More MU Stage 2 Press

Here is another link to our news release on attesting for Stage 2. 

Healthcare Technology Magazine.com

Back to the ONC Again!

I was recently contacted by Michelle Consolazio from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to again testify before the Health IT Policy Committee.  It is a honor to be asked to share your thoughts and recommendations with the people who develop the Health IT policies for the entire country.  Being first to attest for Stage 2 Meaningful Use has put me in a position to advise others on what we did and how we did it.  At the last meeting that I attended with the ONC only 4 Hospitals had attested and the mood of the other presenters was very negative.  I hope I can put a positive spin on the MU 2 program and help encourage others to meet the requirements.

You only get 5 minutes to speak to the committee so I guess I will have to talk fast!

Third Time Around - HIMSS ACO Panel

On June 6th I had the pleasure in particiapting in the 3 annual Western Pennsylvania HIMSS ACO Checkup panel at the Doubletree in downtown Pittsburgh.  It was a very lively and active debate on the pro's and con's of ACO's and how they are impacting the health care market.  I really enjoyed the discussions and hope we get to do it again next year. Thanks again to Robert Sheesley for pulling this all together again.

Healthcare 2020: The Technology Vision Part II On June 6th WPHIMSS is hosting the second annual "Healthcare 2020: The Technology Vision" program at the Double Tree Pittsburgh. Although the online registration has closed for this event we are accepting additional walk-in guests who can pay by check or cash during registration from 7:00-8:00 a.m. tomorrow, Friday, June 6th at the Double Tree Pittsburgh hotel at One Bigelow Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA. Please email Robert Sheesley at robert.sheesley@gmail.com if you would like to join us for what will be the Health Care IT event of the season in Western Pennsylvania. We hope to see you there! Event Details Date: June 6, 2014 Time: 7:00AM - 6:00PM Place: Double Tree Pittsburgh (One Bigelow Square) Agenda 7:00AM-8:00AM: Registration and Networking Continental Breakfast 8:00AM-8:30AM: Welcome Members and Guests Keynote Introduction - Robert Sheesley, Immediate Past President, WPA HIMSS 8:30AM-9:30AM: Keynote Speaker Alexandra (Alix) Goss, Executive Director, Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Authority 9:30AM-10:30AM: ACO Panel Discussion Moderator: Mike McNees, CEO Syndicus Panelist: Paul Kaplan, Sr. VP Provider Strategy and Integration, Highmark Panelist: Daniel Wilt, Director Information Technology, Healthshare Exchange Panelist: Dr. Keith Kanal, MD, CMO, Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative Panelist: Tom Johnson, CIO, Penn Highlands Healthcare 10:30AM-11:00AM: Break and Networking 11:00AM-12:00PM: Health Beyond Healthcare Systems Panel Moderator: Dr. Urmi Ashar, President & CEO Advanced Technology Healthcare Solutions Panelist: Rick Cancelliere, Founder & CEO, Treatspace Panelist: Rachel Allen, Certified Music Practitioner, Windber Medical Center Panelist: Ellen Makar, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Consumer eHealth Panelist: Dr. Jon Lloyd, Sr. Clinical Advisor, Plexis Institute Panelist: Jeff Libengood, Posturology & Holistic Health Practitioner, Posturology International 12:00PM-1:00PM: Lunch 1:00PM-2:00PM: Keynote Speaker: Dr. Kenneth Jennings, Head of Population Health Solutions, Accretive Health 2:00PM-3:00PM: Keynote Speaker: Dr. Brett Trusko, Assistant Professor, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Innovation Science 3:00PM-3:30PM: Break and Networking 3:30PM-5:00PM: Disruptive Technology for Health Outcomes Panel Discussion Moderator: Matt Lydic, Client Partner, Summa Panelist: Audrey Russo, CEO Pittsburgh Technology Council Panelist: Dr. Alan Russell, Highmark Distinguished Career Professor; Director, Disruptive Health Technology Institute at CMU Panelist: Bruce Cullen, VP Strategy, Innovation & Architecture, Mylan Panelist: Ari Lightman, Distinguished Service Professor, Digital Media and Marketing, CMU Heinz College 5:00PM-6:00PM: Networking Reception Featured Keynote Speakers Kenneth R. Jennings, PhD Head of Population Health Solutions Accretive Health Alexandra (Alix) Goss Executive Director Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Authority Brett E Trusko, PhD, MBA Assistant Professor, Mount Sinai School of Medicine Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Innovation Science Featured Panelists Bruce Cullen Vice President Strategy, Innovation & Architecture Mylan, Inc. Keith Kanel, MD, MHCM, FACP CMO Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative Paul Kaplan, MD, MBA, FAACP, CPE Sr. VP Provider Strategy and Integration Highmark Ellen Makar Senior Policy Advisor Office of Consumer Health Office of National Coordinator for Health IT Alan Russell, PhD Highmark Distinguished Career Professor Director, Disruptive Health Technology Institute at CMU Highmark Audrey Russo CEO Pittsburgh Technology Council Panel Discussions: Disruptive Technology for Healthy Outcomes "The theory of disruptive innovation was first coined by Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen in his research on the disk-drive industry and later popularized by his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, published in 1997. The theory explains the phenomenon by which an innovation transforms an existing market or sector by introducing simplicity, convenience, accessibility, and affordability where complication and high cost are the status quo." What should we expect to see in the area of disruptive technology that will move the needle on healthy outcomes? And where are the opportunities to leap frog expectations? Source: http://www.claytonchristensen.com/ Technology Catalyzing Health Beyond Healthcare Systems Practitioners and health systems that effectively engage consumers and provide meaningful interactions will stay useful and relevant. The panel will discuss how technology is bringing a revolution towards "Person Centered Medicine" focused on health beyond systems. The ACO: An Annual Check Up An ACO is a health care provider organization that is accountable for meeting the health needs of a defined population, including the total cost of care and the quality and effectiveness of services. Accountable Care Organizations were made possible in the Medicare program by the new health law, and top federal health officials see them as a way to improve the coordination of care while lowering costs. In 2009 Alan Greenspan stated, "We have to find a way to curtail the federal funding of healthcare...There's going to be a clash invariably because resources are not going to be as ample as they have been...Only a sharp boost in healthcare efficiency can keep these factors in check.” Five years later...Are ACOs effective in affecting health care quality and costs? Please submit any questions for the panelists to hc2020@wphimss.org.

