A synopsis of the web based Electronic medical recording system

The healthcare industry has turned over an important page in the book of the healthcare management manual with the invention of the Electronic Medical Recording system. The Electronic medical recording system, abbreviated as the EMR, is basically a system that helps in recording the medical history of a patient automatically with the control of a remote location server. It primarily aids healthcare service providers and hospitals to maintain the records of patients and also in other functions like e-prescription management, creating accurate medical bills and also helps in managing related events at lower costs.

The best part about this system is that it helps in taking better care of patients and helps reduce the possibility of committing errors which could have been made by service providers and hospital staff.

So what is it about the web based system of EMR which makes it so desirable? Some of the biggest contributing factors are:

1.       It extremely lucrative: there is absolutely no need for you to invest in the software since the user would be connected to the main website with the help of the internet and all the massive medical data is put up online. This is done for a fee that needs to be paid every once a while to gain the right of access. The only existing costs will be those of implementation and the costs of maintaining the workstations, which are quite insignificant.

2.       The EMR optimizes the workflow and it can be conveniently run.

3.       Doctors and medical healthcare professionals won’t be limited to a particular place to get this data as they can reach the data from anywhere thanks to the internet. You won’t even be required to create a WAN only for this purpose.

4.       Doctors can easily deal with patient’s appointments, old health records, test results, prescriptions and all this very easily.

5.       It is safe also because it meets the requirements of the HIPAA’s security standards.

6.       The web based EMR system is owned by the seller and thus, they are fully responsible for its security, maintenance and other such details.

7.       With the help of this system, doctors can ask pharmacies and diagnostic centers for patient’s test results so that they can give the right treatment at the right time.

The only constraint of the EMR is that the software is in the control of the seller. Thus, you may not be able to customize the function as per your needs. However, on the whole, it has helped medical agents to save a lot of money as well as time and is a good tool for the benefit of the whole society.

Acroseas Global Solutions is a provider of transcription services complying with the HIPAA i.e. the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Since 1999, the company has been offering professional, cost-effective and timely services to clients all across North America, Australia and the United Kingdom. Acroseas has a well-qualified and trained team of professionals. Furthermore, they provide 98.8% accurate transcripts and at efficient turnaround times.

HHS and DEA ponder e-prescribing comments

The Health and Human Services Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration are reviewing the feedback they have received on DEA proposed rule on e-prescribing for controlled substances, but the final rule might not emerge this year.

DEA published the proposed rule earlier this year, which would impose security requirements for e-prescribing of controlled substances. A public comment period expired Sept. 25. Groups representing physicians, pharmacies and health information technology vendors have expressed concern that the rule as currently written could impede adoption of e-prescribing.

Kerry Weems, acting administrator of HHS; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said DEA and HHS are reviewing the comments. Speaking at CMS; National E-Prescribing Conference in Boston this week, Weems said the goal is to address DEA concerns while creating a rule that doesn’t provide a barrier to e-prescribing.

Jodi Daniel, director of the Office of Policy and Research in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, said the final rule might not be on DEA to-do list for this calendar year. The presidential election could also push action into next year.

The change in administration…may slow things down; said Daniel, who also spoke at the conference.

Meanwhile, a Medicare incentive program that will initially provide a 2 percent bonus to physicians who adopt e-prescribing goes into effect Jan. 1, 2009.

Some experts say Deal’s current prohibition against e-prescribing controlled substances has blocked broader acceptance of the technology. The situation compels doctors who use e-prescribing to maintain a paper-based system for controlled substances and an electronic system for other drugs.

Kaiser Receives $54M in NIH Grants for EHR Data Mining, Other Research

Kaiser Permanente announced that it has secured about $54 million in NIH grants for an electronic health record data mining project and other medical research initiatives, the San Francisco Business Times reports (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 10/12).

The federal economic stimulus package provided the funding for the 22 grants (DerGurahian, Modern Healthcare, 10/12).

EHR Data Mining Project

The largest of the grants allocates $24.8 million for a project designed to examine how genes and the environment influence disease, health and longevity.

