Institute:Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Workforce Training Curriculum
Component:Introduction to Health Care and Public Health in the U.S.
Unit:Financing Health Care - Part 2
Lecture:Methods of Controlling Rising Medical Costs
Slide content:Health Information Technology Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) Reward ($$$) for meaningful use of EHR EHR Facilitates Coordination of care Support providers Clinical decision support (CDS) Clinical practice guidelines/EBM Shared information (health information exchange) Error avoidance 11
Slide notes:Health information technology, or HIT, in conjunction with evidence-based medicine, offered an opportunity to slow health care expenditures. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH, authorized the federal government to take a leadership role in developing standards to allow for the nationwide electronic exchange and use of health information to improve quality and coordination of care. It will provide savings through the reduction of medical errors and duplicate care. The HITECH Act set meaningful use of interoperable electronic health record, or EHR, adoption in the health care system as a critical national goal and incentivized EHR adoption. The goal is not adoption alone but 'meaningful use' of EHRsthat is, their use by providers to achieve significant improvements in care. In order to receive the EHR stimulus money, the HITECH act requires doctors to show meaningful use of an EHR system. As of October 2016 , there are no penalty provisions for Medicaid. Since 2015, hospitals and doctors not using electronic health records have been subject to financial penalties under Medicare. An EHR facilitates the coordination of care and can support providers through the use of clinical decision support, or CDS, based upon the clinical practice guidelines applicable in a particular clinical situation. CDS is the real-time delivery of information that could aid in the diagnosis or management of the patient as the physician uses the electronic medical record. Physicians receive reminders that may help them make appropriate decisions regarding the use of health care resources for the diagnosis and management of the patient. The use of CDS has the potential to lower costs by avoiding diagnostic expenses such as duplicate testing and/or procedures that have only a marginal value in aiding the decision-making process. It aids management of patients by avoiding errors, for example, prescribing a medication to which the patient has an allergy or which may adversely interact with another medication the patient is already taking. Real-time decision making may avoid the additional expense associated with these errors. HIT, further supports lowering costs through health information exchange by permitting access to records through the sharing of information among providers, and decreasing the potential of duplication of procedures and services. Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 4.0 11