Today, the billing process for healthcare services is complex and time consuming for the patient as well as for the provider because third-party billing entities are involved. By streamlining medical billing, physicians could save $7 billion a year, an average of four hours a week of the physician’s time, and five hours a week of physician support staff time, according to a new study published by “Health Affairs”. The study was supported by the Commonwealth Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization.
The study “Saving Billions of Dollars and Physicians Time by Streamlining Billing Practices” was authored by Bonnie B. Blanchfield and Bradford Osgood affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, James L. Heffernan and Rosemary R. Sheehan affiliated with the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization in Boston, and Gregg S. Meyer affiliated with both institutions.
To evaluate and identify the burden of excessive administrative complexity, the authors used case-study methods to analyze the billing system for one year in a physician organization at a large, urban, academic teaching hospital.
The authors found that the areas to be the most excessively complex entailed the processing and receipt of payments for physicians services and the administrative functions of physicians and staff in the clinical practices of the organization.
They found that up to 12.6 percent of submitted claims are initially rejected based on nonclinical grounds, although 81 percent are eventually paid. The authors’ hypothetical model had a single transparent set of payment rules that reduced the interaction of billing staff with payers, reduced the reprocessing of claims and the reentry and repetition of the tasks previously performed, reduced the number of claims initially rejected, and lessened the time spent reviewing payment guidelines.
Researchers found that physicians and their administrative staff spent $33.1 million for staff to prepare paperwork and contact payers about prescriptions, diagnoses, treatment plans, and referrals. Also, $5.6 million in costs were directly associated with processing and billing claims and an additional $6 million was lost due to claims that were initially rejected by payers
The authors concluded that mandating a single set of rules and a single claim form, and standardizing the rules of submission, along with transparent payment adjudication, would produce corresponding savings to both providers and payers and provide system-wide savings.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Telehealth Helping Veterans
The Veterans Administration’s telehealth program uses video conferencing technology to help veterans meeting at their local medical center or at an outpatient clinic deal with mental health issues. Veterans can discuss anything on their mind during group time and their psychiatrist is able to join them via a web camera and video screen.
For example, the veterans in Montana are using technology to help them receive treatment for mental issues. The state has a large telehealth program for veterans and is part of the VA’s Rocky Mountain Network. The Network spans not only Montana, but also Wisconsin, Colorado, and Utah. The state of Montana happens to be one of the largest states in the U.S. with many of the residents located in rural areas.
Also the state has a limited amount of interstate highways plus the mountainous terrain makes getting from one town to another a time consuming journey. “Some veterans have to drive four to five hours to get to a mental health clinician,” said Dr. Rosa Merino, a Psychiatrist at the Fort Harrison VA Medical Center in Montana.
Helping veterans in the most rural parts of the state with mental issues now only requires a one to two hour drive. The VA is working to decrease that distance even more. Currently there are 13 VA clinics in Montana that use telemental health and there are plans for the VA to open two more telehealth facilities later this year complete with rooms set up with technology to help veterans communicate with mental health professionals.
Dr. Merino continued to say “Although telemental services are available, veterans are given a choice if they would prefer to meet their therapist in person. Some veterans are ill at ease with the thought of a camera watching them, but when it comes to using telehealth versus driving across the state, most will choose telehealth”.
More than 5,000 veterans made use of telemental health services as reported in 2009. “It’s exciting to see where telemental healthcare is going,” said Jeff Lowe, Special Projects Manager for the Office of Telehealth. Last quarter, 3,200 veterans used the service and we plan to see more usage up and coming.”
For example, the veterans in Montana are using technology to help them receive treatment for mental issues. The state has a large telehealth program for veterans and is part of the VA’s Rocky Mountain Network. The Network spans not only Montana, but also Wisconsin, Colorado, and Utah. The state of Montana happens to be one of the largest states in the U.S. with many of the residents located in rural areas.
Also the state has a limited amount of interstate highways plus the mountainous terrain makes getting from one town to another a time consuming journey. “Some veterans have to drive four to five hours to get to a mental health clinician,” said Dr. Rosa Merino, a Psychiatrist at the Fort Harrison VA Medical Center in Montana.
