UMUC Family Clinic: Meaningful Use - Case Study Example

UMUC Family Clinic, Case Study 3: Meaningful Use It is important to acknowledge the fact that technological advancement has always been a crucial subject of concern particularly in promoting the standards of healthcare services of most countries. Top health care stakeholders and government agencies work very hard to ensure that their healthcare centers remain up to date with the best EHR systems. To be precise, the notion behind the adoption of computerized EHR systems is to aid Medicare centers ensure that they stay in touch with current regulatory requirements for meaningful use and financial incentives offered by the United States government to healthcare providers and institutions (Lighter, 2011). The main objective is to play a very important role in enhancing operational efficiency, accuracy and effectiveness, which are the most essential characteristics in the delivery of quality Medicare services in the country. Meaningful use involves attestation and reporting requirements. In this sense, this paper focuses on coming with a recommendation of an incentive program that will aid in understanding the reporting requirements of meaningful use via an account of the Agility EHR and the UMUC Family Clinic. It is vital to note that Agility EHR is the chosen incentive program that is necessary to aid the UMUC Family Clinic in understanding the reporting requirements for meaningful use. The product has been certified by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology. Its CHPL Product number is CC-2014-615770-1. The version number for this product is ten (10). In order to achieve the best operations from the system, additional software components have to be integrated into the product. These components include Multum VantageRx version 3, Cerner Multum, Elsevier and ExitCare version 7.5. The implementation of this product is one of most crucial initiatives required for improving health care quality, efficiency and patient safety. Most importantly the Agility EHR is aimed at ensuring that the Clinic qualifies for the financial incentives provided by the government of United States (Scarlat, 2012). Table 1: Incentive Program and Amounts Payment Amounts Qualifies to Receive First Payment in 2014 Payment Amount will be in 2014 $2,000,200 Payment Amount will be in 2015 $ 1,500,150 Payment Amount will be in 2016 $ 1,000,100 Total Payment Amount will be $4,500,450 Table 2 Count Stage 1 Core Objective Measure Explanation of how the objective will be met at the UMUC Family Clinic using the selected EHR 1 Maintain an active set of medication list More than 80% of all the patients that see the eligible professional hold at least one entry in the form of structured data types Based on the fact that this is a family clinic, this information is always captured and stored by the front desk nurse. In terms of reporting, the Agility EHR system will perform automatic retrieval of the required data that is necessary to meet the percentage requirement for this measure. 2 Computerized provider order entry (CPOE) done by a licensed health care professional on issues such as medication and laboratory services. More than 30% of individual patients with one and above medication in their medication list entered by the use of a CPOE Since the clinic creates prescription information for each patient, the information will automatically be integrated into new system. The reporting of this data will be much simpler as the Agility EHR provides a quality platform to store and retrieve medication data as per a predefined user percentage. 3 Produce and convey permissible prescription data electronically (eRx) Ensure that more than 40% of all sets of permissible prescriptions that are written by an EP are transmitted electronically by the use of a certified EHR technology Due to the fact that Clinic practitioners practice standardized creation of prescriptions and that they will be trained to use the Agility EHR, it will be easy for them to produce permissible prescriptions. In addition, since the system captures all these details, reporting will be much simplified as users will just specify the required percentage for retrieval and reporting. 4 Perform drug to drug and drug to allergy interaction checks The eligible hospital has activated the use of this feature in the entire time by the EHR The agility EHR system provides integration and enabling of features such as the check for drug-drug and drug –allergy check. Since the Clinic is focused on training its users on the effective use of the system, the responsible staff will just enable the functionality. 5 Implement a clinical rule for decision support along with the ability to track user compliance to it Implement a single clinical decision support rule Since this clinic practices Family Medical practice, a clinical decision support rule will just be added into the Agility EHR. The ability of the Agility EHR to allow integration of tracking module will simplify monitoring if users are complying to the rule 6 Provide a set of clinical based summaries for every visit at the office More than 50% of all visits to the office in 3 business days should be provided in clinical summaries This objective will be achieved by the ability of the Agility EHR to capture patient visit information as entered by a practitioner. To report this data, a percentage will be specified in the selection query request to the system database thus meeting the targeted requirement. 7 Capability to share vital clinical information between different health care providers Conducted at a minimum one time on the ability of the certified EHR to exchange crucial clinical electronically. Since the Agility EHR system contains integrated data sharing modules, users can easily exchange information among one another. Furthermore, the fact that the practitioners at the UMUC Family Clinic will be trained on the efficient use of the new technology, it will be essential that time after time they test the ability of the system to process smooth Clinical information exchange. 8 Record vital demographic data such as gender, ethnicity and cause of death of a patient in case of an event of mortality A minimum of 50% of the patients seen by an eligible professional have their demographic data stored in a structured format As a family Medical Practice Clinic, the care center through the front desk nurse record all demographic information of the patients, which can then be integrated into the Agility EHR. Since the system operates a quality database component, the percentage required for demographic reporting can be implemented through a user specification in the execution of a data retrieval request. 9 Keep an up-to-date list of active diagnoses A minimum of 80% of the patients admitted at an eligible hospital have at least a single entry recorded as structured data This objective will be achieved by the adoption of automatic patient progress tracking module, which is one of the most common features in the Agility EHR. The targeted percentage report can be generated through a database query that specifies the required percentage in the system. 