Doctors Already Responding to Obama's Call to Make Offices Paperless

Physicians seek to take advantage of $17.2 billion in stimulus money while switching to digital record-keeping.

Peter Naismith called his physician in his Akron office thirty-seven times during a five-day span to retrieve his medical records. "I needed them to get an MRI," the 53-year-old Naismith asserts. "The receptionist kept putting me off because my doctor still has paper files," he says, "It's my contention that they couldn't find them. I suspect that my records were lost somewhere in their office." Naismith works as a police officer and is familiar with electronic record-keeping. "All of our criminal files are computerized and easy to find. Why couldn't they have done that with my medical records? I told my doctor to get rid of the paper files and he just tried to laugh it off. I wasn't in the mood for laughing as I might have a tumor, and without my records, the hospital won't do the MRI.''

While Naismith's predicament isn't that unusual, fortunately it's becoming less common. A dramatic transition to EMR software packages is already occurring in physician's offices all across America in anticipation of the U.S. Congress spending $17.2 billion in stimulus monies devoted to the now mandated move to paperless.

Naismith's physician still scribbles prescriptions on tiny scrip sheets that can easily get lost and are difficult to read because, according to Naismith, "The guy writes like a first-grader who needs to get his knuckles rapped." Other patients unwilling to be quoted publicly mention forgetting to tell the doctor about past conditions and therefore getting the wrong medication, or filling out medical forms until their fingers ache. But as the ghost of the Christmas future once said pointedly in the pages of A Christmas Carol -- "It doesn't have to be this way, my dear Mr. Scrooge." Indubitably it doesn't. Even a recent survey published in The New England Journal of Medicine reported that doctors who control patient management electronically attest that such record-keeping helps improve the quality and the timeliness of care. Besides improving care, going paperless also reduces errors and is playing an increasing role in cost containment – the very object of Obama's health care reform in the first place. But there's also a financial incentive. According to the mandate now in place, physicians in compliance by January 1, 2011 (well before the 2014 cut-off date) are eligible for reimbursement for purchases of EMR software packages if they purchase a federally certified package, and can establish 80% usage in their practices. Considering that there's a three to six month learning curve in the transition (unless the physician is also a computer whiz) the rush to buy compliant packages is already on. The digital world of record-keeping beckons.

David York is with Fox Meadows, a provider of electronic medical records software, EMR Software, and medical billing software. To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

Obama's Healthcare Agenda Highlights EMR Software as Cost Saver

President Barack Obama's healthcare agenda epitomizes business intelligence with its stressing of increasingly pervasive EMR software.

Every Presidential succession, a new President seems to make promises to modernize U.S. healthcare, most of them he can't keep. The Obama Administration's ambitious agenda to reform a broken healthcare system seems calculated in a similar fashion. But everything is not always as it seems. This time, the new measures offered might achieve results – especially in relation to electronic medical records software implementation.

Healthcare IT (Information Technology) has surfaced as a distinct priority backed up by dollars – lots of dollars; even with some substantial shaving of dollars in the stimulus package ($30 billion was originally allotted for Healthcare IT), the numbers remaining are still a "healthy" $19 billion. Much of the administration's attention is focused on mechanisms that improve access to data, of which a prominent facet has to be electronic medical records systems and software.

An Obama stated objective is to "invest in proven strategies to reduce preventable medical errors." This inevitably leads to finger pointing at a "paper system" where physicians jot down prescriptions in often ineligible handwriting, where patient files and records are misplaced and have to be needlessly duplicated or even created anew from scratch, sacrificing not only paper but efficiency and perhaps safety in the old-fashioned processing. In fact, a wider adoption of medical records should save lives.

EMR systems are quite efficient and proficient in the managing and dispensing of prescription drugs, the primary source of medical errors. But can the Obama-era U.S. healthcare juggernaut take full advantage of a newfound electronic data stream? How much of the data will be quantifiable in a traditional sense? The size of data warehouses will be growing radically. Can the stream be mined adequately in the coming years for qualitative analysis? These questions will pose enormous challenges, but also offer potentially staggering rewards.

David York is with Fox Meadows, a provider of electronic medical records software, EMR Software, and medical billing software. To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

Obama's Stimulus Package May Lead to a Medical Records Bonanza

A two-year window spurred by the new Administration's providing economic stimulus funding for purchasing EMR software could lead to a veritable "bonanza" as clinicians rush to take advantage prior to January 1, 2011, when the money kicks in.

