parenting and child development

female narrator: thank youfor joining our session "what is health informationtechnology and meaningful use?" this is the first learningmodule in a three-part series to provide informationand guidance around health informationtechnology, or health it. the other sessions titlesin this series are: "key roles in implementing "a certified completeelectronic health record," or ehr,

and "key rolesin maintaining and optimizing your certified complete ehr." workingin a community health center or other safety-net setting, you will encountervarious technologies being used to improve patients' health. we want to introduce youto health it and help you understandits role in your organization. this module has been developedas an orientation to health it

for staff working in safety-nethealth care settings, such ascommunity health centers, federally qualifiedhealth centers, and freestanding clinics. these modules are designed for usein a variety of settings. in an organizationthat is already live on an ehr, these modules can enhance the new employeeorientation process.

alternately, this sessioncould serve as an orientation module for a team that is embarkingon their ehr implementation. finally, health centers focusing on the cmsmeaningful use incentive program would also benefitfrom this module. before we begin,please take a few moments to pause this sessionand discuss these two questions with your team.

this will helpfacilitate discussion about the topicsthat are about to be presented. first,in your own words, define healthinformation technology. then list three technologiesyou use today. these questions were createdto test your knowledge of these conceptsbefore they're presented. the screen will flash firstwith the questions, and we'll give youa couple of moments

to jot your answers down. you'll be able to checkif your answers are correct. thank youfor taking the time to answerthese pre-module questions. question 1: meaningful use is a statewideinitiative that is aimed at better connectinghealth insurance companies to beneficiaries. true or false?

question 2: the hitech,or health information technology for economicand clinical health act, allocates billions of dollars toward the developmentof health care it and is a part of arra, the american recoveryand reinvestment act. the goals of meaningful use are: to improve quality,safety, efficiency,

and reductionof health disparities; to engage patientsand families; to improve care coordination; or d: all of the above. question 4: what does "cms" stand for? question 5: which programs are underthe cms ehr incentive program? select all that apply:

medicare,medicaid, blue cross blue shield, and united health care. question 6: there are certain core,menu set, and clinical quality measuresthat need to be met in order to receiveincentive payments. question 7: geomapping is a process usedby physicians and researchers

that uses softwareto help better understand our environmentand protect us as a community. and the final question,question 8: telemedicine is the practiceof using technologies to search for healthysupplements in space. let's take a lookat your pre-module answers. this is false. it is a national initiative that is aimedat promoting responsible use

of a certified complete ehr to ultimately improvehealth care and reduction of costs. which is the american recoveryand reinvestment act. this is true. question 3: and d: all of the above. the answer is d. it is the centers for medicareand medicaid services.

question 5. the answer is a and b,medicare and medicaid. in orderto receive payments. is this true or false? and it's true. and that is true. the answer is a. question 8: this answer is false.

telemedicine is the useof telecommunication and information technologies in order to provide clinicalhealth care at a distance. we will look at healthinformation technology, or health it, from three differentperspectives at a health center: the patient, the provider, and a health centeradministrator.

each employee will sharehow her job function relates to our learning objectivesin this session. they will help usdefine health it, identify waysin which it is used by patientsand health care practitioners, and understandthe meaningful use initiative and its impact on health it. in today's world,technology can be used to communicate, to inform,and to educate.

it helps us with allof the following: keeping in touchwith our family and friends; getting updates on the latestnews, sports, and politics; sharing pictures; and downloading musicand videos. technology connects usto the world. as you will learn, technology is becomingincreasingly important and accessibleto clinicians and patients.

it gives providerslegible documentation, securely storespatient information, and provides a mechanismto better coordinate care. the term "health informationtechnology," or health it, is a broad conceptthat encompasses an array of technologies to store, share,and analyze health information. health information technologyincorporates the use of computer hardwareand software

to privately and securely store,retrieve, and share patient healthand medical information. health it can be usedby everyone to better communicate with yourprovider or health care team, to learn and share informationabout your health, and to take actions that willimprove your quality of life. more and more,health care providers are using health itto improve patient care. using health it,everyone has a role

on the teamthat promotes staying healthy. the american recoveryand reinvestment act, otherwise known as arra, was signedon february 17, 2009. title xiii of arra, called the health informationtechnology or hitech, allocated $19.2 billion towardthe development of health it. this act seeksto bolster health it

to improve the deliveryof health care in the us by incentivizingthe implementation of certified completeelectronic health records. and it provides standardsto use ehrs in a meaningful way. with various provisionsand regulations, the act provides assistance,tools, and resources for health care providersto allow for the implementationand utilization of electronic health records.

