OmniMD Achieves EHNAC e-Prescribing of Controlled Substances Certificate for Prescribing Applications

Certification ensures adherence to data processing standards and compliance with security infrastructure and integrity requirements for all e-Prescribing transactions

Tarrytown, NY – December 16, 2013 – OmniMD, a healthcare solution of Integrated Systems Management, Inc. announced today that it has been certified with the e-Prescribing of Controlled Substances Certificate Program for Prescribing Applications (EPCSCP-Prescribing) from the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC). EHNAC’s program demonstrates the operational integrity of companies that use e-prescribing, by affirming compliance with industry regulations and all necessary standards for transaction timeliness, security and privacy with new prescriptions and renewals. Through the consultative review process, EHNAC evaluated OmniMD’s electronic prescribing and fax-based prescribing transactions in the areas of confidentiality enforcement, level-of-service and escalation procedures, outcome-related metrics, security infrastructures and the ability to comply with industry-standard data formats. The thorough certification process demonstrates compliance with stringent DEA regulations and adherence to strict standards and participation in the comprehensive, objective evaluation of the organization’s business. 

“The growth of e-prescribing in recent years has reached a strong uptick not only due to meaningful use measures, but because of the industry’s critical need for advancement of care and transitioning to electronic health records and processes,” says Lee Barrett, executive director of EHNAC. “Privacy, security and confidentiality continue to top the list of concerns for solution providers and their customers. OmniMD’s EHNAC EPCSCP-Prescribing certification is a significant achievement in ensuring full confidence in the integrity of their e-prescribing system and processes, and we are pleased to congratulate them.”

OmniMD is a comprehensive Ambulatory Electronic Health Record, Revenue Cycle Management and Health Information Exchange solution serving all the states of United States.  OmniMD’s ePrescribing is a Surescript’s White Coat Quality certified solution. With the EHNAC EPCSCP accreditation, OmniMD will be able to enable physicians electronically prescribe controlled substance with all the safety measures in place.

“EHNAC’s thorough accreditation process prompted us to risk assess administrative, physical, procedural and technological aspects of our organization and implement the required safeguards.  This accreditation is important not only for EPCS program but to be on top of HIPAA and HITECH regulations providing patient safety, security and privacy of the information.” quoted Divan Dave,CEO at OmniMD.

About OmniMD

OmniMD (a division of Integrated Systems Management, Inc.) is a national electronic health record software company with thousands of providers in more than 40 states and five countries. OmniMD’s emr software is cloud based and represents state of the art solution in the medical software industry. The Tarrytown, N.Y.-based company has 120 programmers and 15 physicians on staff who work to make the product excellent surpassing the industry requirements

About EHNAC

The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) is a voluntary, self-governing standards development organization (SDO) established to develop standard criteria and accredit organizations that electronically exchange healthcare data. These entities include e-prescribing and EPCS solution providers, electronic health networks, financial services firms, health information exchanges, health information service providers, medical billers, third-party administrators, management service organizations, outsourced service providers, payers and vendors.

EHNAC was founded in 1993 and is a tax-exempt 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization. Guided by peer evaluation, the EHNAC accreditation process promotes quality service, innovation, cooperation and open competition in healthcare. To learn more, visit www.ehnac.org, contact info@ehnac.org, or connect with us on Twitter, YouTubeand LinkedIn.

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Press contact information:

OmniMD Marketing

(914) 332-5590 (office) Ext: 167

(914) 909-5280 (Fax)

marketing@omnimd.com

OmniMD EHR Earns Surescripts White Coat of Quality for 2012

TARRYTOWN, NY, January 3, 2013--OmniMD™, a division of Integrated Systems Management Inc., announced that its OmniMD electronic health record (EHR) has earned the Surescripts® White Coat of Quality distinction for technology vendors for 2012.

"Earning the Surescripts White Coat of Quality for 2012 for OmniMD EHR is an important recognition that we uphold the highest standards of quality in e-prescribing," said Divan Da've, CEO. "Very few EHRs have achieved this distinction. We are dedicated to continuous improvement of our products, and the White Coat of Quality for 2012 is a tribute to our team's work."

OmniMD serves more than 11,000 users with complete electronic medical record (EMR)/EHR software, cloud-based or enterprise. Surescripts is an important component of OmniMD's complete EHR, Da've said.

OmniMD's EHR previously completed Surescripts Gold certification. The resulting Gold Solution Provider status is granted to vendors with software products that surpass Surescripts' baseline product certification to meet criteria that demonstrate a higher level of commitment to e-prescribing. OmniMD was one of only nine vendors to attain that status in 2010.

