There’s a really good article on CMIO.net by Jeffrey Byers discussing a piece by Drs. David W. Bates and Asaf Bitton of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston that appeared in the April edition of HealthAffairs. The doctors basically conclude that EHRs are essential to the success of the medical home concept but that in order to be optimally effective they could use some further development in areas such as telehealth, quality and efficiency measurement, care transitions, PHRs, registries, team care and clinical decision support.

It’s great to see the association between health IT and the medical home getting some attention. It’s something MEDecision has been extensively involved in for quite a while. In fact, just a few weeks ago we conducted a webinar to discuss our experiences with care management processes in a medical home pilot program in Oklahoma. It’s an important proof point that illustrates how the industry has already begun to address some of the perceived EHR deficiencies Drs. Bates and Bitton highlight. In fact there are some really impressive technologies already out there that address most, if not all, of the issues they mention. And, of course, as the medical home, reform, ARRA and other external factors force demand, we’ll see even more advanced EHRs and health IT in general in relatively short order.

I’ll admit it. In the fall of 1999, I was one of the many IT professionals who waited until the very last minute to ensure that their company’s technology was Y2K compliant. In fact, in October and November of that year I aged significantly. Two months with virtually no sleep will do that to you.

So you think I would have learned my lesson a few years later when it was time to ensure compliance with the then-new HIPAA regulations for electronic transactions. No, once again, despite ample fair warning, my team and I kept putting it off until it was down to the wire. And once again, I aged 10 years in a matter of about six weeks.

I’m fairly certain I’m not the only one. All of you fellow regulations procrastinators out there can now make yourselves known. It’s OK.

But please, whatever you do, join me in vowing not to make the same mistake again when it comes to the looming ICD-10 deadline. Let’s learn from our past mistakes and not think of October 2013 as some far-off, distant time only to wake up one morning in July of 2013 in an utter panic. By now, we should all be well aware of what happens to he (or she) who hesitates.

Our ICD-10 implementation work has already begun here at MEDecision and, thankfully, it appears a growing number of other organizations have started too. While it may be a bit premature to finalize a fully vetted plan, my experience recently has revealed that a lot of companies have at least put the ICD-10 deadline on their proverbial radar and have begun thinking about it. That in and of itself is a pretty good place to start.

As we learned from Y2K and HIPAA, these things are scary and intimidating. And with all of our other day-to-day responsibilities monopolizing our precious time, it’s no wonder we put them off. But health care organizations, particularly insurers, have a real opportunity — now — to spare themselves a lot of grief in a few short years. When the ICD-10 switch goes on in 2013, you can’t just assume you’re going to start receiving ICD-10 claims exclusively. There is inevitably going to be some crossover, and now is the time to start planning for how to deal with that. Larger payers have an even greater challenge since many of them deal with more than one claims system.

So let’s make it a point this time to not wait until the last minute. If ICD coding is the guts of your system(s), start planning now. It’s not necessary to stop the presses and focus on this and this only, but it would behoove us all in the long run to start running some test cases to see what happens. If you get an ICD-10 claim in your system, mock it up, see what it’s going to look like and what it’s going to do. Wouldn’t you rather find out now whether it’s going to send your system into a complete meltdown or process the way you’d like it to? It’s better than waiting until you only have a matter of weeks to get things right. And don’t just make testing a one-off thing — conduct tests regularly so you can work out all of the bugs in a timely and thoughtful way.

If we all start planning now, we can all breath a collective sigh of relief when the fall of 2013 rolls around.

Read this great article by Jacob Goldstein in The Wall Street Journal – Can Technology Cure Healthcare? I think it is safe to say that we are on the cusp of a wide-scale proliferation of electronic health records. Last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act contained major incentives to encourage the meaningful use and adoption of the promising technology.

As Mr. Goldstein points out in the article, putting patients first is essential to improving the overall health of our nation. Solutions must be designed around patient aware health management systems that allow payers and providers to make timely and informed decisions on behalf of patients. We need to ensure the exchange of clinical data among all parties in the healthcare ecosystem so that each can have mutual access to actionable, real-time information that creates a complete picture of the patient. Only through interoperability, collaboration and health information exchange can we, as the healthcare technology industry, improve patients’ overall health and well-being.

Tracey Costello

Senior Vice President of Marketing