Testify to ONC for MU Stage 2

Last Tuesday, May 20th, I had the privilege of given verbal testimony to the Federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, commonly referred to as the ONC.  This was a result of us being the first Hosptial in the US to attest for Stage 2 of the Meaningful Use program.  We only had 5 minutes to share our thoughts on the program and what Hospitals should consider to improve their chances of success.  Below is my testimony from the transcript recording.  I will also include the link to the entire hearing.

Thomas Johnson, MBA, CPA – Chief Information Officer – Penn Highlands Healthcare
Yeah, I’ll go ahead and start. We’re a four hospitals health system in rural Pennsylvania. One of our hospitals is a critical access hospital, we have 130 physician practices as well. So for us, we were an early attester in 2011, so we were one of the first groups to attest for Stage 1. We attested the very minute the site was open for Stage 2, so we believe we were the first hospital to attest for Stage 2 as well. The HITECH Act and Meaningful Use has been a real blessing for our organization, prior to that we may very small investments in IT, we were mostly paper-based and highly siloed. We were arguably a HIMSS 3 hospital now we’re very closely approaching HIMSS 7, so Meaningful Use has been extremely transformative to our organization.

We’ve used a very integrated approach that brought our entire hospital together. It’s greatly increased transparency throughout our organization, we’re able to see where the gaps are in care and address them very quickly. It positioned us as a leader in our region as far as patient safety, as far as quality and outcomes. So Meaningful Use has been a huge focus for us and it’s not isolated to IT. We’ve tried very hard to integrate it into all the projects and initiatives we’re working on. We didn’t simply try to meet the measures, we tried to max the measures, so every measure we tried to hit the maximum in Stage 1, which positioned us very well for Stage 2, which we’re trying to do that as well, tried to hit the max on every measure, which will then position us better for Stage 3. And I’m not just talking core measures, I’m talking doing every menu item as well and doing it at the maximum.

Yes patient safety and engaging patients and their family in care is difficult, but worth it. HIE difficult, but also worth it. Prior to doing HIE we tried to connect our communities. During Stage 1 we gave remote access to all the nursing homes, physician practices, everyone involved in that continuity of care has access to the information. So, it really didn’t benefit us much to do the HIE, because they already had all the information, but we certainly did it to meet the requirement. Further, we added no additional staff to IT or anywhere else in the process. We use Cerner as our EMR and we have a very, very tight relationship with them, which we think is key to being able to be successful.

My biggest concern going forward is as the financial incentives go away, which we just got our last incentive, I’m afraid that we’ll start to see some backsliding because the focus will start to go away, since we got all of our money. So for me going forward, I think the bar continues to need to rise to be able to incentivize the organizations to achieve, otherwise they’ll just go back to paper, is my fear. So, those are my comments, I’ll let Kelly make a few comments. And I do think it’s worth looking at the Jason report as well, as was talked about in the earlier group, I think there are some good ideas there. Kelly, I’ll give you the balance of my time.

Link to the full hearing:  ONC website

MU Stage 2 press releases

Here is the first couple of press releases that we have received since announcing our stage 2 attestation.

Informationweek.com

Distilnfo.com

I am sure there will be more to come as word spreads about our exciting achievement!

Meaningful Use Stage 2

I successfully attested for stage 2 Meaningful Use on April 10th, 2014 (at 10:50am EST) for one of our Hospitals (DRMC).  It appears that we were the first in the country to do so.  This is a huge deal for us and we mostly like bring some national press to our tiny town.  I was interviewed by Cerner Corp yesterday since we use their EMR for a article that will be put together to send out.  This is very exciting for us as we have worked very hard to make this happen.  More to come soon!

Portal Launch

We have launched our patient portals for our Hospital's.  It is an exciting time to witness. We can now engage patients and families in their care.  They can now access results and other parts of their medical records thru this portal.  Each Hospital has it own unique portal because they have different EMR's, but they will all come together over the next couple of years.  Here is the press release from the Bradford Era.

http://www.bradfordera.com/news/local/article_a1742d86-c1df-11e3-8a3c-001a4bcf887a.html