The Readmore 2014

Yesterday, the West Virginia Health Care Authority Board approved the changes to the Certificate of Need Standards for Cardiac Catheterization. The approved modification will now be delivered to Governor Manchin for review and approval.

Eric Eyre of the Charleston Gazette covers the story today in his article, Smaller hospitals get OK to offer heart procedures.

The new Standards will not go into effect until approved by the Governor. The current Cardiac Catheterization Standards were last updated and approved by the Governor on May 3, 2007.

For more on the process of modifying the standards check out my previous posts.

The latest statistics are out regarding the adoption and use of electronic health records (EHRs). The New England Journal of Medicine published the government sponsored survey report. Check out the article in the NY Times, "Most Doctors Aren't Using Electronic Health Records." (full report - Electronic Health Records in Ambulatory Care -- A National Survey of Physicians).

The article indicates that only 9% of medical practices with less than 3 physicians have adopted an EHR -- while the percentage increases to 50% for those practices with 50 or more physicians. The comments in the article by one physician seem to confirm a recent conversation with Jack Shaffer, health IT specialist, that EHRs don't necessarily improve physician efficiency.

West Virginia native, Dr. Brailer, is quoted in the article:

But the new study is based on a large sampling — more than 2,600 doctors across the country — and a detailed survey, making it more definitive than past research, experts say. The results, they say, also show a strong endorsement of electronic health records by doctors who have them, especially for what the report termed “fully functional” records, which include reminders of care guidelines, based on a patient’s age, gender or medical history.

For example, 82 percent of those using such electronic records said they improved the quality of clinical decisions, 86 percent said they helped in avoiding medication errors and 85 percent said they improved the delivery of preventative care.

“Those numbers are huge and very encouraging,” said Dr. David J. Brailer, the former health information technology coordinator in the Bush administration.

Dr. Brailer also pointed to the 54 percent of doctors without electronic health records who said that not finding an electronic health record that met their needs was a “major barrier” to adoption. In short, they are not satisfied with the existing products, which tend to be designed for hospitals — big customers — instead of small practices.

“What we see is a deficit in innovation, and that is something innovators and the capital markets can address,” said Dr. Brailer, who leads a firm that invests in medical ventures, Health Evolution Partners.

AthenaHealth is also mentioned in the article. Over the last several months I have been thinking about whether a web based service as software approach, like AthenaHealth, might be an method to grow the adoption of EHR usage in West Virginia as a part of the West Virginia Health Information Network.

The report finding that that most doctors are not satisfied with existing technology should give Dr. Parkinson via Hello Health and other health 2.0 innovators a positive sense of opportunity.

As my regular readers know - the Health Care Law Blog gets fishy every year when Charleston's FestivALL rolls around. Sorry for the distraction from health care law but I like to promote my favorite summertime event in Charleston - FestivALL.

Just read over at Oncee that the Unknown Hinson will bring his country western psychobilly to Charleston for FestivALL on June 22 at Coonskin Park. If you don't know who he is check out the UNtold Story. Have read about him but never listened to his music until now. Watch him on YouTube.

Skip, looks like this might move into my top three 2008 FestivALL events to not miss.

By the way, anyone else notice the other art project going on around town? Have you noticed the red/white signs in spanish/english? I was wondering what was up and saw a mention at This is not my blog. Check out more about Amy Williams art project over at Scrabble Crush.

Signs of FestivALL are starting to appear. For those of you traveling along the 64/77/79 split don't miss the artwork of Charles"Todd" Thomas whose colorful 10x24 foot creation was chosen as the winner of the art contest sponsored by Allied Artist of West Virginia to help promote this year's FestivALL.



The artwork is being displayed on the Mountaineer Expedite Building (formerly Purity Baking Building).

Allied Artists along with Tamarack will also be sponsoring the FestivAll Capitol Street Art Fair. It's free for the public and set for 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. June 28 and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 29. More than 100 spaces are set aside for artists to show and sell their works in a variety of media.

Visiting Capital Street for FestivALL is a must. There is a variety of activities for adults and kids with constant performers on a variety of stages and a street fair in front of the Kanawha County library.

Dr. Parkinson is speaking at HIMSS Summit today. Check out his slides for the presentation. Great ideas on how physician services and health care needs to change. Looks like a great agenda. Look forward to seeing reactions and discussion coming out of the summit.

Excellent work by Oncee and The West Virginia Optimist the brainchildren of 304Blogs (named after the West Virginia area code). A place to check out all the WVloggers (think WV bloggers). Thanks for adding the Health Care Law Blog front and center.

Great place to visit and see what West Virginia bloggers are doing. Tips on how to use or if you want your blog to be added.

Today the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released "The ONC-Coordinated Federal Health Information Technology Strategic Plan: 2008-2012". Find more information here, including a synopsis of the full report.

The plan is meant to serve as a guide to coordinate the federal government's health IT efforts to achieve a nationwide implementation of an interoperable health information infrastructure.

Robert Kolondner, MD, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology states in the synopsis summary:

Looking toward the future, we can envision a health care system that is centered on each and every individual patient. Clinicians will have at their fingertips all of the information needed to provide the best care; individuals will have access to this and other information that can help them engage and insert their values in the decision-making process about their health and care; and, secure and authorized access to health data will provide new ways that biomedical research and public health can improve individual health, and the health of communities and the Nation.

The synopsis goes on to state that the plan has two goals -- "patient focused health care and population health" and describes them as follows:

Patient-focused Health Care: Enable the transformation to higher quality, more cost-efficient, patient-focused health care through electronic health information access and use by care providers, and by patients and their designees.

Population Health: Enable the appropriate, authorized, and timely access and use of electronic health information to benefit public health, biomedical research, quality improvement, and emergency preparedness.

Each goal has four objectives and the themes of privacy and security, interoperability, adoption, and collaborative governance recur across the goals, but they apply in very different ways to health care and population health.

I've only had a chance to scan the synopsis and the 115 page full report but should make for interesting reading for anyone involved in the ongoing evolution of our health care system and the impact that health technology is having on the industry.