Helping veterans in the most rural parts of the state with mental issues now only requires a one to two hour drive. The VA is working to decrease that distance even more. Currently there are 13 VA clinics in Montana that use telemental health and there are plans for the VA to open two more telehealth facilities later this year complete with rooms set up with technology to help veterans communicate with mental health professionals.
Dr. Merino continued to say “Although telemental services are available, veterans are given a choice if they would prefer to meet their therapist in person. Some veterans are ill at ease with the thought of a camera watching them, but when it comes to using telehealth versus driving across the state, most will choose telehealth”.
More than 5,000 veterans made use of telemental health services as reported in 2009. “It’s exciting to see where telemental healthcare is going,” said Jeff Lowe, Special Projects Manager for the Office of Telehealth. Last quarter, 3,200 veterans used the service and we plan to see more usage up and coming.”
Pre-Solicitation Notice Issued
AHRQ issued a pre-solicitation notice for proposals that will be shortly requested for their “Academic Detailing Initiative”. AHRQ anticipates releasing the solicitation fifteen days after the date of this pre-solicitation which was released on April 28, 2010.
AHRQ’s plan for the “Academic Detailing Initiative” is to contract with an organization with the capabilities to select target audiences that are able to put AHRQ’s comparative effectiveness products, tools, and research into practice. The contractor will need to be able to build relationships with clinician groups and organizations that should or need to use comparative effectiveness reports to make decisions.
The contractor over three years will build relationships in such a way that will not only encourage these groups and organizations to use comparative effectiveness research products but it also means that they will be willing to seek out these products even after the contract ends.
The results of the contract will enable AHRQ to understand the impact of the academic detailing process, how partnerships develop, the expected outcomes that can be expected during the different phases of the project, and what methods used were the most effective to foster impact.
Five complementary but separate contracts will be awarded. Four of the contracts will work with organizations to create awareness of comparative effectiveness research with the need to change clinician behavior. The fifth the Evaluation Contractor will evaluate the impact of the other four contracts.
Go to www.fbo.gov or email Randy S. Allison, randy.allison@ahrq.hhs.gov or call (301) 427-1460, for more information.
AHRQ’s plan for the “Academic Detailing Initiative” is to contract with an organization with the capabilities to select target audiences that are able to put AHRQ’s comparative effectiveness products, tools, and research into practice. The contractor will need to be able to build relationships with clinician groups and organizations that should or need to use comparative effectiveness reports to make decisions.
The contractor over three years will build relationships in such a way that will not only encourage these groups and organizations to use comparative effectiveness research products but it also means that they will be willing to seek out these products even after the contract ends.
The results of the contract will enable AHRQ to understand the impact of the academic detailing process, how partnerships develop, the expected outcomes that can be expected during the different phases of the project, and what methods used were the most effective to foster impact.
Five complementary but separate contracts will be awarded. Four of the contracts will work with organizations to create awareness of comparative effectiveness research with the need to change clinician behavior. The fifth the Evaluation Contractor will evaluate the impact of the other four contracts.
Go to www.fbo.gov or email Randy S. Allison, randy.allison@ahrq.hhs.gov or call (301) 427-1460, for more information.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Roundtable Held on the Hill
Representatives Tim Murphy (R-PA) and Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) Co-chairs of the House 21st Century Healthcare Caucus, hosted a roundtable discussion. The event supported by the Capitol Hill Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics discussed issues of importance to the healthcare technology and medical community.
Neal Neuberger, Executive Director for the Institute for e-Health Policy, said “It is important to listen to the leaders in the field present their thoughts and ideas as to what is now needed to implement HIT in this quickly changing healthcare environment.”
Representative Murphy in his opening statement explained that today only six percent of hospitals and two percent of physicians rely on electronic health records. Although this will improve with the economic stimulus legislation incentives, there still are legitimate concerns that the guidelines for HIT “meaningful use” produced by CMS are too ambitious and impractical.
