March 2008 — Vol. 3, No. 3

In This Issue

• EMR at Common Ground Health Clinic “Goes Live”
• Understanding Care Management and the Physician Practice
• HIMSS08 Attracts Record-Breaking Attendance
• Access to Ambulatory Education Sessions from HIMSS08
• Village Health Partners Recognized in US House of Representatives
• News Briefs
• Davies Application Due Dates and New CHO Award Announced
• HIMSS Virtual Conference
• Be A HIMSS Member
• HIMSS EMR ROI Calculator

#

Upcoming HIMSS Virtual Conference & Expo:

Davies Application Due Dates and New CHO Award

The 2008 Davies Awards are currently accepting applications for several honors. Visit the recently redesigned Davies Web site to download the pre-requisites and the application. Join the healthcare elite and be recognized for your success in deriving value from your EHR system.

Following are the awards and the respective application submission deadlines:

• HIMSS Davies Ambulatory Award—April 30
• HIMSS Davies Community Health Organizations Award—May 30

The HIMSS Davies Community Health Organization Award is a new honor, launched at HIMSS08, and it was designed to extend recognition to community health organizations. HIMSS decided to establish a separate Davies Award for CHOs based on the awareness of the unique characteristics of CHOs and the populations they serve.

For more information, e-mail David Collins, Senior Manager, Davies Awards, or call 703-562-8817.

EMR/ROI Calculator

EMR at Common Ground Health Clinic "Goes Live"

Readers of the Digital Office may remember articles about the Common Ground Health Clinic in New Orleans, La. Those stories appeared in the Digital Office in December 2006 and April 2007.

The clinic opened in the Algiers section of the city just a few days after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Last year, HIMSS “adopted” this clinic with the commitment to provide an EMR system for it through the HIMSS Katrina Phoenix project (read the press release on the donations) managed by the HIMSS Foundation. HIMSS07, in New Orleans, marked the beginning of this effort to equip the clinic with the EMR.

HIMSS and its members achieved that goal last month when Allscripts spent five days on-site at the clinic installing the system and training the staff. Dr Jim Morrow from North Fulton Family Medicine in Atlanta, Ga., was the HIMSS physician volunteer mentor for the clinic. Dr. Morrow’s practice received the 2005 Ambulatory Care Davies Award of Excellence; he was also the 2006 HIMSS Physician IT Leader of the Year award recipient.

Dr. Morrow saw about 10 patients each day, assisting the staff adjust to the new workflow and training them at the same time. With his 10 years of experience in using the EMR, he provided valuable education and advice to the clinic.

During the training, Mike Gleason of Allscripts trained 5 physicians, 6 nurses and 7 office personnel or a total of 18 volunteers. Staff started seeing a few patients once the system was operating with 18 patients for labs on Monday morning, 20 patients Monday afternoon, and 28 patients Tuesday in the clinic. All patient notes were completed in the EMR.

“The entire staff at Common Ground has reminded me why I wanted to be a doctor in the first place,” said Dr. Morrow. ” Special thanks need to go to Glen Tullman of Allscripts and Steve Lieber of HIMSS, along with all of their involved staff, for their leadership in this project and their commitment to the clinic. There is no way this could have happened without their drive and persistence.”

^ back to top

Understanding Care Management and the Physician Practice

By Chuck Parker
Vice President, Chief Technology Officer

Care management is an emerging concept that refers to a set of evidence-based, integrated clinical care activities that are tailored to the individual patient, and that ensure each patient has his or her own coordinated plan of care and services.  Over the next few months, I will take a look at this process and how it applies to the physician practice.

Any practice’s care management program should be planned to ensure long-term sustainability of the practice as well as increasing the compliance of patients with chronic or long term illnesses.

The key components of care management are organized into activities identified as either patient-specific or practice-specific. While the pieces can be implemented separately, they interact synergistically with each other and can dramatically change the way a practice runs and patients receive care when used together. 

