Protests, decertification lead EHR news
From protests of the Meaningful Use program to a new electronic record user fee to the first decertification of an EHR product, a lot has happened in the past few weeks.
Six Republican senators have published a report critical of progress in the Meaningful Use program and called for a reboot of the program.
“We seek comments on whether it would be in the best interest of CMS, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), vendors, providers, taxpayers and other stakeholders to hit ‘pause’ while re-examining the current procedures put in place to safeguard and ensure meaningful use of EHRs prior to forging ahead with Stage 2 and 3,” the senators wrote in the report entitled Reboot: Re-examining the Strategies Needed to Successfully Adopt Health IT.
Department of Health and Human Services data through 2012, after two years of Meaningful Use, show that 75 percent of hospitals have been paid for Meaningful Use (Medicare and/or Medicaid), with 55 percent having attested under the more rigorous Medicare criteria.
Speaking of Meaningful Use, implementation of drug formulary checks is the most common menu objective selected by Medicare providers, according to an analysis by EHR vendor Sevocity.
According to the analysis, almost 85 percent of providers have implemented drug formulary checks. More than 74 percent have opted to generate lists of patients by specific conditions to use for quality improvement, reduction of disparities, research or outreach.
The least common menu objective selected was “Summary Care Record for Transition of Care,” with only 16 percent of providers choosing this objective.
The ONC revoked the certification of two EHR products because they no longer meet the requirements of Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs. EHRMagic-Ambulatory and EHRMagic-Inpatient, both developed by EHRMagic of Santa Fe Springs, Calif., fail to meet required functionality, thus providers using them are ineligible for ONC’s incentive programs, according to the press announcement.
ONC and ONC certification body InfoGard Laboratories were alerted to problems with the products. With EHRMagic’s participation, InfoGard retested its EHR products for select requirements but they failed.
“We and our certification bodies take complaints and our follow-up seriously. By revoking the certification of these EHR products, we are making sure that certified electronic health record products meet the requirements to protect patients and providers,” said Farzad Mostashari, MD, in a statement.
Meanwhile, the EHR market exceeded $20 billion in 2012, according to Kalorama Information. The healthcare market research publisher says vendors should see robust sales this year and next as providers try to avoid U.S. government penalties for paper record use.
Kalorama Information’s report said the EHR market reached $20.7 billion in 2012, a 15 percent increase from its 2011 $17.9 billion value. Kalorama includes revenues for EMR/EHR systems, CPOE systems and directly related services such as installation, training, servicing and consulting, which are key profit areas for companies, but does not include hardware or other IT systems unrelated to EMR such as billing systems.
Is your EHR system one that is driving the growing market or is it at risk of becoming decertified? Please share your thoughts.
Beth Walsh
Clinical Innovation + Technology editor
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.