Physicians must begin using EMR systems to process their patient data by 2014. In fact, the time for physicians and hospitals to begin their switchovers is NOW. Stringent conditions exist in order for physicians and hospitals to take advantage of the new economic stimulus package pertaining to EMR software packages. Among those conditions is 80% usage while purchasing a federally certified package. January 1, 2011 is the day it all begins. It's worth noting that a preparatory "learning curve" window (3-6 months lead time) is essential for the required 80% usage rate is to be achieved by the Obama-mandated deadline.

Even prior to the introduction of President Obama's stimulus, the U.S. healthcare information technology industry spent $28 billion annually. This figure could triple by 2019. Some of these increased expenditures are expected to be recouped in the digitizing of Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The stimulus bill, already renamed as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is expected to make the use of electronic medical records nearly universal by 2015, when up to 90% of U.S. physicians will be fully invested in EMR. Physicians will be paid less by that year if they aren't using EMR. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA, is also expected to engender multistate computer networks so that physicians and hospitals will be able to exchange medical records over the Internet instead of via fax lines. But the getting there won't be easy. The figure for physicians currently using EMR systems is estimated at 38%, according to a February 2009 survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

The period between autumn 2010 and January 1, 2011 is expected to resemble a "gold rush" as physicians and hospitals rush to take advantage. So the timing is urgent, during 2009, not late in 2010, for physicians to potentially exploit what looks to be an electronic medical records bonanza.

David York is with Fox Meadows, a provider of electronic medical records software, EMR Software, and medical billing software. To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

Fox Meadows Well Positioned to Assist ARRA

Fox Meadows EMR software and Practice Management software already is serving thousands of physicians. Buoyed by the Obama stimulus, officially named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, solutions like those offered by Fox Meadows will certainly make EMR and electronic data collection for clinicians even more pervasive.

It already has an acronym: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. IT could be also argued as integral to ARRA, if you consider "it" as its own acronym, Information Technology as applicable to the sprawling U.S. medical system. But comprehensive software packages provided by companies such as Fox Meadows should only increase their use during the next few years, as electronic modernization becomes federally mandated.

Such software applications are about to bring offices into a bright future filled with the promise of increased efficiency bundled with vastly improved patient care.

Obama's ARRA is huge. The act includes more than $20 billion in grants and loans as well as creative incentives to spur physicians into this brave new world. Now is the time to "go paperless." The stimulus monies kick in on January 1, 2011, but that is a bit misleading. Without a 3-6 month preparatory "learning curve," the ability to properly utilize the packages at a government-mandated 80% usage rate just won't happen. In addition, long lines of medical applicants to purchase the new systems should be in full swing by mid-2010, let alone in the year's waning days. The rush to exploit the stimulus funding to help purchase EMR packages will create a veritable logjam for necessary switchovers. By 2015 when the mandates kick in with fee decreases for physicians still "papered," up to 90% of medical professionals are expected to have "gone paperless."

Fox Meadows solution for EMR is sure to emerge as a leading solution. Packages provided by Fox Meadows are already helping thousands of physicians in more than 20 medical specialties to automate their practices in ways they could barely imagine just a few months ago.

To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

Fox Meadows Software Systems to be Funded by Obama's New Stimulus Plan

Excellent "paperless" solutions from Fox Meadows are expected to be a perfect fit for ARRA.

During the turbulent years of the recent Bush Administration, U.S. physicians saw the writing on the wall. Antiquated gathering of medical records was giving way, albeit slowly, to "paperless" electronic medical record-keeping. By 2004, 38% of U.S. physicians had gone "paperless." It was anticipated by many astute physicians and clinicians that someday the government would begin footing the bill for this imminent switchover. As a consequence of many factors, including lack of private resources, medical professionals hesitated, even balked at the big change looming.

Now the Bush Administration is gone, although that President too had moved in a direction of universal EMR. Bush's more modest plan was sabotaged, even ambushed, by a national financial crisis rivaling the catastrophe of several generations earlier referred to as The Great Depression. Now that very crisis of 2008-2009 has become the catalyst for an even bolder federal initiative called ARRA – the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. ARRA will pay for electronic software solutions that will do the trick – bold software initiatives provided by Fox Meadows in the twin arenas of EMR and Practice Management.

Fox Meadows EMR solutions have already amassed a proven track record of diagnostic and treatment efficacy in thousands of offices nationwide. Thousands of physicians participating in 20+ specialties have learned to expect an intuitive functionality that makes essential patient information instantly available at point of care. In many cases, direct patient care becomes possible if not probable when it was unlikely before. These physicians have discovered that the many tasks of a clinical encounter can even become, well … pleasant – for physician and patient alike.