He reports that he has heard from physicians and hospitals in his district that say that the initial requirements for incentive payments are too complex and simply unattainable and unrealistic. They feel that small physician practices not able to benefit from the incentives will still need to invest in HIT. This can cost as much as $30,000 and the small practices feel that they will have to spend the money for the system to avoid non-compliance penalties that are to begin in 2015.
Representative Murphy thanked Representative Kennedy for recently introducing the “HITECH Extension for Behavioral Health Service Act” to enable mental health providers to be eligible for federal incentive payments. Representative Murphy is looking forward to helping Kennedy secure passage of H.R. 5040.
Both Representatives realize how important it is to help mental health professionals diagnose and treat patients with complete up-to-date medical histories at their fingertips. For instance, when depression is not treated, the costs of caring for a person with a chronic illness like heart disease can double.
Representative Kennedy in his opening statement praised the health IT landmark funding and the grand design of health reform. Kennedy wants to see the effort made to get not only the dollars out to the communities but also to move forward and enable all of the health reforms help medical and healthcare professionals do their work more efficiently. For the past 16 years, Kennedy has worked hard to transform healthcare so that the system will be able to deliver consistently high quality care more efficiently to the population.
Andrew Urbach, M.D. Medical Director, Clinical Excellence and Service at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has only praise for the hospital’s innovative single integrated electronic medical record initiated and built in 2002.
Dr. Urbach pointed out there are many advantages to the hospital resulting from the use of the EMR system. For example, the system has made it possible for the hospital’s medication error rate to be among the lowest in the county with the error rate dropping over 60 percent from the hospital’s starting point.
He praised the hospital in other ways. The hospital’s medication administration system is complete with order sets, computerized order entry, dose range checks, and bar coding. In addition, the hospital has the capacity to mine data to use for decision making. For example, during the H1N1 outbreak, the epidemic’s ebb and flow minute-to-minute actions were tracked and this data helped to deploy resources wisely.
Today, the hospital campus uses 4,000 computers connected to the system which has resulted in no more searching for charts, no more waiting in line to use a chart, no handwritten errors, and clinical decisions being made without paper data.
After searching for the right system for two years, the Thundermist Health Center located in Rhode Island, switched from a paper medical record to an EMR system. According to CEO Maria Montanaro, the system complete with structured data provides comprehensive high quality primary care. This has resulted in a seamless interface for the integration of comprehensive medical, behavioral health, dental, and pharmaceutical information.
The EMR system also used as a quality management tool helps the Center support evidence-based, population focused outcomes, primary and preventive healthcare, along with effective chronic disease management. As Montanaro explained, “Right now, many EMR systems only support what primary care doctors do now in terms of episodic care not what is needed in the future. This needs to change.”
“Today, the Geisinger Health System an integrated health services organization is improving efficiently and quality by using their EHR system to help over 142,000 people”, reports James Walker, M.D. Chief Health Information Officer at Geisinger.
By using the EHR system, Geisinger has the ability to focus on total processes that are needed to help patients by enabling the team approach to be used when treating patients. To develop the team approach, the data from the EHR system helps the staff coordinate their ideas and information, and this in turn, helps the staff put their ideas to work. As Dr, Walker said, “Getting doctors and teams on the grid and the ability to work with great speed is what improves care.”
Very importantly, the EHR system enables the medical home program at Geisingers to work and the program provides improved care coordination and quality while reducing costs. Since the program was initiated, hospital admissions have fallen by 20 percent and total medical costs have fallen by 7 percent.
The new meaningful use best-practices library referred to as the “Premier Healthcare Alliance HIT Collaborative” was formed to share knowledge and best practices around EHR system according to Blair Childs, Vice President Public Affairs at Premier, Inc. He explained that the HIT Collaborative was set up to help hospitals implement EHRs and to support meaningful use.
The Collaborative was formed with diverse health care organizations participating and today 160 not-for-profit hospitals have joined. The key lessons learned from the hospitals participating in the Premier Healthcare Alliance HIT Collaborative was highlighted in the April 2010 issue of the publication “Health Affairs”
He also discussed the need for “Accountable Care Organizations (ACO)” to exist. The goal for the ACOs is to pay providers in a way that encourages them to work together and to create organizations that are rewarded for providing high quality care. In the case of the ACOs, accountability rests with the providers and they are evaluated on the quality and efficiency of care that they provide.
