HITECH legislation and its primary goals
Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 forms part of a stimulus package that was approved as law in order to champion the use of EHR (electronic health records). Electronic health records possess the capacity to transform the health care sector from a largely paper based sector to reliance on clinical information and other sources of information in assisting the providers to deliver higher levels of quality care to patients (Beasley and Sinsky, 2014). At its core, HITECH has five primary objectives. First, HITECH seeks to augment quality, the safety, efficacy of health care delivery and cut down on disparities. Secondly, it seeks to engage patients and families. Thirdly, HITECH aims to improve coordination and care. Fourthly, it aims at ensuring sufficient privacy and security protection for personal health and lastly HITECH focuses on improving population health and public health.
Impact of HITECH Legislation Goal on My Organization
HITECH’s impact on my organization can be categorized into; the improvement it has on the quality of care, its impact in reducing medical errors and other measurable impacts on the patient. By adopting HITECH, more adherence to EBG (evidence based guidelines and practice) has been enhanced thus improving the quality of care. By sticking to these guidelines, the risk of disease has been reduced and care has become more effective. However, as ACSM, (2013) documents, numerous medical conditions lack scientific based guidelines that can guide providers hence the usefulness of HITECH may be affected in many organizations. The use of CPOE (Computerized physician order entry) system has also led to a 55% reduction in the medical errors committed in the organization. According to Musen, et al., (2014) incorporating a CDS (clinical decision support system) to a CPOE may further reduce medical errors by up to 80%. Additionally, the HITECH legislation has had impact in my organization by improving operational and financial performance together with bringing satisfaction to the providers and patients who use it. Consequently, loss of revenue has been reduced alongside a reduction in loss of productivity.
Legislation incentives influence on EHRs adoption and meaningful use
The Medicaid and Medicare electronic health records incentive program offer EHR incentives payments to professionals that are qualified and to qualified hospitals when they adopt, implement, upgrade and show the significant use of HER. A financial payment of up to $44,000 via the Medicare EHR incentive initiative is given to hospitals via the Medicare EHR incentive program for instance (Grinspan, et al., 2016). However, demonstrating meaningful use of EHR is often challenging since time and resources are expended. Meaningful use involves using EHR in engaging families and patients, improving quality, efficacy and safety of delivery while reducing health disparities. Meaningful use is thus measured by improved privacy and security of patient information, improved patient and population health outcomes such as documented reduced illness episodes and by having more robust health systems.
HITECH Impact on the Quality of Patient Care
HITECH possesses the capacity of augmenting the quality and outcome of patient care in various aspects. Gold, et al., (2016) for instance, observed that CPOE’s computerized alerts working alongside CDS in physicians may raise prophylactic care usage in hospitals among patients with DVT. HITECH thus helps in adherence to guidelines thus improving patient care. Adopting EHR also improves efficiency hence reducing resource wastage. A good example of waste is diagnostic testing. Carrying out unwanted tests is costly and may affect a patient. Additionally, EHR also reduced medication errors which are highly favorable to patients. In a study by Berner and La Lande, (2016) CPOE and EHR systems were responsible in reducing 60% of serious medication errors in a hospital.
Summary of Article and how it demonstrates the ability to meet one of the criteria for meaningful use
One of the criteria for meeting meaningful use is the ability to maintain the security and privacy of patient health information. In this regard, Rodrigues et al., (2013) document their analysis on the efficacy of cloud based EHR systems in maintaining a patient’s privacy and security health info. Based on their findings, Rodrigues et al., (2013) note that cloud computing offers the best chance so far, in maintaining security and privacy of patient data. With cloud based EHR system, security is enhanced since EHR ceases to be server based reducing its proneness to human error. Cloud based data also use encrypted data locking out potential thieves. The risk of hosting EHR on third party server clouds however remains risky according to Rodrigues et al., (2013) and more efficacious solutions to addressing this challenge are thus required.
References
American College of Sports Medicine. (2013). ACSM's guidelines for exercise testing and prescription. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Beasley, J. W., & Sinsky, C. A. (2014). Electronic health records. Annals of internal medicine, 161(9), 680.
Berner, E. S., & La Lande, T. J. (2016). Overview of clinical decision support systems. In Clinical decision support systems (pp. 1-17). Springer International Publishing.
Gold, M., & McLAUGHLIN, C. A. T. H. E. R. I. N. E. (2016). Assessing HITECH Implementation and Lessons: 5 Years Later. The Milbank Quarterly, 94(3), 654-687.
Grinspan, Z. M., Bao, Y., Edwards, A., Johnson, P., Kaushal, R., & Kern, L. M. (2016). Medicaid Stage 1 Meaningful Use EHR Incentive Payments Are Associated With Higher Quality but Not Improvements in Quality. American Journal of Medical Quality, 1062860616673905.
Musen, M. A., Middleton, B., & Greenes, R. A. (2014). Clinical decision-support systems. In Biomedical informatics (pp. 643-674). Springer London.
Rodrigues, J. J., de la Torre, I., Fernández, G., & López-Coronado, M. (2013). Analysis of the security and privacy requirements of cloud-based electronic health records systems. Journal of medical Internet research, 15(8), e186.
