Healthcare IT Week in Review: ACOs on the rise, Financial Perspectives on Healthcare, and Mobile Phones for Clinicians and Consumers
Each day at Schwartz MSL, the Healthcare IT Practice shares news items on topics of interest with our clients. Here are some recent highlights:
Obamacare's Medicare Attracts 89 New ACOs
Bruce Japsen of Forbes reported that the voluntary new healthcare delivery system that rewards doctors and hospitals for working together to improve quality is surpassing early goals in the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly. The program has attracted 89 new groups of medical care providers known as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), an umbrella that links medical care providers to improve quality. That brings the number of ACOs that have signed on to participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program to 154
Perspectives on What Financial Leaders Must Do Next in Healthcare
Karen Minisch-Pourshadi of Health Leaders Media talked with four financial leaders at the recent HFMA conference to discuss the current healthcare climate. While uncertainty definitely remains, four perspectives are discussed. We hear from a banker, a ratings expert, a former US comptroller and the HFMA chair.
How Consumers Want to Use a Mobile Phone
A survey from Accenture revealed that 73 percent of surveyed consumers say they would like to be able to request prescription refills using a mobile phone. Sixty-eight percent of survey respondents said they would like to use a mobile phone to book, change or cancel medical appointments, and 63 percent said they would like to use a mobile phone to receive reminders for preventive or follow-up care.
…And For Nurses, Smartphones at Work are the Norm
According to an article in the Online Journal of Nursing Informatics, smartphones are becoming a staple for nurses on the job, too. And the apps they're using are moving far beyond references and data management tools. In her article in FierceMobileHealth, Susan D. Hall went on to report that drug references or databases that provide drug, disease, lab and safety information in addition to interactions between medications are among the most common apps that nurses use.
Nine ways future EHRs need to support ACOs
Shahid Shah, software analyst and author of the blog, The Health IT Guy, wrote: “Providers shouldn’t be fooled into buying health IT applications that promote an 'ACO in a box' solution. ACOs are not a technology problem; they are a business model problem first, and until the business side has decided how it will identify savings – and share those savings – any purchase will likely be useless. The EHR systems and IT required for MU is a quite different from what will be required for ACOs.
Posted by Davida Dinerman on July 16, 2012 at 11:22 AM
