Survey shows most rural doctors in Southern Kentucky aren’t ready for electronic health records; grant will help them switch

A recent survey found that 63 percent of rural health providers in Southern Kentucky have not installed electronic health records software, so more than 280 of the small and rural doctor practices surveyed could face financial penalties from Medicaid and Medicare if they do not install it by 2015. Federal grant money will help them make the switch.

Many rural Kentucky providers are near retirement and are deciding between making the necessary investment of capital and personnel that is required to make the switch to electronic records or to just close their practice, according to a release from Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp., which led the effort to get the grant

Decisions to close practices and to avoid using electronic health records could be problematic to rural areas in Kentucky, since the state already has doctor shortages, especially in rural areas. If the state expands the Medicaid program under federal health reform, the number of insured patients could increase much more than the number of physicians in Southern Kentucky, an area where many people are uninsured.

“Large hospitals in the region such as ARH, Baptist Regional and others have successfully installed this software, and they are using the system with quality results,” Richard Murch, an IT consultant who specializes in electronic health records and is working on the project, said in teh release. But he said the process is complicated and requires extra staff and resources that are sometimes difficult to find in the area.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has funded a project called Stronger Economies Together to improve the biomedical and life-science practices in the region. SET plans to provide resources and training to help providers and health systems make a successful switch to electronic health records, which the release said could create about 100 jobs over the next few years.

The survey showed 73 percent of doctors’ practices have asked for help transferring to and using electronic records. “SET reviewed industry sector research to determine health care and health related businesses as the fastest growing business segment of our rural economy,” said Jerry Rickett, president and CEO of Kentucky Highlands. For more information about SET and its partner programs, click here.

A recent survey found that 63 percent of rural health providers in Southern Kentucky have not installed electronic health records software, so more than 280 of the small and rural doctor practices surveyed could face financial penalties from Medicaid and Medicare if they do not install it by 2015. Federal grant money will help them make the switch.

Many rural Kentucky providers are near retirement and are deciding between making the necessary investment of capital and personnel that is required to make the switch to electronic records or to just close their practice, according to a release from Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp., which led the effort to get the grant

Decisions to close practices and to avoid using electronic health records could be problematic to rural areas in Kentucky, since the state already has doctor shortages, especially in rural areas. If the state expands the Medicaid program under federal health reform, the number of insured patients could increase much more than the number of physicians in Southern Kentucky, an area where many people are uninsured.

“Large hospitals in the region such as ARH, Baptist Regional and others have successfully installed this software, and they are using the system with quality results,” Richard Murch, an IT consultant who specializes in electronic health records and is working on the project, said in teh release. But he said the process is complicated and requires extra staff and resources that are sometimes difficult to find in the area.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has funded a project called Stronger Economies Together to improve the biomedical and life-science practices in the region. SET plans to provide resources and training to help providers and health systems make a successful switch to electronic health records, which the release said could create about 100 jobs over the next few years.

The survey showed 73 percent of doctors’ practices have asked for help transferring to and using electronic records. “SET reviewed industry sector research to determine health care and health related businesses as the fastest growing business segment of our rural economy,” said Jerry Rickett, president and CEO of Kentucky Highlands. For more information about SET and its partner programs, click here.

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Report: Electronic health records haven't cut health costs

The conversion to electronic health records isn't producing savings in health-care costs predicted by a 2005 report, and it's had mixed results in improving efficiency and patient care, according to a RAND Corporation report. The company's 2005 predictions helped drive growth in the EHR industry and encourage billions of dollars in subsidies from the federal government to hospitals and doctors to implement such systems, Reed Abelson and Julie Creswell of The New York Times report.

The 2005 report predicted that widespread use of EHRs could save the U.S. health care system at least $81 billion a year. "But evidence of significant savings is scant, and there is increasing concern that electronic records have actually added to costs by making it easier to bill more for some services," Abelson and Creswell write. Health care costs have risen $800 billion since the 2005 report, according to federal data.

Authors of the new report, published in this month's issue of Health Affairs, said they didn't attach dollar amounts to how much electronic record keeping has helped or hurt efforts to reduce costs. "But the firm's acknowledgement that its earlier analysis was overly optimistic adds to a chorus of concern about the cost of the new systems and the haste with which they have been adopted," Abelson and Creswell report.

There are several factors why the switch has not created significant savings, report authors said. Those factors include use of commercial record systems, slow rates of system adoption, and the fact that electronic records "do not address the fact that doctors and hospitals reap the benefits of high volumes of care," Abelson and Creswell report. (Read more)

The conversion to electronic health records isn't producing savings in health-care costs predicted by a 2005 report, and it's had mixed results in improving efficiency and patient care, according to a RAND Corporation report. The company's 2005 predictions helped drive growth in the EHR industry and encourage billions of dollars in subsidies from the federal government to hospitals and doctors to implement such systems, Reed Abelson and Julie Creswell of The New York Times report.

The 2005 report predicted that widespread use of EHRs could save the U.S. health care system at least $81 billion a year. "But evidence of significant savings is scant, and there is increasing concern that electronic records have actually added to costs by making it easier to bill more for some services," Abelson and Creswell write. Health care costs have risen $800 billion since the 2005 report, according to federal data.

Authors of the new report, published in this month's issue of Health Affairs, said they didn't attach dollar amounts to how much electronic record keeping has helped or hurt efforts to reduce costs. "But the firm's acknowledgement that its earlier analysis was overly optimistic adds to a chorus of concern about the cost of the new systems and the haste with which they have been adopted," Abelson and Creswell report.

