The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange says that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s interoperability roadmap should “better reflect the realities, gaps, challenges and opportunities” of health IT. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission says ONC should consider how providers’ and vendors’ economic interests align with the benefits of interoperability. FierceHealthIT et al.
During a Health IT Policy Committee meeting yesterday, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT officials shared data that show about 176,000 eligible professionals have registered for the Medicaid meaningful use program, exceeding earlier projections. Officials also presented plans to broaden ONC’s certification program. Health Data Management et al.
Significant reductions in adverse drug events, infections, wounds and use of restraints in nursing homes are among the key achievements touted this week by federal regulators. The good news comes in a progress report on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Quality Improvement Organization Program, a five-year effort designed to enhance the quality of services for Medicare beneficiaries.
CMS redesigned the QIO program in August 2014. More than 5,000 nursing homes were recruited to participate in the national collaborative.
Among the achievements among participating nursing homes:
Two key nursing home goals in the five-year program are a resident-centered care and safety initiative, and an effort to reduce the use of antipsychotics.
Under the quality of resident-centered care and safety initiative, the QIO program hopes to unite nursing homes, key stakeholders and organizations throughout their communities to share tools, knowledge and technology to achieve system-wide improvement. One in five nursing home residents current suffer preventable harm, according to a recent Inspector General report.
The antipsychotics reduction initiative aims to reduce an original 19.8% national use of antipsychotics in long-stay nursing home residents while providing education, training and technical assistance to nursing home facilities.
For more information, download the complete report or visit the QIO website.
Secure Text Messaging for Your Physicians and Staff
ADL has integrated CellTrust HIPAA-compliant secure text messaging with our EMR software. Now Nurses and Doctors can communicate with each other using their smartphones or their PC Workstations.
Improve Your Communication for a More Efficient System of Care
Celltrust secure text messaging is as fast and easy as texting with all your physicians at the touch of a button. No more wasting hours playing phone tag. Better real time communication between nurses and physicians reduces readmission rates
Multi-Channel Communication – Availability Anytime, Anywhere
CellTrust’s secure text messaging works on iPhone, Android, Blackberry and your desktop computer. It’s also available in those facility dead spots. The Paging alert function will track down physicians until the message is read. So you know you can count on your messages getting through – anytime and anywhere.
Secure mobile communication technology capable of dual-channel (data/Wi-Fi and unique failover channel) communication
In the event the data channel is not available, encrypted messages can be sent via the Common Control Channel for failover SMS text messaging and redundant paging.
Delivery Acknowledgement
Sender receives validated proof that their secure message was opened or deleted, providing a high level of traceability and assurance that critical information is received.
Using the ADL Data Systems EHR/Physicians Order Entry, you can securely transmit e-prescriptions for DEA Schedule II-V drugs. The ability to transmit prescriptions electronically between physicians, nursing home and pharmacies improves the accuracy of the prescribing process and saves time.
The EPCS feature eliminates the need to print controlled substance prescriptions simplifying the process for physicians, nurses and pharmacists. ePrescribing DEA drugs eliminates the possible misuse of printed prescriptions.