10 Protect the electronic health data from any unauthorized access or alteration Perform security analysis on the basis of 45 CFR 164.308 (a) (1). Also execute security updates and rectify identified security threats at the eligible hospital Since the staff at the UMUC Clinic will be trained on the efficient use of the Agility EHR, it will be simple for them to perform security checks. Additionally, the ability of the system to perform automatic security updates will play a significant role in rectification of any vulnerability. 11 Generate electronic copies of the discharge instructions for patients upon demand More than 50% of the discharged patients are provided with electronic copies of discharge instructions upon request at an eligible hospital Due to the fact that this is Family Medical practice Clinic, discharge instructions are always available at the front desk nurse. This data can be integrated into the Agility EHR and produced in a report format based on the requested percentage. 12 Generate electronic copies of the health information of patients when requested A minimum of 50% of the patients that request for health information should be provided with it in an electronic format Due to the fact that this is Family Medical practice Clinic, discharge instructions are always available at the front desk nurse. This data can be integrated into the Agility EHR and produced in a report format based on the requested percentage 13 Record the status of practice smoking by patients who are 13 years and above A percentage amounting to more than 50% of those patients at 13 years or more have their respective smoking status stored in a structured data format This objective can be achieved by training the front desk nurses to ensure that this information is captured and stored in the Agility EHR system. The data reporting can automatically be generated from the system by specifying the required percentage 14 Keep an active record of medication allergy list The data of more than 80% of the patients that see an eligible professional and have no known medication allergy is stored in a structured format Since the practitioners at the Clinic practice permissible prescription, information about medication allergy is always recorded and can be integrated into the Agility EHR. Percentage based reports can be generated through making requests to the system. 15 Record and create charts of vital signs for children who are between 2 and 20 years. This includes signs related to issues such as height, weight and blood pressure. Data of more than 50% of all patients at the age of 2 and above seen by an EP has to be recorded Due the fact that this is Family Medical Practice Clinic, information such as height, weight and blood pressure for patients at 2 and above years is always captured. With the integration of this data into an Agility EHR, it becomes easy to produce reports based on the percentage requirement. Table 3 Count Stage 1 Menu Objective Measure Explanation of how the objective will be met at the UMUC Family Clinic using the selected EHR 1 Perform checks based on drug-formulary The drug-formulary check functionality has been enables by an eligible professional who has access not less than one internal or external drug formulary throughout the EHR reporting duration The most important thing is that the vendor is requested to include the drug-formulary check module. To perform reporting attest, a “YES” button is clicked an eligible professional. 2 Produce a list of patients based on specific conditions. This is to aid in the use for the improvement of quality and reduce disparities. A minimum of one report list of patients with specific conditions should be generated In the report generation menu list, an eligible user just needs to select the type of patients along with their conditions to be generated. The agility EHR system will perform automated data access and generate the report. 3 The ability to submit electronic report of data about lab results to health agencies according to the applicable law and practice. A minimum of one test should be performed on the certified EHR to check its ability to submit reports of lab results to a health agency This simply requires the vendor of the Agility EHR to be requested to include the module. Then, in reporting, attest is set to “YES” 4 Use the certified EHR system to spot patient-specific knowledge resources information and present them to the patient if it is proper 10% and above of all patients admitted the eligible hospital have to be provided with the patient-specific education resources The Agility EHR is by default designed to deliver educational resources for healthcare practitioners. Whenever an eligible professional provides a patient with educational resources, the details should automatically be stored in the system. Consequently, the percentage of information provided to patients can be retrieved through percentage-based query requests to the system database. 5 In case of follow-up care, reminders should be sent to patient on the basis of preference More than 20% of those patients at 65years and above or 5 years and below have an appropriate reminder sent to them in the period of EHR reporting. The vendor has to be notified of the need of this reminder module to be integrated in the system. In reporting, only the percentage data requirement is specified and the system produces the necessary results Table 4 Count CMS eMeasure ID CQM Measure Title Domain Explanation of how the objective will be met at the UMUC Family Clinic using the selected EHR 1 CMS165v1 Controlling High Blood pressure Clinical Process/ Effectiveness. The vendor of the Agility EHR system just needs to be enlightened on the need for integration of module for control of high blood pressure. This will play huge role in managing patient health by maintaining the best blood pressure for a particular patient. 2 CMS62v1 HIV/AIDS: Medical Visit Clinical Process/ Effectiveness. Through the use of the EHR, each HIV/AIDS medical visit will be recorded. At the end of every reporting period a report of this data will be produced. 3 CMS125v1 Breast Cancer Screening Clinical Process/ Effectiveness. Information regarding all women that underwent breast cancer screening is stored using the Agility EHR system. Reports of this data can smoothly be generated through request sending into the system database. 4 CMS166v2 Use of Imaging Studies for Low Back Pain Efficient Use of Healthcare Resources. Using the EHR system, all the data about imaging studies for low back pain can be captured and stored. Reports can be displayed upon completion of the report generation period. 5 CMS154v1 Appropriate Treatment for Children with Upper Respiratory Infection (URI) Efficient Use of Healthcare Resources. Since this is Family Medical Practice Clinic, this information is always recorded. Through the EHR system, it will be much easier to capture this data and generate appropriate reports. 6 CMS136v2 ADHD: Follow-Up Care for Children Prescribed Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Medication Clinical Process/ Effectiveness. 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