Greetings! 

 

Welcome to the new IC³ Beacon Community and Meaningful Use bi-weekly newsletter!  You are a valued participant in the HealthInsight Regional Extension Center (REC) and Beacon programs.  We hope you find this series of emails educational and informative as we keep you up-to-date on recent program activities.  We look forward to working together helping you achieve your Beacon Aims and Meaningful Use goals.

 

 

BEACON COMMUNITY UPDATE

Carol Rasmussen, NP-C, CDE has been involved with diabetes education at Exodus Family Health Center since 2007. Carol is a member of the Beacon Utah Clinical Innovations Team (UCIT) and a featured speaker at the August 11^th, Beacon Learning Session (register here). She has worked with patients with diabetes since 1991 and is actively involved with the American Association of Diabetes Educators and the American Diabetes Association. FULL ARTICLE >>>

How to Take a Blood Pressure

 

Proper technique is essential in accurate blood pressure measurement. Use the following to insure you get the best measurement possible and learn how each factor can affect your blood pressure reading. FULL ARTICLE >>>

 

Other blood pressure-related articles:

(Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Program)

 

 

REC PROVIDER SPOTLIGHT- Evolutionary Healthcare

 

Evolutionary Healthcare has been working with HealthInsight for a number of years. Most recently, the clinic was involved in MCMP and is now part of the Beacon Community and the Regional Extension Center.  

 

The clinic is led by three physicians and an exceptional staff who all work hard at being paperless while trying to improve the quality of healthcare. They are currently working on getting a patient portal and are consistently making changes to improve patient care.

 

Evolutionary Healthcare has been using an EHR for many years, but made the transition to AmazingCharts in 2007, and just last week upgraded to the Meaningful Use version. They are well on their way to Meaningful Use and hope to attest in the fall.

 

Recently, Larry Jessup from the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) came in town from Washington, DC and visited the clinic. He had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Osborn, Dr. Bell, and Mayra (Office Manager). Larry received insight into their clinic, how they feel about the ONC, Meaningful Use, and HealthInsight. The clinic gave some great feedback and he was very impressed with what they are doing in terms of patient engagement and overall quality improvement.  

 

Congratulations to Evolutionary Healthcare and their continuing efforts to improve healthcare!

Stage 2 Meaningful Use Delayed

 

HHS announced on July 6th at the HIT Policy Committee meeting that the implementation of Stage 2 of Meaningful Use is delayed until 2014. This decision was made in response to feedback received from the provider and vendor communities.  The primary concern was about having sufficient time to incorporate Stage 2 into products and workflow. This does not change the regulatory schedule which is to publish the Stage 2 NPRM in January 2012 and the final NPRM in late Spring 2012.

What does this mean?

Any provider who attests to Stage 1 of Meaningful Use in 2011 or 2012 will attest to Stage 2 in 2014, instead of 2013.

Does this really affect Medicaid providers?

This does not have a direct impact on Medicaid providers, who would not have started Stage 2 until 2014 anyway: AIU in 2011, Stage 1 (90 days) in 2012 and Stage 1 (365 days) in 2013. However, indirectly, the more prepared the vendor community is, the better for everyone.

In summary, this is an FYI for Medicaid- and is good news because of the extra time to prepare your systems for capturing Stage 2 MU attestation!

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