EHRs to MOC: Physicians tackle practice issues in new policy

During the third day of policymaking at the 2016 AMA Annual Meeting, physicians discussed a range of topics that affect their practice of medicine. Among them were maintenance of certification (MOC) concerns, the desire to improve patient safety amid the difficulties of electronic health records (EHR) and the need to ensure coverage of telemedicine services. Minimizing EHR-related patient safety risks EHRs vendors have been required to make changes to EHR products at such a rapid pace in order to comply with required meaningful use certification that there hasn’t been enough time to align new functionalities with efficient practice work flows. Poor usability and a lack of interoperability between EHR systems carry patient safety risks and efforts at the local and state levels have been ineffective to reduce these risks. In order to improve patient safety, physicians Tuesday adopted policy to support efforts of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to implement a Health IT Safety Center to minimize EHR-related patient safety risks through collection, aggregation and analysis of data reported from EHR-related adverse patient-safety events. Ensuring payment parity for telemedicine services Telemedicine and telehealth services offer an opportunity for physicians to improve health outcomes among their existing patients, particularly for those with chronic conditions or who need routine follow-up care but have mobility issues. For instance, when physici...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news