For the project, Kaiser will work with the University of California-San Francisco to genotype 100,000 Kaiser members in Northern California. Researchers then will link the genetic information with EHR data and health survey findings.

The researchers also will examine the influence of environmental factors such as air and water quality, access to healthy food and proximity to recreation space.

Officials say the project could help researchers identify genetic factors that cause different medication responses (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 10/12).

In addition, the project could double the number of U.S. residents available for genome-wide association studies, according to the researchers.

Law will boost e-prescribing, HHS secretary says

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said today he expects the e-prescribing incentives and penalties in the Medicare bill passed this month to have a profound effect on the adoption and use of e-prescribing.

Although President Bush vetoed the bill, Congress overrode the veto, and Kerry Weems, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said at a news conference that the administration supports the bills e-prescribing provisions and will work to implement them.

Leavitt said CMS will hold a conference sometime this fall on e-prescribing to give doctors an opportunity to air any concerns they might have about the administrations program.

Experts say fewer than 10 percent of doctors use e-prescribing, but the administration wants to increase that percentage. Weems said the technology could save CMS $156 million in five years.

E-prescribing also has advantages for doctors, patients, pharmacists and those who pay for drug benefits outside Medicare. Dr. James King, a family physician in Tennessee and president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said at the news conference that e-prescribing definitely improved the care that I provide to my patients.

However, he acknowledged that he does not always submit prescriptions electronically for a variety of reasons, such as knowing that particular pharmacies do not accept e-prescriptions and the inability to prescribe controlled substances under Drug Enforcement Administration rules.

Choosing a dictation service

Whether you need legal, medical, or general business transcription, the three most important factors to evaluate when choosing a dictation service are turnaround time, accuracy, and security.

Turnaround time
The standard dictation service offers 24 to 48 hour turnaround. Many also offer STAT service, which provides 1, 2, or 4 hour turnaround.

• How does time of day impact the delivery schedule? If you submit your dictation at 8 pm for STAT transcription, will it get the immediate attention you need? Or will it be queued up until the following morning?
• How do they backup their guarantee? If they return transcriptions late, do they give you a discount? Or not charge you for them?
• Do different types of notes have different times?

Accuracy
Inaccurate transcriptions are worse than no transcriptions at all: serious mistakes can endanger patients’ well-being or jeopardize legal agreements. The dictation service you choose should employ transcriptionists with significant experience in your field, as well as quality assurance (QA) staffers to double check transcripts before they’re released.

Security
For web-based communication, the industry standard for security is 128-bit SSL security. If the dictation service uses another method of communication, ask what steps they take to make sure it’s secure. Sending unencrypted files over regular email is not a secure method of transferring your audio files or the resulting transcription.

Physical security is important as well. Ask each dictation service you speak with what measures they take to ensure the security of your data at their locations: careful employee screening and tracking is essential.

Affordable Medical Transcription Service

An increase in the demand for medical transcription has led to a corresponding increase in the number of service providers offering affordable medical transcription services. These medical transcription companies are a great help to individual physicians, outpatient clinics, group practitioners, hospitals and healthcare centers. They guarantee excellent transcription serviceswith unique, reliable and complete solutions ranging from dictation capture to document distribution and storage.

High Accuracy Rates and Minimum Turnaround

Reputable medical transcription companies keep trained and experienced transcribers providing services to a number of specialties including orthopedics, gastroenterology, radiology, cardiology and more. One of the major advantages of medical transcription companies

is that they provide digitalized documentation service converting voice recorded files into text format. Ensuring perfect accuracy in transcription services, these companies maintain in-house proofreaders, quality analysts and editors to give clients three levels of quality assurance. Besides ensuring 99% accuracy rates, the recognized medical transcription companies complete all projects within minimum turnaround time.

Ensured Confidentiality and Privacy

Medical transcription companies are perfectly optimized with advanced technological devices to meet various demands of the healthcare industry. They use convenient dictation methods for a total medical transcription solution. Most of the companies offer web-based transcription service providing various advantages to the clients. In addition to this, medical transcription companies provide toll free numbers making it easy for physicians to convey dictations using telephones.