Care management activities include optimizing the flow in the practice, identifying and addressing each patient’s health needs, and conducting periodic review of these activities.

1. Patient Engagement – Use approaches, services, and tools, to engage patients and their families in their own care and to support self-management. Elements include relationship- building strategies, patient education, collaborative goal setting, action planning, problem-solving, and consistent follow up.  This approach requires particular attention to ethnic, literacy, and socioeconomic issues, as well as personal values and preferences.  Many elements of patient engagement can be performed or supplemented by non-physicians in a practice.
2. Assessment - Evaluate each patient initially, periodically, and at critical junctures for comprehension of his/her clinical condition, understanding of important steps in the care plan, confidence in self-management, motivation, and ability to persevere in the face of emotional and other obstacles.
3. Planning – Create an individualized care plan that balances best practices for managing the targeted condition(s) with feasibility and patient preference in a manner that optimizes outcomes.
4. Implementation – Provide services required to implement the care plan, including arranging follow-up and referral and continually fine-tuning the plan as needed.
5. Evaluation and Measurement - Measure services and interventions offered, reason for implementation or non-implementation, modifiers and outcomes.
6. Coordination – Utilize care strategies including health information technology and other tools to communicate and coordinate with the patient and with other caregivers, to ensure that the care plan is executed safely and efficiently.

Read More: Refining Your Care Management Approach >>

Source:  DOQ-IT University Care Management

^ back to top

HIMSS08 Attracts Record-Breaking Attendance

The final attendance numbers are in, and HIMSS08 in Orlando, Fla., topped all previous conferences with 29,179 attendees. The 2008 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition was held on February 24-28 in Orlando, Fla.

This record-breaking attendance includes the following breakdown:

2008	2007
942 exhibiting companies	885 exhibiting companies
407,000 net square feet of exhibit space	371,000 net square feet of exhibit space
1,721 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) registered	1,217 CIOs registered
2,193 International registrants	1,600 International registrants

^ back to top

Access to Ambulatory Education Sessions from HIMSS08

At HIMSS08, more physicians and registered nurses attended than in years past. With 706 physicians and 755 registered nurses joining other attendees in Orlando, the conference offered education sessions targeted to these clinicians.

Below are several ambulatory sessions that readers of the Digital Office can access. To find the information on these – and other – sessions, follow the links below.

1. General education session handouts can be accessed here: http://www.himssconference.org/handouts/
2. Symposia handouts can be accessed here: http://www.himssconference.org/handouts/symposia.aspx
3. If you are interested in the 2008 Annual HIMSS Conference multimedia proceedings, you can find those here: http://www.prolibraries.com/himss/

1. Roundtable #203 - Personal Health Records: An Industry Update from Various Perspectives
Holly Miller, MD, MBA
CMIO, University Hospitals of Cleveland

3. Session #123, Ambulatory Information Systems
HIT Enabled Patient Safety and Quality in the Safety Net
Fred Rachman, MD
Chief Executive Officer, Chief Medical Officer, Alliance of Chicago Community Health Services

Andrew Hamilton, RN, BSN, MS
Director of Operations and Clinical Informaticis, Alliance of Chicago Community Health Services, LLC

3. Session #113 – Ambulatory Information Systems
Is ePrescribing too big a Pill to Swallow?
Lyman Dennis, MBA, PhD, FHIMSS, CPHIMS
CIO, Partnership HealthPlan of California

Barbara Drury, BA, FHIMSS
President, Pricare, Inc.

4. Session #105, Ambulatory Information Systems
The Strong Case for ROI in Ambulatory Healthcare Information Systems
Jim Gaddis, MBA
Practice Leader, HIMformatics

5. Session #75, Electronic Health Record
Painful but Necessary: EMR, an Enterprise-wide shot in the arm for Standardization
Holly Miller, MD, MBA
Chief Medical Information Officer, University Hospitals

Lynne King, RN, BSN, MBA
EHR Project Director, University Hospitals

6. Session #33, Leadership and Strategic Planning
Drafting an Effective Contract for Donation of EHRs Under Stark/AKS
Laura Jantos, FHIMSS
Principal, ECG Management Consultants, Inc.

