Physicians can receive up to $44,000 over a five-year period for the use of HIT

CHICAGO – As part of its continuing efforts to help physicians learn about and adopt new technology, the American Medical Association (AMA) today announced a new, free webinar series that will help physicians understand the health information technology (HIT) provisions laid out in the recently passed economic stimulus bill. The three-part series will lay out what these provisions mean for physicians and how they can take advantage of the $19 billion in funds allocated for the purchase and use of HIT. The first webinar is Thursday, May 21.

“The stimulus bill marks the first significant federal investment in HIT and offers both financial benefits for physicians and the promise of national standards that will increase the interoperability of systems,” said AMA Board Chair-Elect Rebecca J. Patchin, M.D. “As new information becomes available, the AMA will tap experts and health care leaders to review key components of the stimulus bill and offer insights on what they mean for physicians.”

The schedule for the webinar series is below.

· Stimulus 101: Basics of the Health Information Technology Provisions – May 21, 12:00 PM CT

· Stimulus 102: Update on the Health Information Technology Provisions – June 9, 2009, 12:00 PM CT

· Stimulus 103: Real World Perspectives – July 14, 2009, 12:00 PM CT
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The American Medical Association (AMA) recently launched a new online learning center to provide physicians with the information and tools they need to make informed decisions about electronic prescribing (ePrescribing). The learning center can be found at www.ama-assn.org/go/eprescribing.

“The AMA’s new ePrescribing learning center takes the guess work out of the decision-making process by giving physicians all the tools they need to decide what system is best for their practice,” said Joseph M. Heyman, MD, AMA board chairman. “At the end of last year, about 13 percent of physicians were prescribing electronically, but with the incentives available through Medicare’s ePrescribing incentive program and this new AMA resource, I’m certain that percentage will increase.”

The new online learning center includes:
• Complete information on ePrescribing vendors and features;
• Calculators to estimate time savings and determine Medicare ePrescribing incentive payments;
• The latest information on federal and state programs offering ePrescribing incentives;
• Readiness and planning tools to map out an implementation plan.
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On June 23-24, at the Union League of Philadelphia, the American Conference Institute (ACI) will be hosting a Conference on Preventing, Managing and Defending Claims of Obstetric Malpractice.

Arguably the most expensive medical malpractice cases to deal with given the economic consequences of compensating for a lifetime of medical care and economic loss as well as pain and suffering, perinatal brain injury cases carry a disproportionate share of total defense costs, indemnity payments and damages in physician liability lawsuits. Thus, it is key for professionals involved in obstetric care to have up-to-the-minute medico-legal information on obstetric malpractice lawsuits.

The Conference on Preventing, Managing and Defending Claims of Obstetric Malpractice will feature a panel of legal and medical experts from: Brigham & Women’s Hospital; Johns Hopkins Hospital; Albert Einstein Healthcare Network; AIG Domestic Claims; Albany Medical College; Heidell, Pittoni, Murphy & Bach; as well as Gair, Gair, Conason, Steigman & Mackauf.

The panels will discuss the medical and legal issues surrounding complex claims that include:
• The appropriate standard of care in urgent situations, such as shoulder dystocia, C-section and other obstetric emergencies;
• Assessing new medical standards and techniques, such as cool cap therapy, new NIH fetal monitoring standards and more;
• Predicting and identifying signs of fetal asphyxia during labor;
• Fetal monitoring and surveillance, making the right decisions based on the right information;
• Neonatal infection, metabolic disorders and timing of subsequent injury; assessing causation and the standard of care;
• Understanding the role and responsibility of the various providers along the chain of command;
• Determining the timing of an injury to determine if professional negligence really was the cause of it;
• Evaluating damages by assessing life care plans, structured settlements and more.

Register by calling 888-224-2480, faxing your registration form to 877-927-1563 or registering online at www.americanconference.com/obsmal.

The AMA has created an extensive online resource.

By the close of 2008, only about 13% of physicians were prescribing electronically. The prescription pad and pen still rule in most offices.