The Surescripts White Coat of Quality distinction for technology vendors is a critical part of Surescripts' continuous quality improvement program. The White Coat recognizes technology vendors that uphold the highest standards of clinical quality in e-prescribing. E-prescribing saves lives, improves efficiency and reduces the cost of healthcare for all.

About OmniMD
OmniMD, headquartered in Tarrytown, NY, is a division of Integrated Systems Management, Inc., which is a leader in software development and information technology consulting since 1989. OmniEHR™, OmniPM™ and OmniMD Services offer unparalleled reliability, ease-of-use, efficiency, interoperability, and customizability. OmniMD v.11.2 is ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certified as a Complete EHR and is also CCHIT Certified® 2011 for Ambulatory EHR with a 5-Star usability rating.

OmniMD offers a comprehensive set of services such as Revenue Cycle Management (RCM), medical transcription, document scanning and indexing, a patient portal, patient reminders, IT and networking, and eligibility verification as part of an integrated solution to help practices effectively address their financial, administrative, clinical, and regulatory needs. For more information, please visit http://www.omnimd.com.

Contact:
Connie Jones
Marketing Manager, OmniMD
914-332-5590 x116
cjones@omnimd.com

EMR Market Expected To Increase Growth

While the sales growth in electronic medical record (EMR) systems has been slower than anticipated due to confusion over vendor qualifications and federal guidelines, the EMR market did grow in 2010 and it should see much better years ahead, according to a report from Kalorama Information.

The value of the market for EMRs was about $15.7 billion in 2010, according to the New York-based healthcare market research company in its latest report, “EMR 2011: The Market for Electronic Medical Record Systems.”

The EMR growth rate in 2010 was 13.6 percent–just above the rate in 2009 (10 percent). These rates were less, though, than predicted by Kalorama researchers (it had predicted about a 15 percent growth for both years). However, the rates may be improving as physician adoption improves and more incentive checks for EMR adoption under meaningful use guidelines are sent out.

Kalorama is predicting that adoption and upgrading activities will be “brisk” in coming years. As new systems are sold, companies will earn revenues from existing clients in servicing and consulting–resulting in a market growth rate of 18 to 20 percent for the next two years.

“We think that while progress was made in physician adoption and in vendor sales, there is still a lot more potential,” said Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information, in a statement. “There are still a considerable number of physicians who need to be fully functional and hospitals that have to improve their stage ranking.”

Source : http://www.emrspecialists.com/2011/03/emr-market-expected-to-increase-growth/

Study: Most Americans support EMRs

CHICAGO – Seventy-eight percent of Americans favor the use of electronic medical records, according to a recent study by NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent research organization.

The study was published in the February edition of the journal HSR: Health Services Research.

Researchers say this report is different because most previous studies of EMRs have focused on the attitudes of clinicians or health organizations. Surprisingly few have focused on the attitudes of consumers toward health IT and, of those, none were based on a sample that fully represents the American people.

Key findings of the study are:

* Fifty-nine percent believe EMRs could reduce health costs
* Seventy-two percent support sharing of health care information among providers
* Eighty percent favored use of e-prescribing
* Seventy-nine percent thought that personal health records would help patients to be better informed about their health.
* Despite the fact that 48 percent of Americans are concerned about the privacy of medical records, fully 64 percent said that the benefits of EMRs outweigh privacy concerns
* The study also found that Americans aren’t without their reservations. Forty-four percent said they are not willing to pay to increase the use of health IT, and 57 percent said that use of health IT would make no difference in their choice of a physician.

Individuals with lower income and those who have less familiarity with electronic technology have less favorable attitudes towards health IT, the study found. Researchers say this implies that some of the populations that are most likely to benefit from health IT may be least open-minded about it.

“Our core finding is that a large majority of Americans support use of health IT to improve healthcare and safety, and reduce costs, which suggests that government and industry efforts to increase the effectiveness and use of health IT are generally consistent with the public’s wishes,” said Dan Gaylin, NORC’s executive vice president for Research, and the lead author of the study. “But there is still room for efforts to demonstrate the advantages of health IT among some important demographic groups.”

Source : http://www.emrspecialists.com/2011/02/study-most-americans-support-emrs/

Patient-Centered Medical Home Requires an EMR System

Patient-centered medical homes have become all the rage in the healthcare industry these days. The big push is coming from payers who want to cut costs and provider organizations who want primary care physicians to have a bigger say in the care of their patients. No matter who is driving the financial and clinical model, the train isn’t leaving the station, so to speak, without health IT to power it.

