The Nursing Informatics Symposium was a workshop offered on the weekend preceding the HIMSS conference. The symposium provided a glimpse into a more mature electronic health record (EHR) environment—where quality, performance improvement, patient engagement, and reimbursement models are under close scrutiny, and strategies that address those topics center around the EHR. Linda Fischetti, RN, MS, vice president of care delivery at Aetna, described Aetna’s work around accountable care organizations (ACOs) in her presentation.
Main takeaways from the recent ACO Summit, held to examine the healthcare industry’s progress in transitioning to accountable care organizations.
The American Academy of Actuaries has released a report that describes the five common accountable care organization (ACO) payment models. This report comes at a time when ACOs are forming across the country, faced with making payment arrangement decisions that will lead member organizations and providers toward improved care quality and outcomes with reduced cost.
The five models included in the report are…
The US Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has issued the Health IT Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan for public comment.
The Baltimore Rescue Mission’s free clinic recently adopted a standardized electronic health record to collect and store information for homeless and uninsured patients. Developed by medical students at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland using open-source software and customizations, the EHR system is modeled on the electronic medical records typically found in hospitals. The Baltimore Rescue Mission’s EHR monitors the same type of information that would be recorded in a typical hospital patient encounter—including patient’s prescribed medications, previous exam findings and diagnosis, family and medical history, and patient allergies.
Healthcare professionals dealing with the unintended consequences of electronic health record (EHR) implementation and other changes will soon have some new tools to assist them, two experts said at Thursday’s AHIMA’s Health Information Integrity Summit in Chicago, IL.
Health information management principles that support timely, accurate and complete data collection and release are part of the key to meeting recent National Quality Strategy goals aimed at improving healthcare service delivery, patient health outcomes, and population health.
The HIM professional’s role in meeting these goals is defined by their ability to combine emerging technologies with innovative processes, says Bonnie Cassidy, MPA, RHIA, FHIMSS, FAHIMA, vice president of HIM Innovation at QuadraMed. Her October 3 session at the AHIMA Convention and Exhibit will explore why HIM professionals are ideally suited to be leaders in information governance and help ensure integrity across all types of data and stakeholders. In the below Q and A, Cassidy discusses what information governance is, what’s brought it to the forefront now, and the emerging ways that HIM professionals will be involved.
If health information technology is going to significantly impact the healthcare industry, policymakers need to empower patients, reform payment systems, and remove inappropriate pre-digital era regulatory barriers, according to a report from an international innovation work group.
