In this issue:

• WoundExpert® Integration Update
• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009: EHR Meaningful Use
• Supporting Reimbursement With Complete Documentation: 2009 WoundExpert Client Conference
• Effective Wound Documentation Facilitates Survey Preparedness, Risk Mitigation and Resource Management in LTC
• Net Health News

WoundExpert integration capabilities have recently expanded by adding a Scheduling interface and an Orders interface. Our HL7 Certified Interface Analysts work closely with your IT staff to design and implement integration solutions that meet your needs.

• Scheduling Interface: Provides the ability to integrate a centralized scheduling application with WoundExpert. Real-time scheduling messages will import Visit information into our application so that the patient appears on the WoundExpert calendar as soon as they are scheduled. Along with the schedule information, this interface will import general visit information such as Visit Type, Visit Location and Wound Care Physician information.
  
  
• Orders Interface: Sends requests for ancillary services (Lab, Radiology, etc) to clinical systems and provides the ability for the clinical system to send the results of the ancillary service back to WoundExpert to be displayed on the patient’s ancillary services page.Generate lists of patients by specific condition to use for quality improvement, reduction of disparities, and outreach for Eligible Providers ; Hospitals only need generate lists of patients by specific conditions

Combined with the ADT, Billing and Results interfaces, these new solutions enhance workflow and improve the quality of care.

• ADT Interface: Receives real-time patient demographic and admission information from your registration system. Registration messages and patient update messages are integrated with our application so that WoundExpert users have access to the most current patient information at all times. In addition to demographic information, such as patient address and phone number, the ADT interface imports insurance information and referring and primary care physician information.
  
  
• Billing Interface: Sends financial transactions from WoundExpert’s SuperBill documentation to your hospital or physician billing system, cutting down on coding expenses and eliminating the need for duplicate data entry.
  
  
• Results Interface: A configurable set of information is sent from WoundExpert’s patient visit documentation to your enterprise document imaging systems or EHRs, providing a fully integrated medical record for storage and retrieval by multiple care providers in your organization

WoundExpert’s broad range of integration solutions can provide wound clinics with cost savings and enhanced workflow. The WoundExpert interfaces successfully process over 12 million messages per year.

For further questions, please email Keith Bucklen, Interface Analyst and be sure to include your name and facility in your response, thank you.

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocated $20 billion in funding and incentives for providers who implement certified EMRs and use them in a “meaningful way”.  While this act has caused some confusion and debate, we at Net Health Systems are excited about the benefit it will bring to providers and patients.  Two key issues to understand are the definitions of ‘meaningful use’ and ‘certified EMR’.

Meaningful Use:  On June 16th the healthcare industry received the preliminary definition of meaningful use from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.  This definition is being refined with the final definition expected to be announced October 2009 and finalized by December 31st, 2009.  Net Health has been monitoring these definitions to ensure all our users will be able to demonstrate meaningful use on or before the deadline.  Based on the 2011 objectives, the current version of WoundExpert meets the majority of the criteria, with the remaining work already in the queue to be available during our next four releases.
As of July 10th, 2009, the 2011 objectives for Meaningful Use are:

• Use CPOE for all order s for Eligible Providers, for Hospitals 10% of all orders entered by authorizing provider.
• Implement drug-drug, drug-allergy, drug-formulary checks
• Maintain an up-to-date problem list using ICD-9 or SNOMED
• Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx) [Eligible Providers only]
• Maintain active medication list
• Maintain active medication allergy list
• Record preferred language, insurance type, gender, race, ethnicity
• Record advanced directives
• Record vital signs including height, weight, blood pressure; Calculate and display BMI
• Record smoking status
• Incorporate lab-test results into EHR as structured data
• Generate lists of patients by specific condition to use for quality improvement, reduction of disparities, and outreach for Eligible Providers ; Hospitals only need generate lists of patients by specific conditions
• Report quality measures to CMS
• Send reminders to patients per patient preference for preventive /follow up care [Eligible Providers only]
• Implement one clinical decision rule relevant to specialty or high clinical priority for Eligible Providers, for Hospitals implement one clinical decision rule related to a high priority hospital condition
• Document a progress note for each encounter [Eligible Providers only]
• Check insurance eligibility electronically from public and private payers, where possible
• Submit claims electronically to public and private payers
• Provide patients with electronic copy of their health information (including lab results, problem list, medication lists, allergies; for hospitals also provide discharge summaries and procedures) upon request
• Provide patients with timely electronic access to their health information [Eligible Providers only]
• Provide patients with an electronic copy of their discharge instructions and procedures at time of discharges, upon request [Hospitals only]
• Provide access to patient-specific educational resources
• Provide clinical summaries for patients for each encounter [Eligible Providers only]
• Capability to exchange key clinical information among providers of care  and patient authorized entities electronically (e.g., problems, medications, allergies, test results for Eligible Providers; for hospitals also provide discharge summaries and procedures)
• Perform medication reconciliation at relevant encounters and each transition of care
• Capability to submit electronic data to immunization registries and actual submission where required and accepted
• Capability to provide electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies and actual transmission according to law and practice
• Capability to provide electronic submission of reportable lab results to public health agencies and actual submission where it can be received [Hospitals only]
• Compliance with HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules
• Compliance with fair data sharing practices set forth in the Nationwide Privacy and Security Framework