Professor Latanya Sweeney, Director of the Data Privacy Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, and a member of the HIT Policy Committee, feels that HIPAA alone is not sufficient to protect patients from harm. The Data Privacy Lab at Carnegie Mellon was put in place to create technologies and related polices that are needed while protecting privacy, and at the same time, to allow society to collect and share private information for many purposes.
According to the Professor, with massive data sharing and improved patient care, tension often exists between privacy and utility. However, the reaction to this tension can sometimes harbor a false belief that one must be traded against the other.
Dr. Sweeney thinks that the current approach to NHIN design is making it unlikely Americans will have either privacy or utility. The problem is that there is a lack of architectural direction in the NHIN design and this will allow simultaneous efforts to proceed in different even opposing directions.
As a result, patient information is exposed to various risks and limits benefits. In addition, states and regional organizations are making independent isolated decisions, various competing industry efforts are underway, and national efforts recognized by ONC are inconsistent and problematical.
Eva Powell, Director, Health IT Program for the National Partnership for Women and Children stressed the need for healthcare to be a patient centered system with patient engagement that can guarantee quality and safety. Powell is very concerned about the present payment system. She wants to see payment reform and this means that reimbursement needs to be based on outcomes and quality not volume. A new payment model must be established to improve the coordination of care by using health IT.
Martin Harris, M.D. Chief Information Officer at the Cleveland Clinic pointed out that the Cleveland Clinic uses EMR technology tools in all their hospitals making it possible to concentrate on health and wellness. President Obama recently paid a visit to the Cleveland Clinic to see how the EMR system is used in all of their facilities.
However, as Dr. Harris mentioned there are challenges to face such as the need to align reimbursement so diseases can be managed better, identify the medical devices that need to be used to provide care, and at the same time, guarantee privacy to patients.
Tony Trenkle, Director, of the CMS Office of e-Health Standards and Service reiterated that we need to develop a balanced approach when advising the policy and standards committees. Also, care coordination is supported by data but in order for it to work, we have to address privacy challenges and other issues in a balanced way.
Communities need to come together to recognize the value of HIT, the value of the incentive programs, and the system needs to move towards outcomes. As he said, “This is just the beginning of the road to success and we need to look at the challenges ahead with optimism.”
Farzad Mostashari, M.D. Deputy Director of the Office of National Coordinator HIT, reports that the ONC has been working to get programs such as the Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program underway. The plan is to provide funding to communities to help strength their health IT programs. Awards are scheduled to be made soon to 15 qualified non-profit organizations.
ONC is working diligently to get the country involved in the definition of “meaningful use” that will be used to drive payments and establish the infrastructure needed to get physicians to adopt technology. ONC is working on cyber security issues, helping the states develop HIEs, and providing funding and assistance to help establish Regional Extension Centers. The goal is to help 95 percent of the doctors implement an EMR system in their offices.
The next program to be presented by the Institute for E-Health Policy for the Capitol Hill Steering Committee for Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics, will discuss “Policy, Technology, and Research Development in Mobile Health” from 11:30 to 1:30 on May 5th in Room 428 in the Senate Dirksen Building. For more information, email neal@e-healthpolicy.org.
Neal Neuberger, Executive Director for the Institute for e-Health Policy, said “It is important to listen to the leaders in the field present their thoughts and ideas as to what is now needed to implement HIT in this quickly changing healthcare environment.”
Representative Murphy in his opening statement explained that today only six percent of hospitals and two percent of physicians rely on electronic health records. Although this will improve with the economic stimulus legislation incentives, there still are legitimate concerns that the guidelines for HIT “meaningful use” produced by CMS are too ambitious and impractical.
He reports that he has heard from physicians and hospitals in his district that say that the initial requirements for incentive payments are too complex and simply unattainable and unrealistic. They feel that small physician practices not able to benefit from the incentives will still need to invest in HIT. This can cost as much as $30,000 and the small practices feel that they will have to spend the money for the system to avoid non-compliance penalties that are to begin in 2015.