At a primary-care practice in St. Louis, Mo., both patients and their families are seeing firsthand how an electronic medical record (EMR) system documents patient treatment and applies clinical decision support and analytics to tailor a patient’s treatment plan.

PCMHs are not all the same, and the Des Peres Internal Medicine office further personalizes treatment by having a nurse practitioner and social worker as part of the PCMH team. One of the Des Peres Internal Medicine physicians said that one of the goals of the PCMH is to increase patient access to care. That could mean access to the social worker via telephone. It also gives patients the extra channel of communicating or completing tasks such as making an appointment, filling a prescription or entering patient vitals via a patient portal.

One of the best benefits of an EMR in a PCMH is the streamlining of care delivery, which includes the elimination of duplicative tests. Most patients in a PCMH likely have multiple chronic conditions that a care team must manage. If patients see multiple specialists on their own, who is coordinating the care? Even if the coordination is done through a primary-care physician, without an EMR to aggregate data and document what happens in every specialist office, the amount of administrative and clinical paperwork would be overwhelming.

Another benefit is empowering patients, which can often translate into taking better care of themselves, especially when they have their up-to-date patient information available to them via the patient portal and clinical decision support and analytics to support their entire care team.

Source : http://www.emrspecialists.com/2011/02/patient-centered-medical-home-requires-an-emr-system/

CMS Clarifies Hospital Patient Requirements Under Meaningful Use

Last week, CMS revised an online frequently asked questions site regarding provisions in the meaningful use ehr program that affect patient-reporting requirements for hospitals, AHA News reports.

Under the 2009 economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health records can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.

According to the revised FAQ site, eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals have two choices concerning the type of patients to consider for Stage 1 rules of meaningful use ehr:

• The “Observation Services method” includes patients who are admitted directly to an inpatient setting, patients who arrive in an emergency department and then are taken to an inpatient department, and patients who receive treatment in an ED and are given observation care.
• The “All ED Visits method” includes patients who receive care in and are discharged from an ED.
  

The FAQ section was revised based on feedback from hospitals that earlier guidance was not clear about which observation services can be counted.

The revision recognizes that some hospitals are prioritizing EHR adoption in their EDs, while others are concentrating on deployments in inpatient departments, according to AHA News (AHA News, 12/2).

Source : http://www.myemrstimulus.com/cms-clarifies-hospital-patient-requirements-under-meaningful-use/

EMR Spending Expected to Double in 4 years

Government incentives for using electronic medical records will result in spending on systems doubling by 2015, according to a report by IDC Health Insights. However, the study notes that much of that growth will come closer to end of that projected period, because vendors are having trouble keeping up with the orders.

Total EMR spending, which is expected to grow from $1.9 billion in 2009 to $3.8 billion by 2015, is about twice the growth rate analysts are seeing over the health information technology market and the general IT market, said Judy Hanover, research director of provider IT strategies for the Framingham, Mass.-based market research company and co-author of the report.

The report notes that a separate IDC survey in August 2010 found that 44% of health care organizations plan to accelerate or aggressively accelerate their plans to deploy EMRs because of financial incentives in the 2009 economic stimulus package. The stimulus provided incentives of up to $44,000 under Medicare and nearly $64,000 under Medicaid for meaningful use of an EMR.

But this rapid deployment is causing a vendor backlog that has resulted in unanticipated delays of up to six months for some practices and hospitals. Hanover said this has been a bigger issue for inpatient system deployments, but analysts are starting to see it on the ambulatory side as well.

The authors of the report predicted that the largest chunk of EMR investments will come in 2015. Not only is the backlog expected to cause delays, but some physicians will put off purchasing until it gets closer to 2015, when incentives turn to penalties.

The forecast shows clinics and physician practices will spend $335 million on EMRs in 2011 and $490 million in 2015. Ambulatory EMR spending overall was $633 million in 2009 and is expected to reach $1.4 billion in 2015.

Making an early decision on an EMR will help ensure that staff members are available for its installation, Hanover said. Practices might want to consider looking at third-party vendors if their primary vendors are experiencing a backlog, she said. Many third parties can provide installation and training services with the help of the vendor, she said.

After 2015, vendors are expected to enter a “maintenance cycle” in which revenue will come mostly from replacement systems or upgrades. Not only could the government require EMRs to perform more functions than they do today to qualify for incentives, health system reform may have an impact.

“We do expect to see, as health care reform goes into effect, a massive consolidation in the provider community in terms of acquisitions and reductions in the total number of providers,” Hanover said. “And that will drive some replacements and upgrading and reinvestment in EMRs.”

Source : http://www.emrspecialists.com/2011/02/emr-spending-expected-to-double-in-4-years/