Certification:  The federal government will publish guidelines for certification no later than December 31, 2009.  While there is some discussion, it is likely that the CCHIT will be selected as the sole or primary agency.  CCHIT currently offers certification for Ambulatory, Inpatient, and Emergency Department EMRs; Net Health currently offers our WoundExpert EMR software with in the Ambulatory setting while our Outcomes Tracking software is available within the Inpatient setting.   

Net Health has been working with CCHIT since 2008 in the pursuit of potential certification in the Ambulatory Care Setting and in hopes our lobbying efforts may result in CCHIT developing a newly-created specialty category for wound care.  On June 17th CCHIT held a town hall meeting to announce they were developing certification criteria for each definition of meaningful use called EHR-M.  EHR-M certification criteria are due out later this year.  With these certifications, Net Health will be positioned to offer our clients certification for meaningful use, in parallel to our exploration of the Ambulatory category.

Net Health is currently, and will continue to be, involved with HIMSS, CCHIT, and government officials to keep all WoundExpert clients ahead of the curve and develop a broader understanding of the needs of the wound care community at large.  While some of the Stimulus Act’s details remain unclear, the overall concept of certification and EMR adoption is a good one and its effects will lead to better decision making and ultimately improved patient care.  We welcome your comments and input as we proceed through the implementation of our development initiative for the Stimulus Act.

For questions please email Christopher Kohler, Director of Healthcare Information Systems, or call him directly @ 1-800-411-6281, Option 5, Extension 33.

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Our latest WoundExpert® Client Conference was held in conjunction with the 2009 SAWC Spring & WHS Conference in Grapevine, TX.

Our topic was Supporting Reimbursement With Complete Documentation facilitated by Enoch T Huang, MD, MPH&TM, FACEP, UHM/ABEM, FACCWS, Medical Director, Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine, Adventist Medical Center in Portland, OR. 

Adventist Medical Center has been a WoundExpert EMR client since 2006.

Dr. Huang addressed the documentation needs of payors requisite to complete documentation, introduced some templates and tools to facilitate documentation requirements consistent with AMA directives, and discussed some clinic work flow procedures they have identified that streamlined operations.

Due to technical difficulties with the audio, we are working with the A/V supplier to optimize the audio in producing an edited, on line video streaming version of the Dr. Huang's session, anticipated in the next couple of weeks. We will send an email to the ProgressNotes distribution informing you when it is posted and available.

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The Ohio Health Care Administration and Ohio Centers for Assisted Living (OHCA/OCAL) hosted their annual convention May 4-7, 2009, at the Columbus Convention Center.

Net Health's Amanda Linderman, LPN led the session entitled, "Effective Wound Documentation Facilitates Survey Preparedness, Risk Mitigation and Resource Management.". Amanda's session addressed CMS mandated resident wound care documentation requirements and survey compliance, sharing personal experience and "best practice" approaches to standardize wound documentation, and minimizing liability exposure.

A .PDF of her presentation can be downloaded from the OHCA/OCAL website.

For further questions, please email Amanda Linderman, LPN and be sure to include your name and facility in your response, thank you.

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Net Health Systems is pleased to announce the following new additions to our team.

Mike Milwicz, Sales Executive, South East Region, has over 20 years experience selling hospital pharmacy information , bedside point of care and clinical documentation systems with McKesson, Cerner, AmeriSource Bergen, Bridge Medical and Mediware.

Mike has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration, with a Major in Marketing, from Eastern Michigan University.