Representative Murphy thanked Representative Kennedy for recently introducing the “HITECH Extension for Behavioral Health Service Act” to enable mental health providers to be eligible for federal incentive payments. Representative Murphy is looking forward to helping Kennedy secure passage of H.R. 5040.
Both Representatives realize how important it is to help mental health professionals diagnose and treat patients with complete up-to-date medical histories at their fingertips. For instance, when depression is not treated, the costs of caring for a person with a chronic illness like heart disease can double.
Representative Kennedy in his opening statement praised the health IT landmark funding and the grand design of health reform. Kennedy wants to see the effort made to get not only the dollars out to the communities but also to move forward and enable all of the health reforms help medical and healthcare professionals do their work more efficiently. For the past 16 years, Kennedy has worked hard to transform healthcare so that the system will be able to deliver consistently high quality care more efficiently to the population.
Andrew Urbach, M.D. Medical Director, Clinical Excellence and Service at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has only praise for the hospital’s innovative single integrated electronic medical record initiated and built in 2002.
Dr. Urbach pointed out there are many advantages to the hospital resulting from the use of the EMR system. For example, the system has made it possible for the hospital’s medication error rate to be among the lowest in the county with the error rate dropping over 60 percent from the hospital’s starting point.
He praised the hospital in other ways. The hospital’s medication administration system is complete with order sets, computerized order entry, dose range checks, and bar coding. In addition, the hospital has the capacity to mine data to use for decision making. For example, during the H1N1 outbreak, the epidemic’s ebb and flow minute-to-minute actions were tracked and this data helped to deploy resources wisely.
Today, the hospital campus uses 4,000 computers connected to the system which has resulted in no more searching for charts, no more waiting in line to use a chart, no handwritten errors, and clinical decisions being made without paper data.
After searching for the right system for two years, the Thundermist Health Center located in Rhode Island, switched from a paper medical record to an EMR system. According to CEO Maria Montanaro, the system complete with structured data provides comprehensive high quality primary care. This has resulted in a seamless interface for the integration of comprehensive medical, behavioral health, dental, and pharmaceutical information.
The EMR system also used as a quality management tool helps the Center support evidence-based, population focused outcomes, primary and preventive healthcare, along with effective chronic disease management. As Montanaro explained, “Right now, many EMR systems only support what primary care doctors do now in terms of episodic care not what is needed in the future. This needs to change.”
“Today, the Geisinger Health System an integrated health services organization is improving efficiently and quality by using their EHR system to help over 142,000 people”, reports James Walker, M.D. Chief Health Information Officer at Geisinger.
By using the EHR system, Geisinger has the ability to focus on total processes that are needed to help patients by enabling the team approach to be used when treating patients. To develop the team approach, the data from the EHR system helps the staff coordinate their ideas and information, and this in turn, helps the staff put their ideas to work. As Dr, Walker said, “Getting doctors and teams on the grid and the ability to work with great speed is what improves care.”
Very importantly, the EHR system enables the medical home program at Geisingers to work and the program provides improved care coordination and quality while reducing costs. Since the program was initiated, hospital admissions have fallen by 20 percent and total medical costs have fallen by 7 percent.
The new meaningful use best-practices library referred to as the “Premier Healthcare Alliance HIT Collaborative” was formed to share knowledge and best practices around EHR system according to Blair Childs, Vice President Public Affairs at Premier, Inc. He explained that the HIT Collaborative was set up to help hospitals implement EHRs and to support meaningful use.
The Collaborative was formed with diverse health care organizations participating and today 160 not-for-profit hospitals have joined. The key lessons learned from the hospitals participating in the Premier Healthcare Alliance HIT Collaborative was highlighted in the April 2010 issue of the publication “Health Affairs”
He also discussed the need for “Accountable Care Organizations (ACO)” to exist. The goal for the ACOs is to pay providers in a way that encourages them to work together and to create organizations that are rewarded for providing high quality care. In the case of the ACOs, accountability rests with the providers and they are evaluated on the quality and efficiency of care that they provide.
