In The Know - MEDSEEK News and Expert Opinion on the eHealth Industry

Why Practices Should Facilitate Continuing Education for Healthcare Providers

Healthcare professionals understand the importance of maintaining an awareness of emerging technologies, biomedical research findings and evidence-based medical practice guidelines. Practitioners are aware that access to this knowledge impacts practice, which influences patient outcomes. It is near impossible for healthcare providers that are heads-down in practice to stay current on every updated guideline and recommendation or to dedicate enough time to conduct their own research. This is where continuing education comes in, and the reason why many states and accrediting bodies mandate continuing medical education (CME) on an annual or other systematic basis for licensure, renewal of licensure and maintenance of certification.

CME is an integral component of continuous professional development and, because the population of healthcare providers is so heterogeneous, it is imperative that CME courses and opportunities target the healthcare provider to whom the content appeals. Specialties such as Cardiology, Endocrinology, and Urology, just to name a few, all have different focuses in order to maintain the utmost knowledge in their area of expertise. It seems reasonable that the state(s) in which the healthcare provider is applying for licensure or licensure renewal set forth the required CME content. Interestingly enough, even the state-mandated CME content varies considerably from state to state.

The time investment, and potential cost investment, associated with CME must be acknowledged by practices and healthcare organizations (HCOs) who are investing in the continuous professional development of the healthcare provider. As one example, MEDSEEK recently partnered with Private Health news (PHN) to enable HCOs to engage healthcare providers efficiently and cost-effectively by streamlining communication and targeting CME credits to the specialty interest of each subscriber. As the trend in HCO-employed physicians continues to rise, strategic physician engagement becomes paramount to attracting and retaining the very best providers.

For practices and HCOs, turnkey physician e-communication programs such as MedNews Plus, as a component of a virtual medical office product, is an invaluable ‘in-house’ tool that makes life easier for physicians by helping them to achieve CME credit requirements within their normal workflow. Therefore, CME offerings should be compatible with the workflow of the healthcare provider. Not all providers have the ability to take time off from practice to attend a conference or continuing education seminar. Practices and healthcare organizations should utilize today’s technology to promote online CME, while allowing healthcare providers to not only receive credits but also equip providers with the most current medical and scientific knowledge to improve care delivery and, ultimately, patient outcomes.

Strategic patient management and engagement is a critical challenge that healthcare organizations must meet as we move beyond Meaningful Use and towards accountable care. Implementing physician engagement strategies, such as making CME credit requirements a part of the daily workflow, allows physicians to concentrate on improving the patient experience and quality of care.

--Daria Byrne, Ed.D, MSN, RN
MEDSEEK Clinical Solution Manager

Further to an article by Carrie Rossenfeld in Medical Office Today, to which Daria Byrne was a contributor. MEDSEEK’s Clinical Solution Manager shares her insights into the importance of continuing medical education.

Physician Adoption: Piggybacking on Current Behavior

I recently spoke at MEDSEEK's annual eHealth Client Congress and revealed that prior to working for MEDSEEK that I spent about five years as a drug dealer.  Yes, I was employed in the pharmaceutical industry and worked with physicians on a daily basis in New York City.  It was there that I first started to realize the issues that providers had with access to information - the need to collaborate and the importance of providing physicians efficiency.

Learn more about MEDSEEK's Virtual Clinical Experience for Physicians

In a recent meeting, Dan Ansel, CEO of Private Health News mentioned to me that during the early 2000's he had been working around physician education. He said that the pharmaceutical companies were offering primary care providers a desktop computer free of cost - with the understanding the physician would spend one hour of the week speaking with a company representative.  Fast forward the tape 18 months and the desktop was removed from each office.  Why?  The workflow and actions that the pharma companies were betting on didn't piggyback on an existing behavior for the physician.  EMR's were just being discussed and it "didn't make sense" for physicians to go to a computer during the day.

As I type I'm traveling to California to see six clients in three days. During this time I will be studying the physicians to see what they do prior to, during, and after each meeting.  One thing is for certain, they will all be checking their smartphones (Blackberry, iPhone, Droid) and/or iPads.  We need to recognize this in eHealth circles; we need to answer the call that physicians are making to hospitals and healthcare organizations.  They want real-time data, alerts and notifications to their hand-held devices, and a reduction in paper in the inbox to more productive and meaningful news and updates.

If we can start to piggyback on existing behavior - we have a much better opportunity in being successful and having long term loyalty for the providers that we serve.

Bradley Hawkins, Vice President Clinical Experience, MEDSEEK

What do Patients Want?

The Commonwealth Fund has released the results of its 2008 Survey of Public Views of the U.S. Health Care System, conducted by Harris Interactive. According to a telephone survey of 1,004 random U.S. adults, 80 percent of respondents believe that the healthcare system needs either fundamental change or complete rebuilding.

MEDSEEK Leads in KLAS® for Clinical Portal Software Solution - MEDSEEK Leads KLAS ® Portals Segment as of August 22, 2008

MEDSEEK recently received the news... we are leading in KLAS® rankings for our Clinical Portal software solution.

reThinking eHealth Webinar Announced: Give the Providers What They Want

Birmingham, Ala.– July 21, 2008 –MEDSEEK, the leading provider of enterprise portal connectivity solutions, announced today that Dr. Asim Masood of William Osler Health Centre and Dr. Jay Wallin of Mount Carmel Health System will present a Webinar in the monthly educational series reThinking eHealth. The session, titled “Give the Providers What They What: Two physicians share ways their facilities have improved provider satisfaction,” will take place on Wednesday August 27th at 2pm EDT, 11am PDT.

