CMIO: Don't Wait for RHIOs

HDM Breaking News, October 21, 2008

Because regional health information organizations will take several years to become fully functional, hospitals should take other steps now to improve the exchange of data with area physicians, one chief medical information officer advises.

Group practices who are taking a wait-and-see attitude about automating clinical records and exchanging data with hospitals until they get help from RHIOs "are going to be waiting until at least 2014 for full functionality," says Leland Babitch, CMIO at Detroit (Mich.) Medical Center, an eight-hospital delivery system.

As a result, the medical center is moving forward with providing subsidies to area practices to defray part of the cost of implementing electronic health records software from Cerner Corp., Kansas City, Mo. The medical center is integrating the outpatient software with its inpatient clinical system from Cerner to ease the exchange of data.

Exceptions to the so-called Stark law coupled with I.T. safe harbors to federal anti-kickback statutes enable hospitals to subsidize certain EHR costs for physicians.

In a presentation at the Medical Group Management Association conference in San Diego, Babitch portrayed this approach as the least expensive way "to build physician affiliation and loyalty without buying their practice."

So far, the medical center has implemented the record system at 10 practices, and another 90 have expressed interest, Babitch says. "There is a window of opportunity to get to physicians in the community before our competitors do," the CMIO says.

The medical center is paying up to 85% of the cost of the outpatient records software, Babitch says, joking that, as a result, a practice can acquire the software "for less than the price of a Starbucks addiction."

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:

• Electronic Health Records
• Health Information Exchange
• Hospitals
• Group Practices