Professor Latanya Sweeney, Director of the Data Privacy Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, and a member of the HIT Policy Committee, feels that HIPAA alone is not sufficient to protect patients from harm. The Data Privacy Lab at Carnegie Mellon was put in place to create technologies and related polices that are needed while protecting privacy, and at the same time, to allow society to collect and share private information for many purposes.
According to the Professor, with massive data sharing and improved patient care, tension often exists between privacy and utility. However, the reaction to this tension can sometimes harbor a false belief that one must be traded against the other.
Dr. Sweeney thinks that the current approach to NHIN design is making it unlikely Americans will have either privacy or utility. The problem is that there is a lack of architectural direction in the NHIN design and this will allow simultaneous efforts to proceed in different even opposing directions.
As a result, patient information is exposed to various risks and limits benefits. In addition, states and regional organizations are making independent isolated decisions, various competing industry efforts are underway, and national efforts recognized by ONC are inconsistent and problematical.
Eva Powell, Director, Health IT Program for the National Partnership for Women and Children stressed the need for healthcare to be a patient centered system with patient engagement that can guarantee quality and safety. Powell is very concerned about the present payment system. She wants to see payment reform and this means that reimbursement needs to be based on outcomes and quality not volume. A new payment model must be established to improve the coordination of care by using health IT.
Martin Harris, M.D. Chief Information Officer at the Cleveland Clinic pointed out that the Cleveland Clinic uses EMR technology tools in all their hospitals making it possible to concentrate on health and wellness. President Obama recently paid a visit to the Cleveland Clinic to see how the EMR system is used in all of their facilities.
However, as Dr. Harris mentioned there are challenges to face such as the need to align reimbursement so diseases can be managed better, identify the medical devices that need to be used to provide care, and at the same time, guarantee privacy to patients.
Tony Trenkle, Director, of the CMS Office of e-Health Standards and Service reiterated that we need to develop a balanced approach when advising the policy and standards committees. Also, care coordination is supported by data but in order for it to work, we have to address privacy challenges and other issues in a balanced way.
Communities need to come together to recognize the value of HIT, the value of the incentive programs, and the system needs to move towards outcomes. As he said, “This is just the beginning of the road to success and we need to look at the challenges ahead with optimism.”
Farzad Mostashari, M.D. Deputy Director of the Office of National Coordinator HIT, reports that the ONC has been working to get programs such as the Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program underway. The plan is to provide funding to communities to help strength their health IT programs. Awards are scheduled to be made soon to 15 qualified non-profit organizations.
ONC is working diligently to get the country involved in the definition of “meaningful use” that will be used to drive payments and establish the infrastructure needed to get physicians to adopt technology. ONC is working on cyber security issues, helping the states develop HIEs, and providing funding and assistance to help establish Regional Extension Centers. The goal is to help 95 percent of the doctors implement an EMR system in their offices.
The next program to be presented by the Institute for E-Health Policy for the Capitol Hill Steering Committee for Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics, will discuss “Policy, Technology, and Research Development in Mobile Health” from 11:30 to 1:30 on May 5th in Room 428 in the Senate Dirksen Building. For more information, email neal@e-healthpolicy.org.
OMH Linking Physicians
The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) is funding a collaborative effort with NY state and county governments to link pediatricians and primary care physicians with child mental health experts across the state. OMH realizes that pediatricians and primary care physicians play a critical role in the early identification of mental and emotional problems in children and can effectively direct parents to available treatments.
The project called “Training and Education for the Advancement of Children’s Health” (TEACH) will provide specialized training, consultations, and links to mental care providers in the mental health field. OMH is collaborating with the Department of Health, Conference of Local Mental Hygiene Directors, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the New York State Academy of Family Physicians.
Under Project TEACH, consultative support primarily related to diagnostic and psychopharmacologic concerns will occur mainly by telephone, but in some cases via telemedicine and in-person. When more than an initial intervention is needed, referrals will be made and links will be provided to assist families and primary care providers. Access will be provided to clinic treatments, case management, and/or provide family support.
TEACH services will be available statewide and will be provided by the University Psychiatric Practice (UPP) and the Four Winds Foundation. The UPP under the University of Buffalo is an innovative partnership of academic medical centers in the state that came together to support the initiative.
