If you reached Stage 1 requirements of Meaningful Use in 2011, Stage 2 of the Federal Electronic Health Records is now underway. Now that providers have had at least some introduction to Meaningful Use, some pain points have popped up. If you are a provider that is attempting to comply with several healthcare reform issues at the same time, you are probably also having issues with Stage 2.
What’s true nearly across the board for anyone involved in the healthcare enterprise is interoperability of electronic health information, mostly due to communication issues between disparate systems. With so many issues coming up for so many providers, the viability of Meaningful Use is being called into question.
On a more positive note, some providers see Meaningful Use as a way to provide more advanced healthcare to patients of the future. For instance, telemedicine is now a very real opportunity for patients. While the digital age has been upon us for more than a couple of decades, the healthcare industry is in the midst of a major transition and there are bound to be growing pains. The end result though, when providers are all reading from the same page, should be a more efficient, cost effective method of offering the best care possible for patients.
For a more tangible demonstration of how advanced electronic health records can benefit the patient
and the healthcare enterprise, consider a situation where a doctor recommends a patient to get a CT scan to get a better look into a medical issue. There is no way for that doctor to know if the patient ever scheduled or received their CT scan if there is no digital trail to follow. With technological solution in the mix, doctors can order the scan and get notification when it has occurred. If it never occurs, they know they need to schedule a conference with the patient and see what’s going on.
One of the issues the healthcare enterprise runs into when adopting new technology is the time it takes to get the software up and running, the staff trained, and allowing time for the process to mature into a situation where everything is actually running smoothly. You also have to consider the impact of implementing ICD-10, which is the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, contains codes for diseases, symptoms, complaints, injury and diseases, among other things, has more than 14,000 different codes. Providers who are implementing their technology to comply with Meaningful Use are running into issues related to also getting their ICD-10 up and running.
Obviously, there are any numbers of issues related to technology that prevent providers from practicing as effectively as they should be able to. Not all solutions are costly – some are actually affordable and fit the budget of the smallest, most rural providers.
OffSite Image Management, Inc., is working toward solutions that will offset the issues providers are seeing as they struggle to comply with Meaningful Use. Our solutions involve offsite storage of your medical images that can be easily accessed and shared. As more and more people seek treatment from multiple providers, the quick and easy sharing of medical data between providers also becomes more important. Our solutions make the transfer of information painless. Contact us today and find out how you can get over the headaches caused by healthcare regulations.