ADVANCE Perspective: HIM : medical records

After Electronic Conversion

Cheryl McEvoy — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:51:00 GMT

Yesterday, I read the Nov. 23 article on HISTalk about a multi-group practice that went electronic, and then turned its defunct chart storage room into useful office space. The "before and after" photos were particularly striking. Pre-scanning, the room...(read more)

Breach Notification: Technically Speaking

Cheryl McEvoy — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:50:00 GMT

While researching for my encryption article, " Are You Secured? " I was struck by what I would consider a loophole in the breach notification rules. According to the new regulations, when a security breach or theft occurs, the covered entity or business...(read more)

FTC Probes CVS

Cheryl McEvoy — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:51:00 GMT

Your friendly neighborhood drug store--OK, more like the corporate colossus that runs it--is under investigation again. CVS Caremark Corp. announced yesterday that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating the company's business practices, according...(read more)

Movies and Medical Records

Lisa Algeo — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:47:00 GMT

(Editor's note: The following blog was written by Mark McGraw, an associate editor on staff at ADVANCE .) It's movie night, and you're not interested in subtitles or surrealism. Maybe next week you'll go for the one with the "Winner: Best Foreign Language...(read more)

PHRs Go Overseas

Cheryl McEvoy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:26:00 GMT

If you've been following Jay's blog, " XY Files in and MT World ," recently, you know there have been some frightening reports of medical records being sold overseas. It's enough to make you hunker down in the States and demand your records stay local....(read more)

On the Record

Cheryl McEvoy — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:24:00 GMT

With all the prep for next week's American Health Information Management Association Convention and Exhibit and our HIM Team of the Year coverage (Yes, we have a winner!), I've been neglecting my Google Alerts. Well, I found some time this morning to...(read more)

Registry: Child's Play?

Cheryl McEvoy — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:43:00 GMT

Call me a bandwagoner, but I just started reading Julie and Julia (Quite frankly, I'm just a wannabe foodie who wanted something to breeze through after being semi-forced into reading a 500-page sci-fi book). I was poring through Julie Powell's witticisms...(read more)

ACE 09: Telling Transcription's Tale

Cheryl McEvoy — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:23:00 GMT

The story at ACE today is all about...well, THE story. More specifically, how to show the value of narrative text so transcription can stay relevant in the switch to EHRs. But the "story" theme went beyond the record; in fact, it can represent several...(read more)

HIPAA be damned?

Lynn Jusinski — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:05:00 GMT

[Editor's note: This is a guest blog by ADVANCE for Nurses editor Lyn A.E. McCafferty, who contributes to the "ADVANCE Perspective: Nurses " blog featured on the ADVANCE for Nurses Web site.] If you think the fictional Nurse Jackie and HawthoRNe are bad...(read more)

How Do I Chart That?

Cheryl McEvoy — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:13:00 GMT

[Editor's note: This is a guest blog by Bridgette Williams, whose " Transition to RN " blog is featured on the ADVANCE for Nurses Web site.] How do I chart that?" Has this question come up after caring for a challenging patient or after a crisis has occurred?...(read more)

Retail Clinic Check-up

Lynn Jusinski — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:30:00 GMT

I'm what you might call "doctor phobic." I haven't had a check up since 2001, and that was required to get into college. After high school, I moved to the Philadelphia suburbs from quiet nook upstate in a rural area lovingly referred to as the "Polish...(read more)

Doctors Face Patient Scrutiny

Cheryl McEvoy — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:42:00 GMT

For the past few weeks, I've had Michael Jackson's "Somebody's Watching Me" stuck in my head. I blame Geico for making it the theme song for its ubiquitous ad campaign. (Seriously, that bug-eyed bundle of money is everywhere .) But today, the ditty popped...(read more)

A Dose of Reality

Cheryl McEvoy — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:58:00 GMT

Thanks to Obama's rah-rah health care reform, the general public is turning an ear to EHR. But what exactly are they hearing? At first mention of EHRs in the stimulus package, news outlets swooped in with the "revolutionizing health care" angle. A national...(read more)

The Newest EHR Player: Wal-Mart

Lynn Jusinski — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:39:00 GMT

When you look at the signs, it should've been obvious. Wal-Mart started health care clinics in 2006, using eClinicalWorks software as EHRs for its 30 clinics. Last fall, Wal-Mart teamed up with personal health record (PHR) provider Dossia to offer some employees PHRs. Now, Wal-Mart, through its Sam's Club division, will proffer up EHRs, according to The New York Times.

In typical low-price fashion, the nation's largest employer will sell the EHRs for $25,000 for the first physician in a practice, and approximately $10,000 per each additional doctor, according to the Times. Dell will provide the hardware; eClinicalWorks will provide the software. "Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training will make the technology more accessible and affordable, undercutting rival health information technology suppliers by as much as half," The New York Times reports.

The cost plays nicely into the financial perks in the economic stimulus package, which incents doctors $40,000 to $65,000 per physician over several years to implement and use EHRs effectively.

Francine, a blogger at http://ushealthcrisis.com/, claims that Wal-Mart doesn't understand why only 17 percent of doctors are using EHRs, and why physicians in small practices are the most skittish about implementing electronic records. "This tells me they don't know ONE SINGLE THING about what is stopping physicians from using EHRs, or one thing about how physicians regard themselves (as professionals)," Francine wrote.

Despite these feelings - and I'm sure Francine's not the only one with them - maybe Wal-Mart entering the EHR game will help quell physicians' fears about the high costs of EHRs. Perhaps the prices of other EHRs will drop in an effort to keep up. With the economic stimulus money on the table, and a low cost EHR option, this could be just the thing to get doctors plugged in. Or it could just fizzle out, with physicians balking at buying their EHR system at the same place they could score a box of clementines, a big screen TV or some flip-flops. At any rate, it should be interesting.

Patient Consent Gets New Meaning

Cheryl McEvoy — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:37:00 GMT

It's Friday. The weekend is almost here. Friends are coming in from out of town. So of course, I'm gathering all the weird news I can to make for some interesting dinner conversation. And the great debate over patient privacy has turned up two gems:

First up, we have a story out of Omaha, NE, where Health and Human Services (HHS) is butting heads with a county historical society over patient consent. The historical society wants to release burial records from a local cemetery. Problem is, the cemetery is affiliated with a former psychiatric hospital, so anyone buried at the site was assumedly treated at the psych center.

Nebraska HHS argues that opening the burial records without patient consent would violate privacy. Short of hiring a clairvoyant or tracking down kin for the OK, HHS can only hope to protect privacy by keeping the records locked up. But the historical society says burial records should be open. The case goes to the state Supreme Court next week.

If that doesn't get your friends gabbing, take a gander at this report. Ah yes, the limitless possibilities of Facebook has proven all too tempting for two Wisconsin nurses. Faced with the rather unusual case of a patient who had a sex toy lodged in his rectum, the nurses threw compassion to the wind and took photos of his X-rays. Said photos were promptly uploaded to Facebook for all to gawk.

Whether the post was to gripe or joke, the nurses have been slapped with serious consequences; in addition to losing their jobs, they may face charges if investigators decide they violated HIPAA or the patient's rights. The photos didn't include identifying information, but by snapping the shots the nurses copied a part of the patient's medical record without consent.

My suggestion? Next time you want to click and post, stick to a safer subject. I hear fluffy dogs in sweater vests are all the rage.