Educational-based training will be available to physicians who provide primary care to children on topics related to children’s social and emotional development. The psychiatry departments from the University of Buffalo, University of Rochester, Columbia University, SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, and the LIJ/North Shore University Health System are working in conjunction with the Resource of Advancing Children’s Health (REACH) Institute to support the training component.
Project TEACH will begin work with their partners in April 2010. For more information, contact Joseph Rosczak, OMH Telepsychiatry Coordinator at (518) 402-4774.
The project called “Training and Education for the Advancement of Children’s Health” (TEACH) will provide specialized training, consultations, and links to mental care providers in the mental health field. OMH is collaborating with the Department of Health, Conference of Local Mental Hygiene Directors, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the New York State Academy of Family Physicians.
Under Project TEACH, consultative support primarily related to diagnostic and psychopharmacologic concerns will occur mainly by telephone, but in some cases via telemedicine and in-person. When more than an initial intervention is needed, referrals will be made and links will be provided to assist families and primary care providers. Access will be provided to clinic treatments, case management, and/or provide family support.
TEACH services will be available statewide and will be provided by the University Psychiatric Practice (UPP) and the Four Winds Foundation. The UPP under the University of Buffalo is an innovative partnership of academic medical centers in the state that came together to support the initiative.
Educational-based training will be available to physicians who provide primary care to children on topics related to children’s social and emotional development. The psychiatry departments from the University of Buffalo, University of Rochester, Columbia University, SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, and the LIJ/North Shore University Health System are working in conjunction with the Resource of Advancing Children’s Health (REACH) Institute to support the training component.
Project TEACH will begin work with their partners in April 2010. For more information, contact Joseph Rosczak, OMH Telepsychiatry Coordinator at (518) 402-4774.
New Curriculum for HIT
Community colleges will soon have the capacity and ability to educate health information technology workers. A new six to 12 month informatics curriculum developed at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHUSON) is going to be deployed to local colleges so that students will have access to high quality HIT educational programs.
The curriculum was developed at the new JHUSON Curriculum Development Center in collaboration with the JHU Schools of Nursing, Medicine, Public Health, and Business as well as with four community college partners in Maryland. An advisory board includes academic HIT experts and representatives from HIT employer groups.
The Center is funded through a $1.8 million grant from the stimulus package. A second $3.75 million will enable a team to collaborate on the JHU Health IT Workforce Training Program that will create post-baccalaureate HIT programs. Also, the School of Nursing plans to have an eight month certificate program established in Applied Health Informatics where students will be able to earn 13.5 academic credit hours to apply towards their master’s degree.
The Health Services Management and Leadership Department in the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University has been awarded a $4.6 million grant from the HHS Office of the National Coordinator to develop curriculum that will emphasize IT related critical thinking and healthcare analytical skills.
The plan is to link the GW School of Public Health and Health Services, Department of Health Services Management and Leadership; (School of Business), Department of Information Systems and Technology Management; (School of Engineering and Applied Science), Department of Computer Science; (School of Medicine and Health Service), Department of Nursing Education; and GW Medical Faculty Associates to work on the curriculum together.
The program will provide a cross disciplinary perspective for the student composed of clinician and public health leaders, health information management and exchange specialists, health information privacy and security specialists, programmers, and software engineers.
GW will offer four eighteen credit hour certificate programs to be completed within six months. The courses in the program can be rolled into one of three nationally and/or regionally accredited masters degrees. The courses are currently in existence at GW in a traditional classroom format, but will be converted into an online or week long, onsite format. The program will begin by fall 2010.
The curriculum was developed at the new JHUSON Curriculum Development Center in collaboration with the JHU Schools of Nursing, Medicine, Public Health, and Business as well as with four community college partners in Maryland. An advisory board includes academic HIT experts and representatives from HIT employer groups.
The Center is funded through a $1.8 million grant from the stimulus package. A second $3.75 million will enable a team to collaborate on the JHU Health IT Workforce Training Program that will create post-baccalaureate HIT programs. Also, the School of Nursing plans to have an eight month certificate program established in Applied Health Informatics where students will be able to earn 13.5 academic credit hours to apply towards their master’s degree.