this was a major initiative in transformingour health delivery system, and it's had a tremendous impacton health centers. the goalsof meaningful use are and to reducehealth disparities; to improve care coordination, improved populationand public health; and to assure adequate privacyand security protections for personal health information.

this is directly in alignmentwith our goals as community health centersand safety-net providers. what is the vision forthe stages of meaningful use? the three stagesof meaningful use include ambitiousbut achievable goals that enableeligible professionals to make incremental progress in adopting and implementing a certified completeelectronic health record.

stage 1 consistsof transferring data to the ehr and being ableto share information, including electronic copies and visit summariesfor patients. we want to focus on ensuring that we are capturingthe data electronically. stage 2 includes standardssuch as online access for patientsto their health information

and electronic healthinformation exchange, or hie,between providers. are we providing quality care as efficiently and effectivelyas possible? and stage 3focuses on demonstrating that the quality of health carehas been improved. are patientsactually getting better? depending on the organization, eligible professionals,

eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals qualify for incentivesfrom medicare or medicaid. there are differencesin the requirements and the levelof incentive dollars that can be earnedbetween the two programs. the meaningful use initiative incentivizescertain health care workers as eligible professionals.

some examplesof eligible professionals include physicians,advanced nurse practitioners, dentists,and physician assistants who deliver services in a federally qualifiedhealth center or rural health clinic that is ledby a physician assistant. you can learn moreabout the ehr incentive programs from the centers for medicareand medicaid services,

or cms. the meaningful useinitiative calls for eligible professionalsto meet certain core, menu set,and clinical quality measures examplesof core measures include recording vital signs and generatingclinical visit summaries. examples of menu set measuresinclude implementingdrug formulary checks

and submitting dataelectronically to immunization registries. examples of clinicalquality measures include appropriate testingfor children with pharyngitis and prenatal care:screening for hiv. health center staff,including the front desk, medical assistants, nurses,and providers, must work togetherto achieve these goals. your organizationwill assist you

in getting the trainingyou need to understand and performon these measures. let's meeta group of individuals who've been impactedby health it and bythe meaningful use program. meet roberta,dr. johnson, and star from southeastcommunity health center. each of them are consumersof health information technology in some capacity.

today they will talkabout health it from their ownunique perspective. please meet roberta, a patient at southeastcommunity health center. our physician is dr. johnson, and our administrator is star. she's the electronichealth record manager. - hi, everyone,i'm roberta. i started hearingabout health it a few weeks ago

from my provider's office. there was a bigcountdown calendar in the waiting room, along with flyers describingwhat was coming up. staff wore pins that said,"ask me," so i could talk with anyoneabout how my paper chart would be convertedinto an electronic chart. the biggest changethat i noticed was that computerswere set up in every exam room,

and the nurses and providerswere using it during my visit. i actually satnext to the doctor and watched him pull upall my information into the computer. i was able to seewhat kinds of labs and tests i would need in the future. pretty cool. when i sawmy daughter's pediatrician at the health center,

he pulled up her growth chartright on the screen. at the end of the visit, he asked me to getthe visit summary from the ma, and it actually includedall of her growth percentiles and listed out the parentingand child development topics we had discussedduring our visit. i can't believe all of thiswas with one click of a button. the health center staff and i discussedadditional electronic tools

that are available to help memanage my family's health. through the health center'spatient portal, which is a new technologythey are using, i can sign into a secure site and request an appointment, update my health history, or send a questionto my provider. i can even seemy daughter's immunizations and whether or notshe's due for one.

