Clinics to get funding for e-health record adoption
River Falls Medical Clinic, a division of Western Wisconsin Medical Associates along with clinics in Ellsworth and Spring Valley, announced it has applied for government incentive funding for successful use of its electronic health record (EHR), with the support of Kansas City, Mo.-based health company, Cerner Corporation and the Wisconsin Health Information Technology Extension Center (WHITEC).
River Falls Medical Clinic, a division of Western Wisconsin Medical Associates along with clinics in Ellsworth and Spring Valley, announced it has applied for government incentive funding for successful use of its electronic health record (EHR), with the support of Kansas City, Mo.-based health company, Cerner Corporation and the Wisconsin Health Information Technology Extension Center (WHITEC).
River Falls achieved the first stage of rigorous requirements certifying them “meaningful users” of health information technology.
To receive federal incentive funding, Medicare and Medicaid eligible professionals, eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals have to demonstrate “Meaningful Use” through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) web-based Registration and Attestation System. CMS describes Meaningful Use to mean providers need to show they are using certified EHR technology in ways that can be measured significantly in quality and in quantity.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 specifies three main components of Meaningful Use:
--The use of a certified EHR in a meaningful manner, such as e-prescribing;
--The use of certified EHR technology for electronic exchange of health information to improve quality of health care;
--The use of certified EHR technology to submit clinical quality and other measures.
“From day one of EHR implementation, we made it a priority to utilize our EHR solution to its full extent to benefit the care we deliver to our patients and to enhance our workflow. When the government published the meaningful use requirements, our staff was quick to note that we were already well on our way to attestation as our practice was already aligned with many of the meaningful use principles. We knew the proposed meaningful use criteria would help us to better utilize our EHR and to meet our goals of enhancing the care and delivery to our patients. We also understood that we needed to be able to measurably demonstrate that we are able to provide better care to our patients via this technology and process,” said Dr. Chris Tashjian, President of the River Falls Medical Clinic.
“We eagerly jumped on board and made it our own personal goal to be prepared to ‘push the button’ on April 18--as one of the very first physicians in the country to be Meaningful Use certified. We’re happy to report, we were #23 in the nation to attest,” Tashjian said.
“There is a cost to move from a paper chart to an electronic record,” said Tashjian. The physicians at the River Falls Medical Clinic felt it was vital to both patient care, and to compete and continue to recruit top medical professionals.
“We felt if we did not have an EHR, we were at a serious disadvantage,” said Tashjian. “More than 70 percent of the physicians in our area have gone electronic--we had to stay up-to-date. Patients in our service area want to see a physician who has embraced technology and made the commitment to enhance patient care and safety; they want a physician who is moving forward with technology, not one who is still using paper when a better option is available.”
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