Jan 15, 2016 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Some health IT experts criticize the Government Accountability Office report for ‘incomplete research’ and failure to focus on ‘person-centered interoperability’
Several years after paying billions of incentive dollars to thousands of hospitals and physicians to encourage adoption of electronic health records (EHRs), federal officials remain frustrated at the lack of interoperability among the competing EHR systems. This is a problem recognized by clinical laboratories that must create and maintain interfaces between their laboratory information systems (LISs) and the EHRs of their client physicians.
Frustration over this situation motivated Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chairman, along with four other U.S. Senate Committee Chairman, to request that the General Accountability Office (GAO) study the problem and report its findings. The GAO released its report last September in a publication: “Nonfederal Efforts to Help Achieve Health Information Interoperability.”
The GAO’s investigators outlined five barriers to EHR interoperability. They also suggested that meaningful use (MU) requirements present a roadblock to information sharing. (more…)
Jan 13, 2016 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations
Recently-announced partnerships want to use big data to improve patient outcomes and lower costs; clinical laboratory test data will have a major role in these efforts
In the race to use healthcare big data to improve patient outcomes, several companies are using acquisitions and joint ventures to beef up and gain access to bigger pools of data. Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers have an interest in this trend, because medical laboratory test data will be a large proportion of the information that resides in these huge healthcare databases.
For health systems that want to be players in the healthcare big data market, one strategy is to do a risk-sharing venture with third-party care-management companies. This allows the health systems to leverage their extensive amounts of patient data while benefiting from the expertise of their venture partners. (more…)
Dec 23, 2015 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Managed Care Contracts & Payer Reimbursement, Management & Operations
Meaningful Use Stage 3 focuses on interoperability, which is good news for medical laboratories that must spend time and money to develop effective LIS-EHR interfaces
On December 15, 2015, the final rule for Stage 3 meaningful use (MU) went into effect. By now, pathologists and clinical laboratory managers and personnel are well-acquainted with the MU incentive program and the myriad of challenges it presents for almost everyone working in the healthcare sector.
Although the implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) has caused labs some headaches, the Stage 3 MU requirements could reduce some of that pressure. One of the biggest changes in Stage 3, according to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR), is that the ONC is “finalizing changes to remove the menu and core structure of Stage 1 and Stage 2 and reduce the number of objectives to which a provider must attest.” There will be fewer objectives to prove an EHR system is being used in a meaningful way.
That’s good news for providers struggling with EHR attestation. However, the struggle for clinical laboratories isn’t with attestation per se, it’s with interoperability between lab information systems (LIS) and physicians’ EHRs. (more…)
Nov 11, 2015 | Digital Pathology, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Use of genomic data collector could mean competition for medical laboratories that now store, analyze, and interpret genetic data
UCLA Health is working to integrate genomic patient data into its Epic electronic health record (EHR) system. This pilot project could signal potential competition for pathology groups and clinical laboratories that currently are the main repositories for the storage, analysis, and interpretation of genetic data.
Pilot Program Designed to Support Precision Medicine Research
As it becomes faster, cheaper, and easier to sequence human exomes and genomes, the challenge is how to store a patient’s gene data and make it available at the time care is provided.
UCLA Health is teaming with Seattle-based startup ActX in an effort to solve this problem. ActX represents a relatively new type of company—a genomic data collector (GDC)—and it is developing a critical solution—EHR Integration. The emergence of GDCs could affect clinical laboratories that currently provide most of the storage, analysis, and interpretation of genetic data.
ActX Founder and CEO Andrew Ury, MD, told MedCity News that, “While genetics can’t predict everything, genetics can predict more and more and whether a patient has a side effect. We think this is the future.”
ActX currently provides genomic decision support to physicians using Allscripts and Greenway Health ambulatory EHRs. A patient’s genetic information is collected through a saliva sample and then analyzed in real-time. Using a patient’s genetic code, the ActX application alerts physicians to possible medication adverse reactions and efficacy as well as actionable medical risks and patients’ carrier status. (more…)
Oct 23, 2015 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
One new federal law forbids health IT vendors and providers from deliberately blocking information-sharing with competing EHR systems
Several years deep into its effort to get physicians and hospitals to use electronic health record (EHR) systems, the federal government has yet to come up with a way to improve interoperability—the ability of EHRs to interface and communicate with other systems.
Stage one and stage two Meaningful Use guidelines have failed to successfully address the barriers preventing interoperability. Of course, clinical laboratories and pathology groups encounter this problem daily. That’s because they must build interfaces between their laboratory information systems (LIS) and the EHRs of their client physicians. The cost of creating workable LIS-to-EHR interfaces continues to be a huge burden on medical laboratories and that is why they support improved interoperability. But labs also contribute to the lack of interoperability when they enact restrictions on how lab test data can be shared with other providers and competing labs who are serving the same physicians and patients. (more…)
