Quite literally, the physician practice's are the ‘heart’ of patient care. Immediate access to patient information is vital in order to promote high-quality patient care.
Small things can make a big difference in a patients care. Patient information used to be sent by postal mail or courier to the physicians practice. Now, with just a click, exam information and studies are transmitted across the Internet from hospitals, clinics and other locations hundreds of miles away, giving physicians the power of information.
Now more than ever providers of patient care need to be able to document that their actions improve the health of their patients and at the same time reducing the cost of that care.
A need to advance the HIT requirements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, including training, research, programming, data exchange, encryption and security is required to have a national system succeed.
Over the long term, the potential productivity improvements created by healthcare IT technology could flatten the growth curve for health care expenditures, which will also save thousands of dollars to your practice. A national survey of Physicians by the NEJM found:
Improved/Increased Standardization: Sharing of information will increase with open standards
Funding: The cost of healthcare IT must be accepted by both the providers and payers.
Regulatory Relief: Change to the Stark and anti-kickback laws will assist with information sharing
Privacy and Security Laws: Intelligent policies required to ensure access by authorized users
Patient Identification: A unique, single patient identification number is required
Invest by 2012: Meet the "meaningful EHR user" criteria for incentive payments up to $44,000 for physician practice, $3.5M for Hosp (>75bed), $11.2M for Hosp (>750 bed)
Adopt by 2014: Incentive payments reduced
No adoption by 2015: Physician reimbursement may be reduced
