Industry Insight

HIT Use by Physicians, Hospitals More Than Doubles Since 2012

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently announced that more than one-half of all physicians and other eligible providers have received Medicare or Medicaid incentive payments for adopting or meaningfully using EHRs. HHS has met and exceeded its goal for 50% of physician offices and 80% of eligible hospitals to have EHRs by the end of 2013.

Since the Obama administration started encouraging providers to adopt EHRs, usage has increased dramatically. According to a 2012 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey, the percentage of physicians using an advanced EHR system was just 17% in 2008. Today, more than 50% of eligible professionals (mostly physicians) have demonstrated meaningful use and received an incentive payment. For hospitals, just 9% had adopted EHRs in 2008, but today, more than 80% have demonstrated meaningful use of EHRs.

As of the end of April 2013, more than 291,000 eligible professionals and more than 3,800 eligible hospitals have received incentive payments from the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs.

— Source: Health and Human Services

 

MedeAnalytics Names Andrew Hurd CEO

MedeAnalytics, a provider of health care performance management solutions, has named Andrew Hurd as the company’s CEO. Hurd will spearhead the company’s continued growth, promoting MedeAnalytics’ solutions in the health care data analytics market. Mike Gallagher, former CEO, will continue to serve as MedeAnalytics’ executive chairman.

Hurd brings more than 25 years of HIT experience and leadership to MedeAnalytics, including product and market innovation and a track record of building strong strategic partnerships. He was previously CEO of Epocrates, a mobile platform for clinical content and practice tools at the point of care, which was recently purchased by athenahealth. Prior to Epocrates, Hurd served as chairman and CEO of Carefx, which was acquired by Harris Corporation in 2011. Before Carefx, Hurd held senior management positions at WebMD and QuadraMed.

— Source: MedeAnalytics

 

Patient Privacy Rights Appoints Gropper as CTO

Patient Privacy Rights, a civil society organization advocating for personal health autonomy and control, appointed Adrian Gropper, MD, as its first chief technology officer (CTO). Gropper is an expert in the regulated medical device field and an experienced medical informatics executive. He has a long record of contributing to the development of state and national health information standards and policy.

As CTO of one of the earliest PHR companies, MedCommons, he actively participated in most of the PHR policy and standards initiatives of the past decade. Working with federal initiatives and the Markle Foundation, he helped create the Direct Project’s secure e-mail system and the Blue Button technologies to enable patient access to EHRs. More recently, Gropper helped a public-private consortium create the Blue Button+ system for patient-mediated health information exchange.

He contributed to the 2012 Massachusetts health payment reform legislation and also is active as an advisor to the Massachusetts Health Information Exchange, serves on the Massachusetts Medical Society’s IT committee and the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace Identity Ecosystem Steering Group health care working group, and participates in several other public and industry initiatives where he advocates for patients and the primacy of the physician-patient compact.

— Source: Patient Privacy Rights

 

Precyse Account Executive Elected FHIMA President

Anita Doupnik, RHIA, Precyse account executive, was elected president of the Florida Health Information Management Association (FHIMA). During this three-year term, Doupnik will serve as the association’s president-elect from 2013 to 2014, president from 2014 to 2015, and past-president from 2015 to 2016.

FHIMA's new leadership will take their offices starting July 23, 2013, when they are inducted during the FHIMA annual conference in Orlando. This year, as president-elect, Doupnik will focus on keeping the lines of communication open with the association’s membership, including the leaders of the nine regional component associations. She also will help FHIMA members with educational opportunities and will oversee the organization’s leadership conference being held in August.

Doupnik’s health care experience spans 25 years, including expertise in consulting, project management, business development, sales, and marketing. In her current position, she’s responsible for the total customer relationship with Precyse’s early adopter precyseCode computer-assisted coding and precyseCDI clinical documentation improvement technology clients. She also is responsible for maintaining effective long-term relationships at the senior level with key decision makers, ensuring client retention, satisfaction, and strategic growth.

— Source: Precyse