As a complement to the software firm's excellent EMR solutions are packages designed for the Practice Management arena. These packages simultaneously create an "Obama-prescribed" integration of electronic medical record-keeping and a practice management solution gearing practices toward optimal performance. Flexible and robust, our EMR/PM solutions combine into an award-winning suite that supports the complex workflows known to exist in a busy patient care environment.

When you consider Fox Meadows solutions like MediNotes EMR and MediNotes Clinician, Obama's ARRA couldn't have come along at a better time.

To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

E-Scan Paperless Software from Fox Meadows Fits President’s Stimulus Package

When it comes to electronic scanning of patient’s medical records, Fox Meadow’s E-Scan is just what President Obama ordered.

President Barack Obama’s nearly $800 billion stimulus package has included several endowments for improving the state of medical record-keeping in the United States, in an effort to modernize and improve overall patient care along with hospital efficiency. High on his list is to eliminate the laborious and cumbersome manual scanning of millions of documents relevant to a patient’s medical history and ongoing care.

Physicians and clinicians of varied description, together with their harried staffs, currently spend an estimated jillion hours each year searching for - and when they find them - searching through, patient files for essential information. That figure may be conservative. Says John Doe S. Smith, M.D., based in East Greenacres, Rhode Island, “We used our state-of-the-art little green abacus to figure it out. In 2008, my staff and I spent 1.64 jillion hours searching for patient records. That’s up from 2007, when we spent 1.47 jillion hours doing the same thing.”

Yet despite this millstone of work dragging many practices into a kind of perpetual drudgery, some physicians remain hesitant to implement an Electronic Medical Record system, but would still like to be a paperless office. Others are considering implementing Medinotes e EMR and would enhance their scanning capabilities if there only was a way. Fox Meadows is offering an option that just might work: MediNotes eScan. Its benefits are many. Did you know that eScan will improve office productivity, allow for quick retrieval of documents (which saves money), and even helps to ensure patient privacy? By setting specific permissions on a document or document types, a clinician can provide only those users who NEED to view a document access to it; eScan also tracks who has viewed, modified, or exported a document and on what date or dates. For multiple practice locations, eScan works even better. The system allows medical staff to easily share documents with other employees across multiple practice locations. Scanning and storing files electronically has yet another built-in advantage also – you can rest assured that documents remain safe and backed-up in case of a fire or other unexpected natural disaster.

E-Scan is an intermediate solution that if implemented on a wide scale across the United States, might prove to some skeptics that the President’s ambitious stimulus package, or at least a crucial component of it, is actually working.

To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software and medical billing software, visit Foxmeadows.com.

Fox Meadows EMR Software Is Just What Obama Ordered

Medinotes E from Fox Meadows complies with every criterion that the new administration could possibly ask for.

Medinotes E is already a fixture in the offices of some 50,000 clinicians nationwide. If there’s one company that is ready to fill the needs of the President’s new economic stimulus package - in the arena of EMR software and the long overdue modernization health care in America - it’s Fox Meadows. For instance, our Practice Management Software is helping thousands of physicians in more than 20 medical specialties automate their practices with intuitive functionality – intuitive because it’s flexible to a myriad of office environments. Imagine essential patient information that IS available at the point of care. Add into the mix electronic prescribing capabilities, chief complaint templates to make documentation fast and efficient, patient graphics to illustrate diagnostic and treatment information, and patient instructions that can be printed or emailed. If he experienced a demonstration of Medinotes E in action, President Obama would be surely be impressed and in his eloquent oratorical style, he’d probably mention the obvious: Medinotes e maximizes a physician’s time for direct patient care in the most efficient way imaginable.

Administration officials might observe how our competitor’s EMR and practice management software can be confusing and require a physician’s staff to navigate from screen to screen for the correct information that’s needed STAT – as a few of the bugs have yet to be worked out in their software packages. By contrast, Medinotes e uses a new approach based on clinical work flow that has an additional benefit of reducing training time for busy medical staff. Based on a facsimile of multi-tasking concepts designed for internet users, convenient tabs in Medinotes e allows physicians and their helpers to efficiently manage the multitude of tasks inherent in a clinical encounter. The system’s capabilities are uncanny: Medinotes e can display multiple patients, encounter notes, work flow items, patient messages, alerts, and inter-office communications.

Medinotes e from Fox Meadows has to be precisely what President Obama ordered.

To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software and medical billing software, visit Foxmeadows.com.