Missouri joins the ranks of hospitals implementing HIEs

The Missouri Health Connection (MHC) opened on Wednesday of this week, making it the latest state health information exchange. The exchange will link 62 hospitals and 350 clinics, enabling 7,000 physicians to access patient information in Missouri and nearby states.

The new health information network is a vendor-neutral exchange designed to promote collaboration among healthcare providers. The goal is to improve the quality of care, increase patient satisfaction, reduce costs, and improve the health of residents of Missouri.

New ICD-10 training tool released

Education and training are large components in the transition to ICD-10. AHIMA recently released new training modules that will kickstart ICD-10 education for clinicians and physicians.

The new tool provides concise, self-paced sessions. It customizes learning by providing instruction that covers the most common ICD-10 diagnoses for each clinical specialty. This is a great tool to get your hospital staff started and avoid hiccups when October 1, 2014 arrives.

The MGMA calls for leniency from the HHS

Several organizations are coming forward requesting delays and exceptions related to Meaningful Use / MIPS. The MGMA joins groups such as HIMSS, the AHA, and CHIME to express concerns over the timelines of the EHR incentive program. This week the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) made several suggestions for ways to decrease the burden of the existing Meaningful Use / MIPS requirements. Requests include:

• An indefinite moratorium on penalties for physicians that completed Stage 1
• An extension of the reporting period for Stage 2 incentives
• An extension of the reporting period for Stage 1 incentives
• A comprehensive survey of vendors to determine their readiness

…and others.

HHS is feeling a lot of heat. As we’ve said before, it will be interesting to see how they react.

Avoid a HIPAA audit. Be proactive.

With the frequency of breach occurrences and the looming Omnibus HIPAA deadline, it’s likely that HHS will be beefing up their HIPAA enforcement efforts. To help your organization prepare, FierceHealthIT published an article that offers five recommendations for avoiding HIPAA audits. The central recommendation is to be prepared and have your documentation ready. According to Mark Dill, the director of information security at Cleveland Clinic, having documentation prepared, makes your business  appear to be more organized and compliant.

#HITsm chat on Friday at 11 am CT

This weeks #HITsm tweetchat covers some interesting ground. The topics are:

Topic 1: Do doctors trust their EHR vendor to communicate any actions they take with your data?

Topic 2: Do copier and scanner hard drives pose a big risk for healthcare institutions when it comes to HIPAA compliance?

Topic 3: Do doctors look at MU stage 2 and think it’s not worth the incentive money? Should doctors attest to MU stage 2?

Topic 4: Do we trust healthcare data?  What can we do to ensure we trust healthcare data?

Topic 5: Is there a case to be made for Win 8 in healthcare or is the war over and the iPad has won?

More details can be found here. Be sure to tune in and participate in the conversation today at 11 am CT.