David Schoolcraft, JD
Partner, Miller Nash, LLP

^ back to top

Village Health Partners Recognized in US House of Representatives

2007 Ambulatory Care HIMSS Davies Award of Excellence recipient Village Health Partners of Plano, Texas, was recognized on the floor of the US House of Representatives by Congressman Sam Johnson of Texas (R-3rd), and in the Congressional Record on March 11. Legislative Aide Jeni Healy in Rep. Sam Johnson’s office assisted in this effort.

Go to http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=H1452&dbname=2008_record in the Congressional Record to read more about this honor for Dr. Christopher Crow and his partners of Village Health Partners.

^ back to top

News Briefs:

HHS Official Urges Participation in Electronic Health Records Project: U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt invited health care and community leaders to participate in a new effort to expand electronic health record systems in physician offices. Read this article by Joe Fahy in the March 13 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08073/864762-114.stm.

Find Out About HIMSS in the 2007 Year-in-Review Video
Find out about the accomplishments of HIMSS by watching the 2007 Year-in-Review video at http://www.himss.org/ASP/aboutHimssHome.asp. It’s about nine minutes in length and provides a succinct update for 2007 programs and member achievements.

Certification Commission Announces Expansion Plans at HIMSS08
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology announced on Feb. 25 plans for expansion of the certification program in 2009 during a Town Hall meeting at the HIMSS08 Annual Conference in Orlando, Fla. Commission chair Mark Leavitt, MD, PhD, provided an update on the current certification program, outlined future plans for EHR certification and announced the launch of a new Web site aimed at helping physicians make better-informed EHR decisions.

The Commission is preparing its updated ambulatory and inpatient certification criteria, as well as new programs to certify systems for child health, cardiovascular medicine and emergency department requirements, all to be launched in July 2008. Certification of networks (health information exchanges), another new area, is now planned for launch in October.

For 2009, proposed expansion areas include long-term care, behavioral health, personal health records, and additional medical specialties to be determined later this spring by the Commission.

CCHIT Launches EHR Education Site for Physicians
Dr. Mark Leavitt, MD of CCHIT also announced the launch of a new Web site, www.EHRDecisions.com, designed to help educate physicians on EHR selection and the value of choosing CCHIT Certified® products. The site will help physicians better determine their readiness for moving to electronic health records, get started on the selection process, and be wiser in the actual purchase and contract negotiations. There also will be advice on how to derive the full potential benefits from an EHR, from both a business and clinical standpoint. The site will provide physician readers with a direct pipeline to Certification Commission leadership and other experts, who will post regularly.

The Web site will feature news from the Certification Commission, as well as from the electronic health records industry as a whole. Readers will have the ability to post comments and questions regarding EHR certification and adoption issues. The site will be expanded over time from short articles by experts, informal blogs, and news feeds to community forums, podcasts and videos.

^ back to top

The inclusion of an organization name, product or service in this publication should not be construed as a HIMSS endorsement of such organization, product or service, nor is the failure to include an organization name, product or service to be construed as disapproval

The Digital Office is a monthly online newsletter published by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Copyright© 2008 by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission. Contact HIMSS Publications at 230 E. Ohio St., Suite 500, Chicago, IL 60611; 312-915-9237; jlofstrom@himss.org
HIMSS Healthcare Information Systems Initiative
Patricia Wise, RN, MSN, MA
Colonel, USA Ret'd
Vice President, Healthcare Information Systems, HIMSS
For information on the HIMSS Davies Awards or the Ambulatory Care Initiative
David Collins, MHA, CPHIMS, CPHQ
Senior Manager, Davies Award Program, HIMSS
dcollins@himss.org/703-562-8817
For information on The Digital Office
Joyce Lofstrom, MS, APR
Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, HIMSS
jlofstrom@himss.org/312.915.9237