But doctors are getting a nudge to automate their prescribing process. Physicians who prescribe electronically for their Medicare patients will be eligible for incentive payments. This year’s bonus will be equal to 2% of all Medicare Part B pay for the year.

Before the monetary incentives there was friendly persuasion. A 2006 Institute of Medicine report called on all prescribers to have an electronic prescribing system in place by 2010, saying such systems would help reduce medication errors. In November 2008, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released a guide for doctors who plan to seek Medicare e-prescribing incentives that started this year.

Will all this be enough to get doctors to embrace e-prescribing? Hard to tell given the expense and uncertainties about choosing the right system.

The American Medical Association has help for physicians at a timely, in-depth resource that provides them with the tools and information they need to make decisions about implementing electronic prescribing in their practices.

On April 1, the AMA launched its e-prescribing learning center, a one-stop shop for what doctors need to know to navigate the proper course when considering and adopting e-prescribing (www.ama-assn.org/go/eprescribing).

The Web site spells out how e-prescribing works, what it can do for a doctor’s practice, how to get an office ready to implement it and how to choose an e-prescribing system. Many features of the online center are available only to AMA members, but some starter educational tools and information can be accessed for free by all visitors to the site.

Downloadable in-depth components include a description of Medicare’s electronic prescribing incentive program, a survey to help doctors assess their readiness to implement an e-prescribing system, and templates to guide staffing and planning for the project.
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In Washington, the Obama administration is promising to spend billions to make health care more efficient, but Jennifer Brull, a family doctor in rural Kansas, is already a step or two ahead.

A year ago, she switched her 3,000 patients from paper charts to electronic health records, a core feature of most plans for healing the nation’s ailing health system. Now, working with computers and printouts, her staff of part-time nurses and shared front-office workers has more time to help her meet the needs of patients.

“I’ll never go back to the old system,” said Dr. Brull, 37, who runs a solo practice in Plainville, Kan. “I can always look at the records by Internet, whether I am seeing patients at the nursing home or a clinic or the hospital, or even when I’m as far away as Florida. The change has been tremendously beneficial for my productivity.”

Patients are appreciative, too. Kagay Wheatley brings her 97-year-old neighbor, Charlotte Hayes, to Dr. Brull for blood tests every few weeks. “We do not have to sit and wait while the nurses search for the records,” said Ms. Wheatley, a retired school board aide who is also a patient of Dr. Brull’s. “They find the information right there on the computer, and when we leave, we get a printout of what we did and what she said.”

About 42 percent of active family doctors have installed some type of electronic health records, according to surveys and estimates by the American Academy of Family Physicians, a professional and advocacy group. One in four said they did not plan to purchase an electronic system, and many said they could not afford the $30,000 to $50,000 in start-up costs. The academy has 94,600 members, including about 60,000 in active practice.

Medical centers like the new 24-bed critical-access hospital in Plainville, connected by a walkway to Dr. Brull’s office, are also rapidly adopting electronic records.

“The use of electronic health records and being able to transmit X-rays allows us to be in contact with the whole world,” said Chuck Comeau, a hospital board member who is chief executive of Dessin Fournir, a national furniture design company that moved its head office to Plainville from Los Angeles.

Even so, 8 in 10 of all American doctors still labor in a world of paper. And some doctors said they encountered upsetting setbacks when they tried to switch to electronic records.

Michael Ferris, a 33-year-old emergency medicine physician in Parsons, Kan., said he had to give up his solo practice after he had invested $38,000 in software for systems that kept crashing and thwarting his attempts to send out electronic bills. “I was spending as much time trying to fix the computer and the billing as actually seeing patients,” he said, “and neither process was generating any revenue for me.”

Now, as director of the emergency room at the Labette County hospital in Parsons, Dr. Ferris said, “I get paid by the hour and don’t have to worry if the software is down.” But he said he expected that some day he would have to help the hospital make the transition to electronic records. “I know it is coming.”
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