AHIMA Conference News

MD-IT Inks Deal With Georgia MTSO

MD-IT, a provider of medical documentation software and technology to ambulatory clinics and physician groups, recently announced new medical transcription services organization (MTSO) partner InHealth Clinical Documentation Solutions, based in Atlanta.

InHealth will offer the MD-IT platform and EMR as a “premium package” for current and future clients that want to move to a comprehensive EMR solution.

“What I really like about the MD-IT platform is it’s built around the workflow of the physician, and I think that’s paramount to everything,” said Scott Manwaring, InHealth’s director of sales and business development. “There are too many systems out there that really force or pigeonhole physicians into using one specific method for clinical documentation, and that’s causing a lot of issues in healthcare today.”

InHealth and MD-IT aim to preserve practice efficiency through the use of dictation. Through MD-IT’s technology, discrete data can be extracted from the resulting narrative note, preserving the original thoughts and actions of the physician that can be utilized in a variety of ways.

After the industry hastily adopted EMRs and tried to do away with a narrative note, Manwaring sees companies incorporating partial-dictation back into the EMR workflow as a way to regain provider efficiency and allow for a richer, more comprehensive patient story.

“We’ve got a lot of people coming to us as new customers that are currently on an EMR and they need help. A lot of physicians went to an EMR too fast, destroying their workflow, and they need help getting their productivity back,” he says.

— Source: MD-IT

 

Granite Healthcare Offers Anatomy and Physiology for Coders Course

Granite Healthcare Network will be offering an anatomy and physiology for coders course to medical coders affiliated with Granite Healthcare Network hospitals in New Hampshire. This ICD-10 preparedness training is being offered in partnership with Barry Libman Inc, a provider of HIM coding, audits, and educational training programs.

Granite Healthcare Network is a joint venture organization of five New Hampshire hospitals: Concord Hospital, Elliot Hospital, LRGHealthcare, Southern NH Medical Center, and Wentworth Douglass Hospital.

Thecourse was developed to educate medical record coders preparing for the transition to ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS. The 12-week course provides a comprehensive and complete review of the major body systems as well as coverage of common diseases and disorders, frequently prescribed drugs, and common laboratory tests. The course uses the Fundamentals of Anatomy & Physiology textbook and supplemental CD by Donald Rizzo. Also included are lesson notes, multimedia videos, interactive educational games, and full-color anatomical drawings to amplify course content. Multiple quizzes and comprehensive weekly assessments assure mastery of the material.

The course has received prior approval for 24 CEUs from the AHIMA and12 CEUs from AAPC.

— Source: Granite Healthcare Network

 

Precyse Offers Electronic CDI Through NLC-Driven Coding Solution

Precyse is offering precyseCDI, a tool that enables integrated clinical documentation improvement (CDI) with coding workflow and electronically facilitates the identification of gaps and areas for improvement in clinical documentation. precyseCDI is a component of precyseCode, a computer assisted- and natural language comprehension (NLC)-driven intelligent workflow solution.

precyseCode is a single comprehensive platform to optimize coding processes, accelerate revenue cycles, and support healthcare organizations as they navigate compliance challenges, implement CDI initiatives, migrate to ICD-10, and address the challenges of health reform and meaningful use. As part of precyseCode, precyseCDI provides a means of ensuring CDI objectives are met through more explicit and accurate clinical documentation, a reduced risk of coding errors, more timely and appropriate reimbursement, improved audit ratings and physician profiles, and heightened regulatory compliance.

"Given the increased detail and complexity of ICD-10, accuracy will be paramount. If clinical documentation isn't done correctly, then coding can't be done correctly, and if coding isn't done correctly, healthcare providers won't be reimbursed properly,” said Chris Powell, president of Precyse. “Armed with precyseCode and precyseCDI, our customers will begin putting into place a CDI program that will help them prepare for the increased documentation and coding accuracy that ICD-10 will demand."

PrecyseCDI uses precyseCode NLC to review clinical documents and, in addition to assigning the appropriate ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes, can identify gaps and inaccuracies and suggest opportunities for improvement. And since NLC allows the coding environment to actually learn with every encounter, its knowledgebase, and thus its CDI capabilities, are constantly growing.

"With precyseCDI, healthcare providers can electronically focus on CDI efforts right now and start working with their clinical staff to prime them for ICD-10," said Powell.

— Source: Precyse

 

Ricoh Showcases Health Information Solutions

Ricoh Americas Corporation, a provider of digital office equipment and advanced document management solutions, spotlighted its range of solutions to better manage healthcare information at the recent AHIMA convention.

Better focus on document management and information infrastructure has the potential to yield significant financial benefits. In one case, the use of Ricoh Healthcare services saved the University of Louisville Hospital $1.6 million over a five-year period.

At the conference, Ricoh unveiled its Ricoh Rapid Process Assessment (RPA) business process analysis methodology. Ricoh RPA is designed as a first step for helping clients with disparate technologies and manual paper-based processes jump-start their improvement initiatives.

Ricoh RPA uncovers a healthcare organization's most pressing needs in information management staffing, technology, and methods, providing a current state picture and road map to help drive measurable improvement. Subsequent process redesign, reengineering, and enabling technologies can help eliminate silos that slow information delivery and burden clinicians and administrators.

Just one instrument in the Ricoh Healthcare toolset, Ricoh RPA includes discrete benchmarking for comparison with other hospital systems, predictive modeling, and process analytics that verify findings and identify cost-saving opportunities. Designed specifically for healthcare, Ricoh RPA uniquely tailors assessments for every department and process within a healthcare organization. It also leverages Six Sigma quality management principles.

Solutions include a performance management framework with key performance indicators for continuous improvement. And because assessments often cover processes that cross departmental boundaries, recommendations may include consolidation of operations into shared services infrastructures that create economies of scale.

Ricoh can work with organizations to prescribe customized department-specific and healthcare enterprisewide solutions for managed document services and enterprise document management, as well as on-site and off-site managed services, technical services and support, and customized workflow design and implementation. RPA and other Ricoh Healthcare solutions are specifically designed to help organizations do the following:

• improve operational processes and workflow efficiency;

• share electronic patient records across the healthcare enterprise;

• remotely access patient information;

• improve patient data capture for meaningful use;

• better contain or reduce document management costs; and

• establish a more efficient and effective information infrastructure.

— Source: Ricoh Americas Corporation

 

SourceHOV Teams With 3M to Provide Outsourced Coding Solution

SourceHOV, LLC, a provider of business process solutions and knowledge process outsourcing, has signed an agreement with 3M Health Information Systems to make its outsourced coding resources, provided through SourceHOV's subsidiary LexiCode Corporation, available with 3M's complete suite of ICD-10 products and services. 3M will offer SourceHOV's qualified, credentialed coding resources to help healthcare facilities maintain current coding workflow and reduce the risk of backlogs during the ICD-10 transition.

The critical shortage of qualified coders has long been an industry reality. With ICD-10 implementation only two years away, healthcare organizations must deal with a limited supply of coders and coder retirement while needing additional coders to support ICD-10 training and time for current staff to gain competency in ICD-10. Without additional resources, these factors could lead to coding slowdowns, posing risk to facility revenue and profitability.

"Access to qualified, credentialed coding professionals is one of the most critical concerns facing our clients as they transition to ICD-10," said JaeLynn Williams, senior vice president of marketing and client operations for 3M Health Information Systems. "SourceHOV has a proven track record of supporting clients with highly skilled and knowledgeable coders when and where they're needed most."

— Source: SourceHOV