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Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Clarifying the Meaningful Use Quality Measures
As the country prepares for meaningful use stage 1, many are studying the functionality of their EHRs, hospital information systems, and data warehouses to ensure they can produce the ambulatory and hospital quality measures.
This has led to many implementation questions.
The ambulatory measures and guidance are detailed on a previous blog.
The hospital quality measures for 2011-2012 are found in pages 303-305 of the Final Rule, available here.
Additional guidance from CMS is available here.
The detailed HITSP documentation detailing the standards for computing numerators and denominators is available here.
The most useful, focused, and streamlined materials are the definitions of the quality measures. These measures are encoded according to the HL7 Health Quality Measures Format. To view them
1. Download the HITSP_Quality_Measures_20100430.zip file.
2. Create a new folder on your hard drive.
3. Extract the entire contents of the HITSP_Quality_Measures_20100430.zip file into the new folder.
4. Open the new folder.
5. Double click on a file to open and read the individual .xml files using your internet browser
For the two Emergency Department (ED) Throughput measures, ED-1/NQF 0495 and ED-2/NQF 0497, the information on the numerators/denominators/exclusions is available here. To fall into the admitted to the emergency department denominator a patient must do two things:
1) Initially present at the ED
Then either 2) be subsequently admitted to the inpatient side or 2) receive observation services.
A patient seen in the ED who is neither admitted or receives observation services would not be in the denominator.
Hospitals have varying rules about where they provide what type of observation services and patients could receive observation services without ever going through the ED just like they could be admitted to the hospital without ever going through the ED. It is not CMS' intent to expand into Place of Service (POS) Code 22 (Outpatient Hospital - A portion of a hospital which provides diagnostic, therapeutic (both surgical and non-surgical), and rehabilitation services to sick or injured persons who do not require hospitalization or institutionalization.). This is why CMS had to include the first criteria.
I hope these resources are helpful to you.
This has led to many implementation questions.
The ambulatory measures and guidance are detailed on a previous blog.
The hospital quality measures for 2011-2012 are found in pages 303-305 of the Final Rule, available here.
Additional guidance from CMS is available here.
The detailed HITSP documentation detailing the standards for computing numerators and denominators is available here.
The most useful, focused, and streamlined materials are the definitions of the quality measures. These measures are encoded according to the HL7 Health Quality Measures Format. To view them
1. Download the HITSP_Quality_Measures_20100430.zip file.
2. Create a new folder on your hard drive.
3. Extract the entire contents of the HITSP_Quality_Measures_20100430.zip file into the new folder.
4. Open the new folder.
5. Double click on a file to open and read the individual .xml files using your internet browser
For the two Emergency Department (ED) Throughput measures, ED-1/NQF 0495 and ED-2/NQF 0497, the information on the numerators/denominators/exclusions is available here. To fall into the admitted to the emergency department denominator a patient must do two things:
1) Initially present at the ED
Then either 2) be subsequently admitted to the inpatient side or 2) receive observation services.
A patient seen in the ED who is neither admitted or receives observation services would not be in the denominator.
Hospitals have varying rules about where they provide what type of observation services and patients could receive observation services without ever going through the ED just like they could be admitted to the hospital without ever going through the ED. It is not CMS' intent to expand into Place of Service (POS) Code 22 (Outpatient Hospital - A portion of a hospital which provides diagnostic, therapeutic (both surgical and non-surgical), and rehabilitation services to sick or injured persons who do not require hospitalization or institutionalization.). This is why CMS had to include the first criteria.
I hope these resources are helpful to you.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Medical transcription outsourcing: Playing an important role
Patient records are a vital element in the healthcare process. They are essential for not only patient care but play an important role in the commercial, statutory and medico legal aspects. Medical transcription is the process by which patient records are created. Medical transcriptionists are the scribes who faithfully transform the narration of the healthcare professionals into text format, making it available to healthcare professionals and other staff.
Outsourcing medical transcription has been found to be not only economical, but also efficient and effective in terms of accuracy, turnaround time, security and technology. In recent past there have been many arguments over the role of the medical transcriptionists/medical transcription service providers in the process of patient record creation. It is important to enumerate the reasons why medical transcription is so important to the healthcare process. Given below are the reasons that highlight the importance of the role played by medical transcription:
Quantity: Outsourced medical transcription services are essential to the process of record creation because of the sheer volume of records to be created. The number of people seeking healthcare services has dramatically increased due to various reasons like the aging population, lifestyle changes, increased stress levels etc. It is impossible for healthcare professionals or support staff to cope with the huge volumes transcription requirements, while still continuing to provide quality care.
Preference: Medical transcription has been proven to be the preference of healthcare professionals for creation of patient records. Healthcare professionals are starved for time and like the convenience of being able to dictate notes in the time available to them. Moreover outsourced medical transcription service providers offer the options to healthcare professionals to retain their familiar modes of dictation. Outsourced medical transcription also offers added benefits like different document delivery modes as per the preference of the healthcare professionals
Detailed: Medical transcription allows the healthcare professionals to capture maximum information in a patient record. This comes in handy in many circumstances, by allowing the healthcare professional to ponder over the health conditions of the patient and arrive at the correct diagnosis, helps in continued care after a time lag and many other situations where maximum information can aid the treatment process.
Increasing productivity: By outsourcing medical transcription the healthcare professionals are able to maximize their productive hours by concentrating on what they specialize in- providing quality healthcare
Understanding the process: Medical transcription service providers understand the process of healthcare and can tailor their services to suit the needs of healthcare professionals. They are familiar with the requirements of each specialty and are can serve the needs of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals in the best possible way
Aids risk management: Detailed patient records play an important role in case of litigation. These provide detailed evidence about the process and quality of care provided to the patient
Applying context: Medical transcription service provider have teams of trained and experienced medical transcriptionists who can apply context to garbled/confusing audio to create accurate records
Maintaining standards: Outsourcing medical transcription helps maintain the standards of patient records. Medical transcription service providers would not only aid in maintaining standards of accuracy, turnaround time and security, they would also ensure reports are created in the formats/ templates required
Helping provide hands on care: Outsourced medical transcription services help the healthcare professionals make the most of their limited time resources and help them focus on what they do best – providing hands on quality healthcare to patients.
Apart from aiding healthcare facilities/healthcare professionals in the process of providing quality healthcare, medical transcription service providers also aid them in the commercial aspects in two ways:
- By reducing cost of transcription dramatically
- By quickening the receivables cycle
Considering the vital role played by medical transcription services, it is important to choose the right service provider.
TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!
To avail outsourced medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here
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