i also have an appthat reminds me when i needto take my daily medications. i'm testing this out, and it seemsto work pretty well. i'm hearingthat patients living far away are receiving adviceand treatment from my doctors. the nurse informed me that thiswas called telemedicine. i think it's great that otherpeople in other served areas can reach good care virtually.

it's exciting to see how muchhealth care is changing. - hi there,my name is sarah johnson, and i have been a physicianat southeast community since i started hereduring my residency. our health centersimplemented a certified electronichealth record approximately 18 months ago. a certified complete ehr is an electronic versionof the patient's medical history

that is maintainedby the provider over time and may include all of the keyadministrative/clinical data relevant to that person's careunder a particular provider, including demographics,progress notes, problems, medications,vital signs, past medical history,immunizations, laboratory data,and radiology reports. as a clinicianand the ehr clinical champion, my primary focuswas on the design

and implementationof our new system, thinking throughhow it would impact patients and the quality of carewe deliver. it took a core teamof dedicated individuals to reviewall of our current processes, otherwise known as workflows, and go througha redesign process. we discussed how our workwould be documented in an electronic chart

and how we could usethe new ehr to communicate betteras a team. it wasn't an easy transition, but our team has continuedto meet regularly and optimize our useof the system. i am so glad to haveimmediate access to the patients' records. no more hunting aroundfor that paper chart. i can also viewimportant information

on a single graphor flow sheet. this provides me,at a glance, an overall pictureof patients' health. i can show graphsof important information to my patients,like their body mass index. over time,it helps us make decisions about what to doto stay healthy. the ehr allows meto quickly create and run reportson specific patient populations.

i am able to seehow many of my patients are due for a mammogramor physical exam. i can contact them and make surethey make an appointment. i also make surethat i provide my patients with clinical visit summary. these summariesare an overview of what we talked aboutduring the visit. not only am i meetingone of the core measures for meaningful useby giving it to them,

but my patients benefitfrom having a written copy of their care plan and what they are due forin the future. there are so many benefitsof an ehr. for example,with fully functional ehrs, all members of the teamhave ready access to the latest information, allowing for more coordinatedpatient-centered care. the information gatheredin the primary care setting

can be more quickly transmittedto an emergency department, potentially alerting to a patient'slife-threatening allergy so the treatment can beadministered appropriately, even if the patientis unconscious. a patient can log onto his record and see the trend of the labresults over the last year, which can help motivate himto make his medications and keep upwith the lifestyle changes

that have improvedthe numbers. the lab results run last weekare already in the record to tell the specialistwhat she needs to know, minimizing the needto order duplicate tests. the clinician's notesfrom the patient's hospital stay can help informthe discharge instructions and follow-up care and enable the patientsto move from one care settingto another more smoothly.

i know that the meaningful useincentive program is important for documenting and giving patients accessto information electronically. certified completed ehrs help us not onlyto improve patient outcomes, but we use ehrs as a tool for enhancing our ongoingquality improvement efforts. the objectives of our qualityimprovement committees have evolved over time sinceadopting the certified ehr.

the quality improvement teamis comprised of key team members from all clinical departments, for their work directly impactsthe measures we are monitoring. through the ehr, we are ableto pull real-time data routinely to trackimportant core measures and see how individualclinicians perform over time, in addition to tracking ouroverall patient health outcomes. we document our effortsmade to improve those numbers so we are able to see whatinterventions are successful

and which are not successful. the ehr helps tell ushow well we're doing. as a provider,i want to ensure that my team has documentedthe proper demographics, that we have reviewed problems, that medications and allergiesare updated at each visit, and that we talk to patients about the importanceof quitting smoking. we not only review our itemsbecause it is required.

