June/July 2018

By the Numbers
For The Record
Vol. 30 No. 6 P. 34

£5,670
A typical American birth costs more than delivering a royal baby, reports The Economist. In 2015, the Lindo Wing—a luxurious private maternity ward in London that has often been used by the royals and which boasts a comprehensive wine list for celebrating parents—charged this amount (equivalent to $8,900) for 24 hours in a deluxe room and a non-Caesarean delivery. A survey in the same year by the International Federation of Health Plans found that the average fee for such a delivery in the United States was $10,808.

1/4
A study by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology found that 52% of US citizens were offered access to an online medical record by a health care provider or insurer in 2017, and 53% of those who were offered access viewed their records at least once in the past year. However, this fraction of individuals offered access to their online medical records did not take advantage of the opportunity because of patient privacy and security concerns.

1.13 Million
According to a Protenus report, there were 110 health data breaches in the first quarter of 2018, affecting this number of patient records. Insiders were responsible for 37% of the breaches, with family snooping being the most common insider-related breach.

36.7
Authors of the article "Improving Identification and Diagnosis of Hypertensive Patients Hiding in Plain Sight (HIPS) in Health Centers," published in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, used EHR analysis to identify patients potentially suffering from hypertension. After implementation of the algorithm-based interventions, diagnosed hypertension prevalence increased significantly from 34.5% to this percentage. A cohort of patients was tracked to assess follow-up evaluation and diagnosis rates; 65.2% completed a follow-up evaluation, of whom 31.9% received a hypertension diagnosis.

$13 Million
The first quarter of 2018 was not a kind one for Cerner. The company's net earnings declined by this amount when compared with a similar period in 2017, the firm announced recently. The reasons are not exactly mysterious: Cerner's president, Zane Burke, acknowledged during the earnings call that the delay in the VA contract contributed to the decline. However, with the VA awarding Cerner a $10 billion EHR contract in May, the rest of 2018 looks promising for the EHR vendor.

25
A Sage Growth Partners study found respondents do not feel their value-based care needs are being met. In fact, less than this percentage of providers feel their EHRs meet core KLAS criteria for value-based care. Additionally, 60% to 75% of providers indicated they are seeking third-party solutions outside their EHR for value-based care solutions. Also, 8% said they were highly dissatisfied with their EHR's value-based care functions, while 46% were somewhat satisfied.

392
There will be this number of new ICD-10-PCS codes for fiscal year 2019, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In addition, the agency announced there would be eight revision titles and 216 deleted codes.