Jessica Davis

MedStar Health, the largest not-for-profit healthcare organization in the Maryland and Washington, D.C., region, is collaborating with Uber to increase access to health appointments.

Despite officials this week signaling the end of the meaningful use program, more than 200,000 eligible providers will see a 2 percent cut in their Medicaid payments in 2016 for failing to meet standards in 2014, recent Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data show.

The health system has leveraged IT to make drastic improvements in diabetic patient outcomes and more than doubled the number of HIV and HCV at-risk patient screenings.

Electronic health records are making data more readily accessible to physicians and laying a foundation for the next big step: translating EHR data into actionable information for precision medicine.   "Precision medicine is a great opportunity to start using behavioral health data, like activities and eating patterns," said Nancy McMillan, research leader of advanced analytics at Battelle. McMillan will delve into the use of big data in healthcare at HIMSS16 in Las Vegas, beginning in late February. By combining this type of information with a patient's EHR and genomic data, physicians will ultimately be able to predict health outcomes, she said. See all of our HIMSS16 previews McMillan's presentation, “Enhancing Patient Outcomes with Big Data: Two Case Studies,” will provide a retrospective analysis of how hospital inpatient EHRs can identify patients. Her colleague, David A. Friedenberg , principal research statistician at Battelle, will add to the presentation by discussing his work on a neural bypass system. Friedenberg and McMillian will present the pair of case studies to demonstrate ways institutions can improve population health. Her portion of the presentation will deal specifically with EHR collection and how hospitals can finally put that information to work. "We're about to turn the corner in healthcare," McMillan said. "So much work has been done with the transition to EHRs, and there's going to be greater use with scientific analytics to make this data useful." She said collecting data has been a "big burden" because it's such a major change, which is difficult for any large institution. But she's hopeful there will soon be progress. Her presentation will also provide the processes Battelle has used to transform data into actionable datasets. It's important for health systems to understand data isn't uniform in these systems, and taking into consideration how it's viewed at the ground level will affect how these key agents translate the information, she added. The only way to use EHRs as a prediction tool for precision outcomes, McMilland said, is to validate the data using evidence-based research. Her colleague, Friedenberg, will round out the presentation by discussing his neurolife work. He's found a method to use data from a cortical implant in a paralyzed person to decode imagined movements, bypass the damaged spinal cord injury and stimulate muscles in real-time with a neuromuscular electrical stimulation. The HIMSS16 session “Enhancing Patient Outcomes with Big Data: Two Case Studies,” is scheduled for March 1, 2016, from 4:00-5:00 pm in the Sands Expo Convention Center Palazzo G. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has launched an online resource to support states' efforts to update outdated IT systems, Andy Slavitt, CMS' acting administrator, announced on Monday.

High-functioning IT systems are crucial to converting a physician practice to a patient-centered medical home model, but only a third of practices examined in a new RAND Corporation study were able manage continuous investments in the necessary technology infrastructure.

Partners HealthCare announced on Monday that it has contracted with QPID Health, whose analytics tools will be integrated with Partners’ Epic-based eCare EHR and other legacy systems to help clinicians make more informed care decisions. Over the next two years, QPID will be rolled out across all 10 Partners' hospitals and associated physician organizations. "Partners HealthCare has made a significant investment in our Epic electronic health record," Jim Noga, CIO, Partners HealthCare System, said in a statement. "QPID's software will be fully integrated with Partners eCare and help ensure that we optimize our investment." [See also: 5 benefits of natural language understanding for healthcare.] QPID Health's “clinical reasoning” tools use natural language processing and machine learning to turn data from EHRs into actionable information, helping to streamline quality reporting, clinical registry submissions and utilization management, according to the company. Massachusetts General Hospital, a Partners co-founder, began using QPID software about 10 years ago. The positive return on investment, reduction of unnecessary cancellations, patient safety increases and CMS bonuses and penalty avoidances drove Partners' decision to integrate all systems with QPID, officials said. "Effectively using patient data for quality reporting and optimal patient outcomes is increasingly important as we move towards value-based care," said Timothy Ferris, MD, vice president of population health at Partners said in a statement. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] QPID "will help to ensure appropriate use of high-cost, high-volume surgical procedures," he added. "This agreement will help provide our physicians with the specific patient information that they need to attest to use of evidence-based guidelines. Not only is this the right thing to do for patients, it also reduces costs where we share risk with government and commercial payers," Ferris said. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

A staggering 73 percent of health information management professionals work on mitigating duplicates at least weekly at their organizations, according to a recent AHIMA survey. The survey confirmed the importance of information governance policies within an organization to address accurate matching patient information needs. The results also indicated the importance of quality assurance initiatives to improve care quality. “Accurately matching the right information with the right patient is crucial to reducing potential patient safety risks,” said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, in a statement. “At the very foundation of patient care is the ability to accurately match a patient with his or her health information.” AHIMA surveyed 815 members using 12 different EHRs and assessed their experience with patient matching and linking patient records. Less than half of respondents said there's a quality assurance step during the registration or post-registration process. There's also a lack of resources to adequately correct duplicate records. [Also: AHIMA takes on patient identifier] Forty-three percent of respondents said they measure data quality in relationship to patient matching, while less than half have a quality assurance step in the registration or post-registration process. Although  55 percent of respondents had communication policies for duplicate patient records, there is  a lack of standardization in regards to how the rate of duplicates are calculated. And less than half of respondents understood how duplicate rates were factored in their organization. “Reliable and accurate calculation of the duplicate rate is foundational to developing trusted data, reducing potential patient safety risks and measuring return on investments for strategic healthcare initiatives,” the survey authors said. Fifty-seven percent of respondents work possible duplicates regularly, while most respondents said data integrity issues require consistent management and timely cleanup. Patient matching initiatives are crucial for the success of patient-centric care, health information exchange, population health, analytics and financial goals, the report said. Respondents reported five major daily challenges with master patient index or enterprise master patient index management: registration staff turnover; record matching/patient search terminology and or algorithms; a lack of resources to fix duplicates; and inadequate governance, policy or support. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] “We cannot sit around and wait for others to correct this problem,” the survey authors said. “Improving patient matching efforts is a challenge we can meet,” Gordon said. “The healthcare community must come together to embrace it so that accurate patient information is available when and where it is needed.” The authors said the survey was a critical step in future patient matching planning and collaboration with healthcare experts to develop solutions. AHIMA plans to use data from the survey to shape future advocacy efforts. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

Director of informatics at the University of Southern California says better patient identification tools can reduce risk of incorrect diagnoses and, in certain cases, death.

Mobile stroke units, device security and wireless sensors are among the key advances that will transform industry.