we do itbecause it is necessary to improveour patients' health. our health centeris very focused on the meaningful useinitiative. i'm an eligible professional, meaning that my health centercan receive additional funds to support health it if i meet certain measuresof the program. the goal of the program

is to help meand other users of the ehr record accuratehealth information and adopt systems that will ultimately improvehealth outcomes. in our center,the meaningful use program has just been rolled into our ongoing qualityimprovement initiatives. to bolstermy health center's success in the meaningful use program,

i have to understand the intentof the program and the measures, i have to knowwhere to document those measures exactlyin the chart, and i have to monitorhow i'm doing my running real-time reports to see if i'm meetingthose measures. it's been an incredible journeywatching my health center go live on our certifiedelectronic health record. now we're constantly tryingto find new ways

to improve its usefor our benefit. - hi,my name is star, and i led the ehr implementationteam at my health center. i worked with key staffon this project for several months. during this time, we discussed the roleof the ehr in our clinic, what functionalityis available, how it supports us,

and, most importantly,how it helps our patients. we reviewed and redesignedhealth center processes, or workflows,to make them more efficient. it was importantthat the health record was accessibleto our patients, so the patient portalwas a perfect solution. now that that that systemis in place, the real workand fun begins. maintenance of the certified ehris quite like a car.

for a car to run smoothly, there are certain thingsthat have to happen: check the engine, test the brakes, make sure the oil is changed, fill up the gas tank, and, of course,you have to drive the car. for our ehr to continueto be a useful tool, our team still comes together

to discuss what's workingand what needs to be improved. topics often includereviewing the budget to see what other technologieswould benefit us, training both newand current users, changing workflowsto make them more efficient, reviewing the clinical templatesthat our providers use, and talking about useof new features, called secondaryfunctionalities, like electronic prescribing.

if i am doing my job well, our clinicianswill become meaningful users of the electronic health record. as the ehr manager,i have an important role in my health center'smeaningful use initiative. i completed attestation that our health centerhas adopted, implemented, or upgradedto a certified complete ehr. i know and understandthe intent

behind the meaningful usemeasures. i help to train providerson where to document so they can meet the measures. i create and run reportsspecific to meaningful use. the reports i run can be donein real time. a certified ehr allowsfor real-time data analysis to identify opportunitiesfor interventions and proactive outreach attempts for individualswho haven't come in

for important preventive care, such as mammogramor pap smear. and finally, i submitthe meaningful use data to the government, meeting all deadlines,of course. narrator: as we heardfrom our patient, provider,and ehr manager, there are so many healthinformation technologies currently used today.

certified complete ehrspromote comprehensive and legible documentationof patient health. telemedicine allows patientsand providers to communicate with expertsin distant locations. patient portalsare used by patients to type in their ownhealth information, retrieve their health records, and communicatewith their care teams. e-prescribing comes in handy

for the providersand patients alike. providers can send and receiveprescription requests to pharmacies, which creates efficiencies through avoidinglost prescriptions, reducing errorsdue to handwriting, and minimizing the number of faxed prescriptionrenewal requests showing upin the provider mailbox.

patients benefit as wellwith this technology once they establisha preferred pharmacy. other technologiesare available to help improve patient care. personal health toolshelp patients track their fitnessor medication schedule. there are apps availablefor your smartphones for that. health-relatedinformational websites can be used to learn aboutand improve health.

you do want to make surethat it's a trusted website. healthfinder.govis an example of one of those good,secure sites. email and text messages can remind patientsabout appointments or help managecertain chronic conditions. and online communitiescan help people connect with one anotherto try to maximize good health, such as during pregnancy,

or to respond to concernsabout poor health. through online communities, you can share information with and emotionally supportothers facing similar concerns about a particular diseaseor disability. finally,there are other types of health information technologybeing used today to protect us as a community and to understandour environment.

one such process,called geomapping, requires use of a software tool to look at the correlation between food accessin an area and how that will affectdiet-related diseases like obesity or diabetes. or public health professionalsuse it when reviewingenvironmental disasters or an incidence of a disease,like cancer, nearby.

it is always goodto remember how our papermedical records looked. we have gone from this to this. certified complete ehrs exist in attempt to organizeour health documentation and make it readableand reliable for all caregivers. with a certified complete ehr, we can pull useful dataout of the record

to share it with the care team,clinicians, and other health center staff. it makes a big differencewhen we share this type of patient-leveland population-level data with all members of the team. they see the impacttheir work has on how patientsare improving. let's face it: health information technologyis awesome.

so where can you goto get started? please check outsome of the following links to learn more abouthealth information technology and meaningful use.

thank you for joining us. please make sure to check outour other education modules on implementationand maintenance of a certified completeelectronic health record.