Industry Insight

ScribeAmerica’s Expanded Offerings Include Coding Solution

ScribeAmerica is pleased to introduce HealthChannels, a new group of three distinct companies assisting hospitals, health care systems, and private practices navigate an increasingly complex web of clinical and back-office clerical processes.

With the introduction of HealthChannels, the medical scribe company has expanded to become a complete end-to-end provider of health care solutions designed to improve clinical outcomes by providing highly skilled clerical support and technology solutions. With 12,000 employees across 50 states and three countries, HealthChannels is positioned to help providers meet increased demands around mission-critical activities ranging from EMR documentation to patient navigation to medical billing and coding.

Prospectively, these solutions will be provided through the following three highly specialized companies:

ScribeAmerica: The nation’s most frequently used medical scribe company, touching the lives of more than 30 million patients through more than 1,400 partner providers. ScribeAmerica’s medical scribes are trained to reduce administrative responsibilities, thereby enhancing provider productivity and enabling physicians to focus on delivering high-quality patient care.

QueueLogix: A groundbreaking software and services organization that closes the gap between back-office activities and frontline patient encounters. QueueLogix transforms tedious, time-consuming systems into real-time and meaningful collaboration, empowering providers to simultaneously complete medical documentation, coding, and other mission-critical activities in record time.

CareThrough: Providing specialized patient care and population health management strategies to help providers achieve better health results at decreased costs. CareThrough’s full suite of solutions ranges from identifying at-risk patients and monitoring care gaps for closure to patient alert notifications and strategies for keeping referrals in established networks.

— Source: HealthChannels

Spok Survey Finds Increase in Mobility Planning
but Gaps in Critical Infrastructure

Spok, Inc recently released the findings of their fifth annual mobility strategies in health care survey. The survey is designed to assess mobile workflow enablement progress and trends in hospitals across the country. More than 550 health care organizations responded to this year’s questions about mobile strategy documentation, bring your own device policies, communications infrastructure, and information security.

“The results this year provide empirical data to support what we hear directly from our customers,” says Vincent D. Kelly, president and CEO of Spok Holdings, Inc. “The majority of hospitals and health systems are formalizing a mobility strategy, which helps define the goals and framework for all mobile-related projects.” This framework includes how to measure project goals, what integrations are necessary to meet those goals, as well as the details of what mobile devices will be supported.

The survey shows that mobile strategy plans and use cases continue to grow, with an emphasis on smartphones and apps. It also reveals that there is a large gap in the infrastructure necessary to support these strategies and devices, including wireless network coverage and enterprise mobility management solutions. “Fifty-four percent of respondents answered that Wi-Fi coverage is a current challenge for mobile device users, and 47% cited cellular coverage challenges. This gap will be critical for hospitals to address in an effort to mitigate security risks and enhance communications,” says Hemant Goel, president of Spok, Inc.

Survey findings reveal that the diversity of mobile devices is increasing as new types of devices (such as wearables) are added to the mix and existing tools remain firmly entrenched in clinicians’ workflows. “As the survey demonstrates, pagers continue to play a major role in communications,” Kelly adds. “That’s why, as part of our portfolio, we maintain support for the paging demands of the market, including the introduction of our encrypted pager. And this mobile device diversity confirms the strategic direction we have chosen with our Spok Care Connect platform to offer a unified solution that brings together clinical communications systems and devices across provider organizations.”

The survey also shows that more hospitals are hiring outside experts to help with clinical mobility, from planning through technology implementations and rollout. “Mobility enablement is far more complicated than just giving users an app. We’ve seen demand for our professional services group grow steadily as more customers look for help to achieve success with their mobility goals,” Goel says.

— Source: Spok, Inc

Kansas, Texas Health Information Exchanges Connect

Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN) has expanded its horizons, as well as connections, to the South.

KHIN, one of the largest, most successful health information exchanges (HIEs) in the country, announced that it is now connected to Health Information Exchange Texas (HIETexas), a “network of networks,” made available by the Texas Health Services Authority (THSA). THSA connects local HIEs within Texas to each other and with networks across the nation through the eHealth Exchange.

“KHIN is pleased to connect to HIETexas through the eHealth Exchange, which is a secure, nationwide connectivity network,” says Laura McCrary, EdD, executive director of KHIN. “Many Kansas patients receive care in Texas. This connection helps to ensure that Texas physicians have all of the patients’ health records from Kansas and vice versa.”

There are several hospitals and clinics in Texas that are now connected to KHIN. This benefits patients who have or will receive care in both Texas and Kansas; it also helps Kansas and Texas providers meet the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requirements for meaningful use.

“The connection between HIETexas and KHIN will enhance medical care by connecting hundreds of hospitals and thousands of doctors across state lines,” says George Gooch, CEO of THSA. “Many Kansas residents travel to Texas for advanced medical treatments at one of the state’s world-class medical facilities, and this connection will allow those patients’ health care providers to have immediate access to information they need to make better-informed decisions.”

“This critical health information improves patient safety and reduces duplicative tests as Texas physicians know what health care a patient has already received in Kansas,” McCrary says. “We are looking forward to completing our next eHealth Exchange connection with the Veterans Administration.”

— Source: Kansas Health Information Network

Association of Health Information Outsourcing Services
Names New President

The Association of Health Information Outsourcing Services (AHIOS), an organization of HIM outsourcing service companies that promote excellence in managing the risk and compliance issues around disclosure of protected health information (PHI), announces the appointment of its new president, Jim Bailey, and its new executive committee.

As president of AHIOS, Bailey will lead the association’s initiatives to strengthen, enhance and raise awareness of the value of the HIM outsourcing industry as it evolves to a more technology-based process, while establishing standards of excellence for the entire industry to ensure quality assurance and compliance with ever-changing, complex regulations. Bailey currently serves as the president of BACTES Imaging Solutions and is general manager of its parent company Sharecare, an online health and wellness platform. Bailey has also served as president-elect of AHIOS and continues to be a member of the association’s executive committee.

Serving with Bailey on the AHIOS executive committee are the following:

• Stephen Hynes, treasurer and CEO of MRO and a past president of AHIOS;
• Chad Tillman, secretary and vice president of client services at ScanSTAT;
• Kyle Probst, legislative chair and counsel and director of government relations for CIOX Health;
• Charlie Saponaro, marketing chair and president and CEO of MRA Health Information Services;
• Oz Munoz, website coordinator and release-of-information vice president for STAT Imaging Solutions;
• Mariella Twiggs, education chair and director of training and compliance for MRO; and
• Dick Logan, emeritus membership and a founder and past president and executive director of AHIOS.

“As president, my goal is to continue the AHIOS mission of increasing awareness of the value of partnering with AHIOS member organizations to help ensure that the health care industry has access to highly skilled, certified professionals when considering initiatives surrounding the secure and compliant exchange of PHI,” Bailey says.

Bailey has been recognized for his strategic vision and for creating business solutions that scale. He has more than 20 years of global sales and corporate management experience in cutting-edge technology markets. Prior to his position at BACTES, he served as vice president of strategic solutions at Autodesk, and prior to that, COO of Alchip.