Dr. Mirro's Milestone

Gary Baldwin, Editorial Director
Health Data Management Magazine, July 1, 2009

Cardiologist Michael Mirro, M.D., loves to talk about the virtues of digital documentation, enthusiastically describing how his EHR system enables him to keep in touch with his colleagues at Fort Wayne Cardiology from anywhere in the world. His group is saving enormous sums of money each year as well, nearly $100,000 annually on reduced transcription and chart pulls. Yet, it is a relatively small amount of financial reward that his system has enabled which he seems most proud of.

His EHR, from local vendor Medical Informatics Engineering, enables the practice to track quality metrics. Mirro's group used the metrics to participate in Medicare's PQRI, or Physician Quality Reporting Incentive, program. It offers financial bonuses to physicians who uphold certain quality measures. "Only 16% of physicians nationally participated and among them, only 2% received the maximum reimbursement," he says. "Because of our electronic technology, we were able to receive the maximum."

That translated to $3,800 per physician for the first six months of the program. Mirro and his colleagues provided data on three performance measures, including beta blocker therapy in patients with congestive heart failure. "Once you have the electronic tool, it's very easy to collect the data from your record," he says.

Mirro's next project is to participate in a data sharing venture sponsored by the American College of Cardiology called IC3, short for "improving continuous cardiac care." Fort Wayne Cardiology is beginning to transmit data to the ACC, which will create a data warehouse and ultimately enable its members to view physician report cards. The reports will show members how they stack up against one another in treating patients.

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