predicted that within a year private insurance companies would follow suit.


Today, the New York state Medicaid program has announced that it will no longer cover avoidable hospital errors that result in procedures or surgeries. You can read the article in its entirety here.

There are four months left until the new Medicare policy goes into affect. Still plenty of time for other states and private insurers to hop on board.

From the Headlines: Hospital Cited in Transfusion Error

A patient died in the ER after receiving a transfusion of the wrong blood type. "'Eight units of Type A blood were prepared for [a different] patient but only six were used,' the report said. The report by the Agency for Healthcare Administration reveals that there was "no documentation of what was done with the additional two units of blood."

It would seem to me that this is a significant piece of information that was inadvertantly left off of the documentation. Surely there is a procedure for dealing with this situation that was not followed properly.

To read the article in its entirety, visit http://www.local6.com/news/16365609/detail.html