Becker's Hospital Review

Health Information Technology 52 Only 1.8% of Hospitals Are Paperless With a Full EMR By Kathleen Roney  L ess than two percent of hospitals in the United States are paperless, meaning they have a complete electronic medical record, according to data from HIMSS' Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model. The EMRAM is an eight-step process that allows hospitals to track their progress toward meaningful use of certified EMR technology. Stage 7 under the EMRAM means a hospital has a complete EMR, the ability to share data, data warehousing and data continuity with its emergency department, ambulatory and outpatient settings. However, only 1.8 percent of hospitals had reached this stage in the third quarter of 2012. Just over 7 percent of hospitals fall in stage 6 under the EMRAM model, meaning they have physician documentation, a full clinical decision support system with variance and compliance and a full radiology picture archiving and communication system. Despite these low levels, the number of hospitals that reached stage 5 or stage 6 increased by more than 80 percent in 2011, and the amount of hospitals achieving stage 7 increased by 63 percent. The majority of hospitals — 41.3 percent— fall in stage 3. Stage 3 means the hospital's EMR has nursing/clinical documentation (flow sheets), a clinical decision support system with error checking and a picture archiving and communication system outside of radiology. In 2015, hospitals and other eligible providers will have to demonstrate meaningful use of certified EMR technology to avoid penalties by Medicare. n Report: More Than Half of Data Breaches Since 2009 Resulted From Theft, Loss By Anuja Vaidya   O ver half the breaches of protected patient information, reported to the HHS since 2009, have been a result of theft or loss, according to a report called "Breach Report 2012, Protected Health Information," by Redspin, an IT Security and consulting company. The report examined the 538 large breaches of protected health information affecting over 21.4 million patient records that have been reported to the HHS since the interim breach notification rule went into effect in 2009, as a part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act. Other key findings of the report are: • here was a 21 percent increase in the number of large breaches in T 2012 as compared to 2011, but a 77 percent  decrease in the number of patient records impacted. • ifty-seven percent of all patient records breached involved a "busiF ness associate," a third-party vendor that needs access to the protected health information to provide their services. • hirty-eight percent of incidents were a result of an unencrypted T laptop or other portable electronic devices. • he largest breach incident of 2012 resulted in 780,000 records beT ing affected. n Cerner, Epic Rate Highest in ICD-10 Preparedness, According to Providers By Anuja Vaidya A new report called "ICD-10 Perception 2012: Can Technology Relieve Readiness Issues?" by KLAS, a healthcare research firm, reveals that providers rated electronic medical record vendors Cerner, Epic and Siemens highest in their ICD-10 preparedness, while Allscripts and MEDITECH were rated the lowest, according to a news release by KLAS. The report discusses how leading providers are utilizing third-party consulting firms to help them overcome ICD-10 challenges. It also reveals that computer-assisted coding is among the technologies that providers are using for the ICD-10 transition. A majority of the market is looking to 3M for computer-assisted coding. The report is the second of a two-part series. The first part of the series called "ICD-10 Consulting: Roadmap to a Successful Transition," was released Dec. 3, 2012. The report found that 84 percent of providers had engaged a consulting firm for ICD-10 roadmap/gap analysis. n

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