What is the threat? Aside from competition and operating efficiency, securing customer data is the one of the key priorities facing Financial Services today. From the regulatory perspective, protecting the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of your customer is a must while continuing to secure their related account information! From the payments industry perspective, operating agreements […]
Regulatory Compliance
MU stage 1 is the cornerstone of a much larger change
In their WSJ article, Stephen Soumerai and Ross Koppel point out that physicians and hospitals have spent billions of dollars on costly healthcare information technologies and have not realized benefits of these expenses. While everything they are saying is mostly accurate, I believe they are missing the bigger picture. Meaningful Use stage one is not […]
Are you ready for the Mandated (ACA) Healthcare Operating Rules?
The 2010 passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its Section 1104 establishes a national healthcare operating rule mandate in support of the industry’s ongoing administrative simplification efforts. The first healthcare operating rule set, issued by CMS in July 2011, mandates the adoption of CAQH CORE Operating Rules for Eligibility and […]
Creating a Lean Mean Healthcare Machine: Part 4
Through this blog series, I have introduced the basic purpose and goals of the process improvement methodology known as Lean Healthcare. We took a look at Lean’s 5 basic principles and its 7 deadly wastes in an effort to help readers begin to understand the key concepts and tools of Lean thinking and how it […]
Is the Economy Stalling Health Innovation?
CMS has paid out more than $4 billion in Meaningful Use incentive money. I believe this is the catalyst to start healing our healthcare system. Let me explain. The healthcare industry is lagging behind the banking industry about 30 years. When I was in college, I had a checking account with a local bank. It […]
Health IT: The Solution to Healthcare CIO Challenges
A recent article addressed some of the top challenges facing CIOs in the healthcare industry. Many of these challenges are created by the need to keep up with constantly changing regulations as well as addressing HIPAA security concerns. Here are a few of the top concerns of healthcare CIOs, and how health information technology can […]
CDS Tools: Should we pile them on?
A 2008 study on CDS (clinical decision support) tools found that while the benefits of CDS technologies are widely understood and accepted by providers, there is still a lack of proactivity in its adoption. An article summarizing the study stated: “For example, Chang said that while CPOE with CDS is now already widely accepted, it […]
From Little Data to BIG Data – One Step at a Time
The Journey of a thousand miles towards an ACO begins with one step. Healthcare organizations are coming to realize that the programs stimulated by the ARRA – HITECH Act, Meaningful Use (MU) and Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), require something that they don’t have in sufficient quantities, the desired type or in the right format: “Data”. […]
ICD-10: Potential Financial Benefits and Issues
Some healthcare solutions experts foresee the following five financial benefits of ICD-10:[1] Providers can establish or strengthen CDIs by conducting thorough reviews of clinical documentation and implementing improvements, such as a CDI “Lite” program. Development of patient preferences due to new procedures being performed based on more thorough and detailed ICD codes. Patient preference will […]
White Paper: The Intelligent ACO: A Primer
The term “Accountable Care Organization”, or ACO, is used to describe a primary physician centric healthcare delivery system with a shared savings compensation model. ACOs are primary physician-centric groups of doctors, specialists, hospitals, and other health care providers, who voluntarily come together with a proper legal structure which aims to provide coordinated high-quality care to […]
Business Intelligence from ICD-10: Are we ready?
The Federal Register outlines the following pros from comments received on the adoption of X12 Version 5010 for HIPAA Transactions: 1) reduction in analysis time and minimization of companion guides; 2) improved efficiency through improved eligibility responses and better search options, reducing phone calls to providers and health plans; 3) improved electronic posting, automation of […]
Population Health Management: Using Technology to Cure
Escalating costs and suboptimal quality of care are indicators that the healthcare system is broken. Preventative care is being pushed aside and traded for costly ER visits and inpatient hospital stays. The problem does not end here, however; once patients receive the necessary inpatient care, many are discharged to only end up back in the […]