The Health Services Management and Leadership Department in the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University has been awarded a $4.6 million grant from the HHS Office of the National Coordinator to develop curriculum that will emphasize IT related critical thinking and healthcare analytical skills.
The plan is to link the GW School of Public Health and Health Services, Department of Health Services Management and Leadership; (School of Business), Department of Information Systems and Technology Management; (School of Engineering and Applied Science), Department of Computer Science; (School of Medicine and Health Service), Department of Nursing Education; and GW Medical Faculty Associates to work on the curriculum together.
The program will provide a cross disciplinary perspective for the student composed of clinician and public health leaders, health information management and exchange specialists, health information privacy and security specialists, programmers, and software engineers.
GW will offer four eighteen credit hour certificate programs to be completed within six months. The courses in the program can be rolled into one of three nationally and/or regionally accredited masters degrees. The courses are currently in existence at GW in a traditional classroom format, but will be converted into an online or week long, onsite format. The program will begin by fall 2010.
Sana Group Recognized
The Vodafone Americas Foundation and the mHealth Alliance awarded Sana (formerly called Moca) the mHealth Alliance Award valued at $50,000 and Sana finished third in the Wireless Innovation Prize valued at $100,000 at the Global Philanthropy Forum. These awards recognized Sana’s new application for wireless technology and their potential to address health challenges in low resource settings.
Sana, a multidisciplinary group of MIT and Harvard students and a spinoff from the MIT Nextlab program has been working very hard to revolutionize healthcare delivery in rural and underserved areas, both nationally and internationally.
The group developed an innovative open source platform that allows mobile phones to capture and send data to an electronic medical record (OpenMRS) that links community health workers with physicians for real-time decision support.
Sana intends to use the seed funding and management support of the Santa Clara University’s Center for Science Technology, and the Global Social Benefit Incubator Program (GSBI). Placement in the GSBI secured via the mHealth Alliance Award will help provide access to Silicon Valley and help support the goal to achieve maximum sustainability and impact.
Sana is developing the “mHealth Lab,” a course to be taught at MIT and disseminated by distance learning to partner institutions worldwide. The aim is to build a template on how to develop and deploy mHealth projects based on best practices. The plan is to help identify health needs, create solutions, and overcome any contextual factors that can limit the impact of health information technology.
Sana is also involved in other activities. Their work will be featured in a Smithsonian exhibit called “Why Design Now?” to open in May at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City which will examine design thinking to use as an essential tool for solving some of today’s most urgent problems.
In addition, Sana will receive the Massachusetts Medical Society Information Technology award in May for developing information tools that help physicians practice medicine, teach medicine, or pursue clinical research.
For more information, go to http://sanamobile.org.
Sana, a multidisciplinary group of MIT and Harvard students and a spinoff from the MIT Nextlab program has been working very hard to revolutionize healthcare delivery in rural and underserved areas, both nationally and internationally.
The group developed an innovative open source platform that allows mobile phones to capture and send data to an electronic medical record (OpenMRS) that links community health workers with physicians for real-time decision support.
Sana intends to use the seed funding and management support of the Santa Clara University’s Center for Science Technology, and the Global Social Benefit Incubator Program (GSBI). Placement in the GSBI secured via the mHealth Alliance Award will help provide access to Silicon Valley and help support the goal to achieve maximum sustainability and impact.
Sana is developing the “mHealth Lab,” a course to be taught at MIT and disseminated by distance learning to partner institutions worldwide. The aim is to build a template on how to develop and deploy mHealth projects based on best practices. The plan is to help identify health needs, create solutions, and overcome any contextual factors that can limit the impact of health information technology.
Sana is also involved in other activities. Their work will be featured in a Smithsonian exhibit called “Why Design Now?” to open in May at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City which will examine design thinking to use as an essential tool for solving some of today’s most urgent problems.
In addition, Sana will receive the Massachusetts Medical Society Information Technology award in May for developing information tools that help physicians practice medicine, teach medicine, or pursue clinical research.
For more information, go to http://sanamobile.org.
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