Question: In Hospital-Physician Relationship Programs, How Critical Is an eCommunication Strategy?

The following article was recently published in the eHealthcare Strategy & Trends March 2008 edition. It is the first part of a two part article.

Mel Flesland, a Senior eHealth Specialist for MEDSEEK, contributed to the publication of this article and discussed the importance having of a physician portal strategy. Mel will also provide her insight as part of a panel presentation at MEDSEEK's upcoming eHealth Client Congress in May. She teamed up with MedStar Health in Lutherville, Maryland and Microsoft Corporation to launch HealthVault in conjunction with MEDSEEK's patient portal. Mel will present alongside Cindy Tanenbaum with MedStar Health and Dr. James Mault with Microsoft on Wednesday, May 7th at 1:45pm CDT at The Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee.

Read entire article below...

Canadian clinical connectivity initiatives gain momentum

Several Canadian clinical connectivity initiatives are showing strength as adoption grows. AGFA Healthcare, along with MEDSEEK, continues its success in the Canadian market. 

Healthcare Information Management & Communication and Canadian Healthcare Technology published stories on the successes several hospitals are having in connecting physicians with clinical information to improve community-wide patient care.

Where are RHIOs and clinical connectivity initiatives heading?

While the news about the ongoing viability of RHIOs continues to be questioned, MEDSEEK is one of the few vendors creating a broad reaching connectivity platform to exchange clinical information between hospital and physician practice systems. While we're proud of our track record, it's gratifying  when other people recognize our contributions. Take a look at a recent post to the HISTalk blog by Art Vandelay (an obvious alias):

“Re: RHIO failures. I attended a set of meetings for our local health information exchanges (HIE). The first stumbling blocks were the politics and the leveling of the data competitive advantage a few organizations experienced. These issues weren’t resolved before the lack of a sustainable business model and funds for initial investment seem to have really impacted the project. We never really got around to the privacy concerns. Without a government mandate or a realignment of incentives, this just isn’t going to happen soon. I see this concept coming-back in about 5-10 years, once the vast majority of the country has baseline clinical data repositories installed and functioning and the standards committees have had time to meet and align. Very localized initiatives where hospitals exchange data with their affiliated physicians’ computerized medical records are likely to start springing-up in the place of HIEs. This scope can be managed. Vendors to watch include Novo Innovations, Medicity, MedSeek and dBMotion. The technologies and services of these vendors seem to set them apart from others in the pack.”

We have experienced what Art (Seinfeld fan perhaps) describes first hand. One such customer is working with us to develop connectivity with community physicians, as part of a broader patient portal and clinical portal initiative. Most recently we achieved a major milestone that moved beyond our eConnect application's ability to push/pull clinical data between the medial center's information system and physician EMRs from GE Healthcare and Cerner. With support from GE and Cerner (after customer encouragement), MEDSEEK delivered the ability to "post" the hospital encounter data directly into the physician's EMR. While this is not rocket science, it does illustrate the evolution of data connectivity between systems, from real-time access/viewing to sharing and transfer of ownership.

For more on our clinical connectivity projects (an example of a successful regional RHIO) read our case study on the Western North Carolina Health Network and its DataLink initiative. Their story was also picked up by Health Management Technology magazine.

Alegent Health delivers price transparency to its community

Seems as though Algent Health is on a roll. We just learned they were featured in December 2007 issue of Healthcare Informatics. The article is entitled Pulling Back the Curtains (great title by the way) and features several hospital systems delivering price transparency to their community.

In January 2007, a ground-breaking online application called My Cost, conceived by Alegent Health and MEDSEEK, went live. My Cost provides consumers with information on fees and estimated out-of-pocket costs for nearly 500 common treatments, based on the consumer's individual health plan or financial situation. Uninsured consumers have access to a list of self-pay prices for frequently purchased services as well as information on financial assistance programs for needed services that are cost-prohibitive.

In demonstrating its commitment to price transparency Alegent Health and MEDSEEK are conducting a two-day hands-on workshop on the topic called POWER TO THE PATIENT. This practical workshop is available to all hospital and we encourage you to sign-up, as space is limited.

In addition to the article in Healthcare Information, feel free to read Alegent's success story published within our web site.

Clinical Portal expands its REACH

More physicians gain access to the REACH (Rapid Electronic Access to Clinical Health information) Portal. Physicians at Credit Valley Hospital can now participant in the collaborative care initiative between six hospitals in Peel and Halton regions. Read the full story.

This is an exciting development for MEDSEEK as more physicians and hospitals share information with each other through the REACH clinical portal. While the physician portal has been live for some time, physician adoption continues.

"Integrating our system with William Osler Health Centre and Halton Healthcare Services will reduce the duplication of tests and by doing so, reduce healthcare costs." says Dan Germain, Credit Valley vice president and e-Health lead for the Mississauga Halton Local Health Integration Network. "What's most important is the benefit to patients, especially in emergency situations when access to comprehensive patient information is critical."

The REACH web portal provides access to over 90,000 inpatient stays and 1,050,000 outpatient visits for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007. Patient stays and visits from all three hospitals are consolidated into one web portal view for use by authorized clinicians.