There are several factors why the switch has not created significant savings, report authors said. Those factors include use of commercial record systems, slow rates of system adoption, and the fact that electronic records "do not address the fact that doctors and hospitals reap the benefits of high volumes of care," Abelson and Creswell report. (Read more)

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UK creates nation's first cancer-reporting system that uses electronic health records

Kentucky has the highest incidence of cancer in the United States, but it is about to be a national leader in delivering information about cancer cases to researchers.

With the help of an almost $1 million Centers for Disease Control grant, the University of Kentucky has created the nation's first working model for electronic reporting of cases to the state cancer registry. Kentucky's cancer doctors will be able to feed clinical data to the state's epidemiologists immediately so that they can see and analyze cancer statistics more quickly that ever before.

“This project is laying the groundwork for electronic reporting not only in Kentucky but across the United States,” said Eric Durbin, director of Cancer Informatics at the Kentucky Cancer Registry and one of the investigators who created the model. (Read more)

Kentucky has the highest incidence of cancer in the United States, but it is about to be a national leader in delivering information about cancer cases to researchers.

With the help of an almost $1 million Centers for Disease Control grant, the University of Kentucky has created the nation's first working model for electronic reporting of cases to the state cancer registry. Kentucky's cancer doctors will be able to feed clinical data to the state's epidemiologists immediately so that they can see and analyze cancer statistics more quickly that ever before.

“This project is laying the groundwork for electronic reporting not only in Kentucky but across the United States,” said Eric Durbin, director of Cancer Informatics at the Kentucky Cancer Registry and one of the investigators who created the model. (Read more)

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Hospitals are not reporting cases of harm to patients; electronic health records may be key to solving the problem

By Tara Kaprowy
Kentucky Health News

Hospitals aren't reporting cases in which medical care harmed a patient, making it difficult for providers to identify problems and fix them, according to a report to be released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The report indicates many hospitals are ignoring state regulations by not reporting preventable problems. In Kentucky, there are no mandatory public reporting requirements for hospitals. They must only inform the state Department of Public Health about infectious outbreaks, but the definition of an outbreak varies from facility to facility, based on the number of patients seen in a specific period of time.

Dr. Kevin Kavanaugh, a retired physician and chairman of Health Watch USA, said the report points to "the need for greater health care transparency and state government engagement."

The study's lead researcher, Lee Adler, is looking to electronic health records to set things right since "we may be able to prevent events, we may be able to ameliorate events, and (electronic records) may become your surveillance system," he said.

The software can be designed to "catch triggers for potential errors," Kelly Kennedy reports for USA Today. One example could involve a patient that is given an antidote after a medication overdose. The fact that the antidote was used would trigger an alert to a hospital quality control officer, who would them follow up in turn. (Read more)

About half of doctors are using EHRs nationwide, the latest survey from the Department of Health and Human Services shows. "That's a pretty high number, historically speaking," reports Sarah Kliff for The Washington Post. "As recently as 2005, just about a quarter of doctors' offices had gone digital."

In February, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the percentage of hospitals using electronic health records has doubled in two years, Medical News Today reports. The shift at doctors' offices and hospitals stems from a provision in the federal health-care reform law, which gives financial incentives to facilities that switch over to EHRs.

In Kentucky, 723 eligible professionals and 15 hospitals have already been paid their incentives, which totaled more than $155 million as of May. In February, Sebelius said almost 2,000 hospitals and more than 41,000 doctors had received more than $3 billion in incentive payments to use health information technology. The proportion of hospitals that now use EHRs went up from 16 percent in 2009 to 35 percent in 2011. More than 80 percent of hospitals said they intend to advantage of the incentives by 2015.

Kentucky Health News is a service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

By Tara Kaprowy
Kentucky Health News

Hospitals aren't reporting cases in which medical care harmed a patient, making it difficult for providers to identify problems and fix them, according to a report to be released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The report indicates many hospitals are ignoring state regulations by not reporting preventable problems. In Kentucky, there are no mandatory public reporting requirements for hospitals. They must only inform the state Department of Public Health about infectious outbreaks, but the definition of an outbreak varies from facility to facility, based on the number of patients seen in a specific period of time.

Dr. Kevin Kavanaugh, a retired physician and chairman of Health Watch USA, said the report points to "the need for greater health care transparency and state government engagement."

The study's lead researcher, Lee Adler, is looking to electronic health records to set things right since "we may be able to prevent events, we may be able to ameliorate events, and (electronic records) may become your surveillance system," he said.

The software can be designed to "catch triggers for potential errors," Kelly Kennedy reports for USA Today. One example could involve a patient that is given an antidote after a medication overdose. The fact that the antidote was used would trigger an alert to a hospital quality control officer, who would them follow up in turn. (Read more)

About half of doctors are using EHRs nationwide, the latest survey from the Department of Health and Human Services shows. "That's a pretty high number, historically speaking," reports Sarah Kliff for The Washington Post. "As recently as 2005, just about a quarter of doctors' offices had gone digital."

In February, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the percentage of hospitals using electronic health records has doubled in two years, Medical News Today reports. The shift at doctors' offices and hospitals stems from a provision in the federal health-care reform law, which gives financial incentives to facilities that switch over to EHRs.

In Kentucky, 723 eligible professionals and 15 hospitals have already been paid their incentives, which totaled more than $155 million as of May. In February, Sebelius said almost 2,000 hospitals and more than 41,000 doctors had received more than $3 billion in incentive payments to use health information technology. The proportion of hospitals that now use EHRs went up from 16 percent in 2009 to 35 percent in 2011. More than 80 percent of hospitals said they intend to advantage of the incentives by 2015.

Kentucky Health News is a service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

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