When planning to outsource your medical transcription jobs, it is important to verify whether the affordable medical transcription service is HIPAA compliant. HIPAA compliant companies guarantee high confidentiality and privacy in their services following various rules and regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Popular medical transcription companies provide affordable and secure medical transcription service using the latest document flow management software and advanced digital systems. Depending on the requirements of the clients they provide short term and long term services.

How to Save Money Through Medical Transcription Outsourcing

Health care has always been a stable industry and due to this, the need for medical records keeps on increasing. Hospitals would often tend to save money through medical transcription outsourcing to handle their records. Precise and accurate details in medical records are important because this will serve as the basis for the diagnosis and plan of care. Medical records will also serve as an evidence for instances of malpractice and negligence. Because of the increasing trends in medical recording keeping, well known hospitals are in great need of people who will process the medical records. This increasing trend has given birth to the medical transcription outsourcing business. For people who would like to start a business and save some extra profit, here are some ways on how save money through medical transcription outsourcing.

• Step1

Business owners can save money through medical transcription outsourcing because of the increased demands in this industry. Big hospitals are providing a lot of workload due to the increasing number of patients. Therefore, medical transcription outsourcing firms will be filled with jobs and workloads bringing a lot of income.

• Step2

Investment in a medical transcription outsourcing firm is not costly because only few materials are needed. Basic office equipments are the only things needed and no other special necessary equipment unlike if you start other businesses that have complicated equipments.

• Step3

For hospitals, a medical transcription outsourcing is really a cost effective way to have quality medical records with inexpensive labor fees. A lot of countries nowadays are into the business of medical transcription outsourcing. The quality provided is very good yet labor fees are also reasonable.

• Step4

A lot of companies have started to establish medical outsourcing firms leading to a tight competition among these companies. For hospitals this is very beneficial because the greater the competition within a business, the lower the prices and expenses there will be.

Americans’ personal records increasingly digitized and routed through Asia

MANILA – It started out as a Thanksgiving Day stomachache, a nagging pain that sharpened until it reverberated from California halfway around the world.

When the ache in her lower abdomen became excruciating, the young woman was rushed to a surgery center, where the doctor diagnosed a ruptured appendix.

The woman needed an operation—fast. But before the surgeon could wheel her into the operating theater, he had to find out whether the patient’s insurance company would pay. That meant paperwork: A report had to be dictated, typed up and submitted to her insurer for approval.

So while the woman waited in agony, her doctor dialed a toll-free number.

The instant he hung up a few minutes later, a digitized recording raced through fiber-optic cables on the Pacific Ocean seabed and into a computer server on the 17th floor of a Manila office tower, where medical school graduate Dinah Barrete was working the graveyard shift.

Headphones plugged in, she tapped a pedal to start the doctor’s voice file and began typing. Her transcription of his report was on its way to him via the Internet in 15 minutes, as quickly as if the work had been done just down the hall, but much less expensive.

In a startling illustration of the life-or-death decisions involving low-paid workers thousands of miles away, Americans’ most personal details move 24 hours a day as U.S. health-care providers outsource billions of lines of transcription work each year to Asia in a bid to cut the cost of medical bureaucracy.

From dictated summaries of checkups to complete recordings of surgeons’ conversations in operating theaters, foreign workers are transforming the digital audio files into the documents that tell Americans’ medical histories.

Most of the work is done for 10 to 15 cents a line in less than 24 hours. Audio files dispatched across the Internet are transcribed and the text is fired back to the U.S. to meet government demands for a shift to electronic medical records.

Before broadband connections made it easy to outsource office work, Americans typed out medical records.

Now thousands of low-paid workers in countries such as India, the Philippines and Pakistan work in offices that never close. Tapping feverishly at keyboards, Asian transcriptionists often strain to understand what American doctors have dictated through phone lines or into digital recorders.

Other typists work under similar pressure to transfer decades-old medical documents into computer files.

Outsourcing isn’t expected to harm job prospects for American transcriptionists because there is so much work to be done, said a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 101,000 Americans were employed as medical transcriptionists in 2002, according to the bureau.