The National Health Information Technology and Privacy Advancement Act of 2007, S. 1455

Soaring costs are pushing health care beyond the reach of many ordinary Americans. The typical family health insurance policy now costs more than a worker's entire annual earnings at minimum wage, while as much as 30 percent of health care is wasted on unnecessary, duplicative, or dubious procedures. The problems of cost, quality, and access are interrelated, and Congress needs to address them simultaneously. U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) is leading the charge for reform by proposing new ways to lower health care costs, improve quality, and increase access to care. He has introduced three bills to address health care problems. These bills would help hold down costs regardless of the path the country takes in expanding health care coverage.

The idea is based upon a corporation, run by business leaders and health information technology experts and funded by federal public-private partnership, which would be responsible for all aspects of planning, building and operating a national network as well as protecting patient privacy. Individuals would be able to access and control their personal medical records for example, not allowing a physiotherapist to see other information such as a psychiatrist consultation.

The U.S. Internet Industry Association is endorsing two of these health IT bills pending in the Senate and calling for government policies that encourage deployment of broadband networks that could be the foundation of a nationwide health information network. The association has called for incentives for doctors to adopt health IT and for creation of more public-private partnerships to finance broadband deployment and health IT.

A public-private partnership for health IT could overcome the financing gap between the doctors who have to pay for it and the health plans and patients who will benefit from lower costs. One of the reasons hindering the transformation to electronic records has been bandwidth issues and costs. It is hoped this legislation will address and perhaps provide some real solutions.

We'll continue to follow this issue over the next weeks and months.

Global MedData is a provider of digital transcription services and EHR to physician practices and clinics in the U.S. and to the National Health Service Hospitals in the U.K. For more information email us at: info@globalmeddata.net

Is Speech Recognition Going to Replace Digital Transcription Services?

Much has been written about speech or voice recognition software in the medical industry and there are certainly some big name companies trying to sell you the latest technology, claiming it will save you money in the long run and produce instant reports. According to feedback from our customers at Global MedData and many independent studies, this is far from reality.

The Journal of Digital Imaging reported, "Speech recognition dictation systems slow down the individual productivity of the radiologists' dictation process by at least 25%. Radiologists are assuming the role of transcriptionists as well as diagnosticians. Mistakes occur that would not with the use of a traditional dictation system and professional transcriptionists. It does not necessarily benefit the radiologists that use it."

Global Meddata's customers have told us they still prefer to continue to use our services for accuracy, efficiency, cost and turnaround times. While some research has shown that one of the single benefits of voice recognition software is the reduction in report time turnaround from 133 hours to 56 hours in 2001, to about 14 hours today, this is still not a realistic figure because someone is still required to check the report for mistakes.

"There are many benefits of voice recognition, but unfortunately we have been facing some technical problems that are impacting our productivity, " says Joel Gross, MD, assistant professor of radiology at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He continues, "voice recognition is not a plug and play system. Faster computers are needed so the system doesn't freeze up. A good support team, available 24/7, that can fix problems or make necessary technical changes is essential, and must be budgeted for when making cost projections, he says. We've had problems with poor voice recognition, difficulty stopping the transcription, spell-checking, filtering reports, losing macros and speech files, and other glitches that have slowed us down. In addition we've also had problems with the system interfacing with our RIS system. We've had situations where our voice recognition system has overwritten changes we've made to our reports in our RIS system, which could potentially lead to medico-legal problems. These technical problems have led some radiologists to simply type in the report themselves instead of dictating into the voice recognition system These problems lead to a decrease in radiologists productivity and satisfaction," he adds.

While it may be true that voice recognition has reached 95% accuracy (or thereabouts), here are some very common errors that only a medical trained transcriptionist can distinguish. For example:

• "urine" from "you're in"
• "dilate" from "die late"
• "cauterize" from "caught her eyes"
• "nitrate" from "night rate"

So, is voice recognition software about to replace digital transcription service? Not likely and not for a decade at least. In the meantime, our customers are not convinced and continue to use our transcription and document management solutions. If they require an urgent 2 hour turnaround at the end of the day, we provide it, and at a cheaper cost than in-house. Global MedData is not just an out-sourced transcription service, our documents will easily integrate into any systems you choose to use. In fact, we offer seamless integration into some of the leading EMR systems whose customers still choose our transcription services.

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Sources: http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/studies/report-18165.html

Time, Money and Security

Apart from the cost issue of adopting an EMR system is the disruptive impact that these implementations can have on a health care organization's short-term operations, especially for smaller clinics. It's a tough sell to persuade physicians to buy an expensive EMR system in the first place, but what most don't realize until implementation begins, is the long learning curve. This forces doctors to cut back on their patient loads (which means lost revenues) by as much as 25 per cent for up to a month during the implementation transition.

If you're a four-person practice, you can't afford to take four weeks off and tell patients to come back and see you when you're ready.

These constraints have led to the emergence of application service provider (ASP) or web-based type EMR applications aimed at lowering the costs and burdens associated with on-site installations. Instead of thousands (and even millions of dollars in the case of hospitals), a web- based application or service can cost only a few hundred dollars or even "pay as you go" as in the case of Global MedData's digital transcription services. Still, some physicians are leery about having a third-party entity store confidential patient information however, under a hosted model, you don't have to worry about employees or patients tampering with records. Today, the best systems should have a reporting mechanism to show who has created the document, altered, viewed, updated or even re-routed the document in any way.

With Global MedData's solutions, we have designed our product with these factors in mind. The end result is a faster way to do business and a business model that makes sense, with a very short learning curve - minutes instead of days. We intend to build more services or modules with this in mind.

If you've not tried our service, contact us for a free trial at info@globalmeddata.net. If you're already a customer, feel free to contact us. We are always interested in feedback and suggestions that will help you operate more efficiently.

Stay tuned. Next week we'll discuss the pros and cons of voice recognition transcription.

Voters Think United States Healthcare System Needs Overhaul

Most American registered voters believe that our healthcare system needs real and massive change, according to a poll conducted by Research America. The poll found that:

• Nearly 75% of responding voters thought that the United States healthcare system needs significant changes, if not a complete overhaul.
• Almost 75 percent oppose President Bush's cuts to the funding of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Approximately 60 percent of Americans think that the federal government has a responsibility to make sure that all Americans have healthcare coverage.
• Half of those surveyed think that there should be a nationally uniform system of electronic health records.
  

“Since healthcare is among Americans’ top domestic priorities, it’s no surprise they have strong opinions and want to know where their representatives in Congress stand,” said the Honorable John Edward Porter, Research America chair and former Illinois congressman. The 2008 Presidential candidates in both parties are promising to overhaul the system and cover the 44.8 million people without insurance. The cost of technology and lack of integration or standards has been the key issue in the slow adoption of EMR/EHR systems.

At Global MedData, we are committed to bringing affordable technology without upfront investment, and open standards to ensure complete interoperability across platforms, clinics, hospitals and pharmacies. Our vision is web-based accessibility of health records for the industry and most importantly, for the benefit of the consumer.

http://www.researchamerica.org/media/releases/7.19.2007.yourcongresspoll.html

Global MedData is a provider of digital transcription services and EHR to physician practices and clinics in the U.S. and to the National Health Service Hospitals in the U.K. For more information email us at: info@globalmeddata.net