The (relative) calm after the storm
It was a relatively quiet week in the world of health IT. But we’re still reeling from the news of the SGR patch, ICD-10 delay and the resignation of Department of Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius—so a little breather isn’t a bad thing!
Not to say things aren’t busy. There is still plenty of fodder to go around.
Meaningful Use and quality of care often are spoken about in the same breath, so a study in the AMA Internal Medicine finding no association between meaningful users and quality of care raised more than a few eyebrows.
The researchers followed 858 Brigham and Women’s Hospital physicians using the same advanced EHR during a 90-day reporting period in 2012. Of these physicians, about 63 percent were considered meaningful users of their EHR systems.
No association was found between Meaningful Use of EHRs and quality—and meaningful users performed “marginally” better for diabetes and hypertension, marginally worse for asthma and depression and no better or worse for the other measures, according to the findings. What does it mean? Perhaps it’s hard to say, as the researchers themselves indicated that maybe more time is needed for quality improvement measures to show gains.
In the meantime, much of the industry is still struggling to adapt to news of yet another ICD-10 delay. And still no “save the date” on when the new compliance date actually is. Shortly after the American Health Information Management Association and others urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to provide guidance and pick a date, CMS promised clarification "soon" on the matter.
We’ll sure be keeping our eyes peeled for news on that so stay tuned.
Laura Pedulli (sitting in for Beth Walsh)
Clinical Innovation + Technology