Healthcare IT News For VARs — July 3, 2014

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

In the news this week, specialty EMR offerings are expanding, and PCs are still dominating EHR viewing platforms.

Survey Reveals ICD-10 Readiness Concerns

Edifecs, eHI, and AHIMA sponsored an ICD-10 preparedness survey last month. The survey revealed that a majority of healthcare organizations are using the deadline extensions to invest in clinical documentation improvements, workforce training, and partner testing. Organizations are still also concerned about readiness and the financial impact of the coding system update. More details are available at IT Business Net.

OmniMD Expanding Specialty EMR Offerings

Despite the growth of EMR, only three vendors gained market share last year. Cerner, Epic, and MediTech were the only vendors to increase their customer base among hospitals, according to a KLAS report. InformationWeek also reports that EMR vendors working with smaller facilities are facing increasingly difficult business development environments because of competition from larger-facility counterparts. Along that same vein, OmniMD plans on expanding their specialty EMR offerings to include at least five new surgery specialties and 14 practice specialties.

Study Finds That Advanced EHR Systems Save Hospitals Money

Researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina used data from 2009 from the National Inpatient Sample and the Health Information And Management Systems Society in a recently released study. The study found that organizations that used advanced EHR systems saved about 10 percent per patient admission when compared to providers that did not use similar systems. More results and implications are available at iHealthBeat.

PCs Still Dominate EHR Viewing Platforms

While mobile device use is growing across the industry, and physicians are increasingly becoming “digital omnivores,” Health IT Outcomes reports that most EHRs are still viewed on PCs. Physicians have actually reported increased use of non-mobile devices. This is most likely explained by the combination of the increase in incentives for using EHRs, and a lack of mobile optimization of EHR tools.

Healthcare IT Talking Points

In challenge to Larry Page’s claims that Big Data could save 100,000 lives this year through information transparency, FierceHealthIT presents the counter argument from senior lecturer at the School of Computing and Director of Interdisciplinary Cyber Security Centre at University of Kent, Eerke Boiten. Bointen outright argues that the industry has a long way to go, and that costs will not drop until challenges around standards and methods are overcome.

Health IT Analytics reports that 84 percent of financially insecure hospitals are postponing their investment in population health management and clinical analytics infrastructure. The article cites reasons for the decrease in investment as:

• Trends in Medicare reimbursement
• Declining inpatient volumes
• Rising expenses
• Bad debt

For more news and insights, visit BSMinfo’s Healthcare IT Resource Center.