This official web site (Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services) provides up-to-date, detailed information about the Electronic Health Record (EHR) incentive programs. Use the tabs to the left to find additional information regarding various aspects of the program. Background The nation’s healthcare system is undergoing a transformation in an effort to improve quality, safety and efficiency of care, from the upgrade to ICD-10 to information exchanges of EHR technology. To help facilitate this vision, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or the "HITECH Act" established programs under Medicare and Medicaid to provide incentive payments for the "meaningful use" of certified EHR technology. The Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs will provide incentive payments to eligible professionals and eligible hospitals as they adopt, implement, upgrade or demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology. The programs begin in 2011. These incentive programs are designed to support providers in this period of Health IT transition and instill the use of EHRs in meaningful ways to help our nation to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of patient health care. NOTE: This is a new program, and it is separate from other active CMS incentive programs, such as Physicians Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU) and e-Prescribing. Get more Info here

Electronic Health Record

Free Open House

Providers will learn about NYC REACH - a program established by the NYC Health Department's Primary Care Information Project. Presentations will cover how to use an EHR to improve patient care, meet federal incentive payment requirements, and protect sensitive patient data. You will also learn how to get an EHR at a substantial discount through our negotiated group pricing and subsidies.

Meet one on one with:

· EHR specialists

· Integration and Implementation staff

· Meaningful Use experts

· Providers who have implemented an EHR

See EHR demos from our three Preferred Vendors:

· eClinicalWorks

· Greenway

· MDLand

Who Can Attend?

Providers and office staff (non-consulting) who want to learn more about:

· EHRs

· Federal EHR “Meaningful Use” standards

· PCIP and Regional Extension Centers

· The application process

· EHR hardware

What will be covered?

· Steps to implement a EHR

· Department of Health resources available to you

· Federal incentive payments for ‘Meaningful Use’ of an EHR - up to $44,000 from Medicare or $63,750 from Medicaid

Register NOW

Blackberry PlayBook tablet has the potential to be used in healthcare industry. Research In Motion launched Blackberry Enterprise Application Development Middleware at Developer Conference in San Francisco. The File Transfer Library application allows doctors to attach image files to patients EMRs (electronic medical records).

The new application enables you to preview a record or see a picture before sending it to RIM smartphone or a tablet user.

Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM call it “first professional tablet” which will be launched in US in early 2011. The company plans to launch 3G-enabled and 4G-enabled versions in the future. It is expected that PlayBook will cost between $300- $500.

CEO of technology consulting company Netspective Communications, Shahid Shah said "Like other BlackBerry devices, the PlayBook will have better 'genes' for health care because it will be ready with enterprise security from day one,"

PlayBook health care applications are much secure platform than Dell Streak's Android OS and Apple iPad's iOS. The PlayBook has a front-facing camera and the rear camera, video recording up to 1080P HD. Please read this article from eweek.com

North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, a 15 hospital chain in the NY area, is working with software provider Allscripts in a $400 million effort to transition 9,000 doctors to electronic medical record keeping. Although most medical electronic records systems cost doctors between $50,000 and $100,000 up front, Allscripts hopes to speed adoption by getting hospitals to pay part of the doctor's bill.

North Shore is footing about 85% of its independent doctor's costs and believes that building a state-of-the art medical records system will give the hospital a competitive advantage, making some hospital operations more efficient and producing better medical outcomes.

Read more of the article from NYConvergence.

A lot of providers have reconciled themselves to the fact that with or without the government’s incentive to subsidize an EMR, they will need to eventually move to an EMR as healthcare IT is moving forward.  Recently, Clarity has been providing a lot of medical practice readiness assessments and business flow analysis work to help prepare practices for their EMR transitions. It is a huge investment!  One of the biggest gaps we see as we work inside the practices PRIOR to the investment, is how little they think about the workflow requirements before they select and EMR application.  As last month, the Meaningful Use Final Rules were released; many more Eligible Professionals (EP/s) are starting the process.  Although a thorough Needs Analysis and Scope of Work should be considered (and will save money) before vendor selection, here is a starting point to get you prioritizing the EMR needs of your practice.

How it will work:

1) Investigate and price a concurrent Practice Management system with the EMR.  The more interfaces the more complex the systems are to run. Consider at least one vendor that has both.

2) Determine where all you need to collect electronically and review EMR vendor connections to these (current or need development and price), i.e. lab, hospital, transcription service, PACS System.

3) Consider whether you want, can handle, have space for, have the IT resources for your own servers or whether you want to  use an ASP model and connect via the web (usually cheaper).

Read more of the article from MD&E Clarity

Instructions for state Medicaid directors to distribute some of the funding for electronic medical records through their programs beginning next year have been circulated by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, American Medical News reports. "The incentive program stipulates that the federal government will pay the full cost of Medicaid bonuses to eligible physicians who adopt certified EMR technology in a way that meets the government's 'meaningful use' criteria. It also will pay 90% of states' eligible administrative expenses. Read more of the article from Medical News Today

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), Chicago, Ill. and the Drummond Group Inc. (DGI), Austin, Texas, were named today by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) as the first technology review bodies that have been authorized to test and certify electronic health record (EHR) systems for compliance with the standards and certification criteria that were issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year.

Announcement of these ONC-Authorized Testing and Certification Bodies (ONC-ATCBs) means that EHR vendors can now begin to have their products certified as meeting criteria to support meaningful use, a key step in the national initiative to encourage adoption and effective use of EHRs by America’s health care providers. For more on the article goto BUSINESS WIRE