Nashville Technology Council

The Nashville Tech Story (8/6/2009)

The Nashville Technology Council hosted our “Naked Hospital” event this morning.  The event revolved around health care reform and transparency.  Our second speaker was U.S. Congressman Marsha Blackburn who provided the audience with a legislative update on the health care reform issue.

Congressman Blackburn is concerned by the state of confusion revolving around patients.  She fully believe’s that it’s frustrating to both employers and patients because the system is currently not as transparent as it should be.  Many individuals have issues with simply finding where to go when they don’t understand the paperwork they recieve from their physician, hospital or insurance provider.

While transparency is extremely important, one of the components that cannot be overlooked and must also be transparent is the educational aspect.  Patients need to be able to understand their insurance policies, bills being sent to them by their doctor ’s, and what the information means that hospital’s are giving them.  With education will come the discussion to start making patients liable.

Everyone agrees that costs are too high, access is very limited and tort reform needs to take place.  Currently, some of the conversation taking place in government revolves around making individuals more responsible, which includes something as simple as following a doctor’s orders and taking prescription drugs as they are prescribed.   

Health IT is also a very important component that needs to be addressed.  The benefits that Health IT can provide can provide an enormous source of savings and efficiency.  One example of this is taking advantage of Electronic Medical Records (EMR).  Congressman Blackburn is a big believer that every patient should own their medical record, which would create a huge cost savings for the health care industry.  The best example of this was after Katrina, which would have saved cost had individuals had access to an EMR. 

“Our hope is that going back you will see a beginning to whittle down and find the areas of agreement to yield efficiencies and savings,” said Congressman Blackburn.  ”We want to be able to move something to the President’s desk by the end of the year that will deal with IT issues and create some reform.”

If you want to learn more about these issues, visit Congressman Blackburn’s website at www.Blackburn.house.gov

The Nashville Tech Story (July 15, 2009)

Each year the concern over environmental protection continues to grow.  New programs are formed everyday to find new ways to recycle and make the world a more efficient and cleaner place.  The EPA estimates that a single person uses more than 700 pounds of paper products each year.  The health care industry has been a major contributor to that consumption in the past.  However, health care professionals have been continuously experimenting and working to implement electronic medical and health record programs (EMRs / EHRs) into their organizations.

With more than 300 EMR and EHR programs, electronic medical records continue to be a hot topic in the health care industry.  Not only does an EMR program offer a new way to chart patients, but it also offers health care professionals and their organizations advantages that can be overlooked.  While the most noticeable advantage of the programs is going “paperless,” these programs also offer:

• E&M coding advice
• electronic prescribing and formulary
• bi-directional laboratory integration
• pay-for-performance tracking
 
An EMR program can be tough to implement because most are designed for certain specialties and sizes of clinics.  Electronic medical records is similar to a CRM database for a business where the EMR can be purchased billing software or medical practice management software within a fully-integrated suite.

Another fact that some health care professionals tend to overlook is the help that the federal government can provide.  The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, was recently put in place by congress as part of the national stimulus package.   It states that providers that qualify as “meaningful users” of EHR systems are eligible to receive $40K – $60K in incentive payments paid out over a five year period in the form of Medicare and Medicaid premiums.

While EMR and EHR programs are definitely important to the health care industry, some professionals still need to learn the in’s and out’s of the process and what resources are available to them.  The Nashville Technology Council can be one of your resources.

The Council will be hosting our Super Roundtable event, “The Naked Hospital” on August 6th at the Hillwood Country Club.  We will be hosting a panel during the event based specifically on PHR, EHR or EMR.  For more information on this panel or the other elements of this event, please click here.