“Meaningful use” is the buzz word within the healthcare industry because the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 which is also referred to as the Federal Stimulus Package. The ARRA provides Medicare and Medicaid incentives that are based on the adoption and “meaningful use” of certified EHR technology which is why defining and clarifying the term “meaningful use” is important to healthcare providers.

Although specific requirements for demonstrating “meaningful use” of EHR technology are continuously being defined and evaluated, HIMSS officials urge that CCHIT should be the certifying body for EHR technology. CCHIT has provided a certification process for EHR solutions to accelerate the adoption of health IT, like a “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval. CCHIT Certified® solutions simplify the adoption by reducing purchase risk and allow physicians to take advantage of available HIT incentives. As mandated by ARRA, a final “meaningful use” rule should be published by the end of 2009.

The Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) recommends the following guidelines:

1. Recognize CCHIT as the certifying body of EHRs.
2. Adopt metrics that can be reasonably captured and reported beginning in FY11/2011,* and then made increasingly stringent using intervals of not less than two years.
3. Coordinate with HITSP and IHE to create new harmonized standards and implementation guides to bridge gaps in interoperability of health information.
4. Reconcile gaps among “certified EHR technologies,” “best of breed,” and “open source” technologies.
*ARRA requires the hospital-focused definition to be effective FY11 (October 1, 2010).  For meaningful users (physicians), the definition must be effective January1, 2011.

Healthcare DPS offers certified EHR products that help physicians take advantage of available incentives, grants and reimbursement. For more information, please visit www.HealthcareDPS.com

Information regarding the HIMSS guidelines: HIMSS Guidelines

Uncategorized

Our world is evolving constantly. With the increase use of energy and decrease of natural resources, everyone must pitch in to protect the future of our planet. Like many businesses, Healthcare DPS began a movement towards more sustainable and eco-friendly business practices to benefit the environment.

The Healthcare DPS “Green” initiative began with a switch to e-signature and e-fax technology along with a reduction in energy dependence by running its primary datacenter with its lights off.  Jason Nocco, Vice President and General Manager, said, “The initiative is designed to lower the environmental impact of operating Healthcare DPS while increasing efficiency and reducing costs.”

As part of a pilot project to conserve energy and reduce costs, Healthcare DPS started running its non-collocated, New York datacenter with its lights switched off during both operating and non operating hours. The result was a 26% savings in energy costs at that facility during its first “Green” month.  “The lights don’t need to be on,” Nocco continued, “our servers, environmental systems, UPS, and network are all monitored 24*7*365.  As a result, we would be immediately alerted to any abnormal issues.”

Healthcare DPS has also taken advantage of implementing electronic fax technology and modern electronic signature technology. “From an efficiency standpoint, e-signature allows contracts between our partners and clients to be executed within minutes.  From an environmental aspect, we eliminate the need for paper used in printing, duplicating, and faxing both original and unsigned documents, eliminate the need for paper used in file folders, courier envelopes, and banker/filing boxes as well as reduce the fuel used by couriers and shippers,” said Nocco.

The success of these “Green” initiatives leads the way towards more eco-friendly business practices in the future.

Uncategorized eco-friendly, going green, green initiative, Healthcare DPS

The University of California, Berkeley, experienced a security breach when hackers attacked the campus’ health services center and retrieved confidential information such as social security numbers, health insurance information, and medical information.

In Virginia, a hacker claims to have stolen confidential medical information from the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program (VPMP) which contained patients’ personal and prescription drug information. The hacker claims to have encrypted it with a password and deleted the back-ups.
As the future of healthcare progresses to the modern age of technology, physicians must be aware of security and privacy breaches that may threaten the confidentiality of protected health information. Are your health records safe?

Constant monitoring and auditing are key factors in preventing privacy and security breaches. In addition to firewalls, encryption, and backups, facilities must have measures in place to track who has access to the information and what changes are being made, when, and why. Healthcare DPS can assess your system and provide solutions to meet all your security and privacy needs. For more information, please visit www.healthcaredps.com or speak with a representative (877) 423-7701

For the full Berkeley story http://datatheft.berkeley.edu/news.shtml
For the full Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program story http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/hacker-says-he-stole-confidential-medical-data-8-million-virginia-residents

Healthcare DPS

Medical Image Archiving presents many daunting challenges. Typically, electronic archiving of medical images requires dozens of terabytes (TBs) of digital storage and rapid access to all the images. As the amount of medical information continues to grow exponentially, retrieving information quickly and reliably becomes a challenge, especially during a medical emergency, where speed and accuracy are critical. Also, increased regulatory requirements, such as HIPAA, are mandating the retention of medical images as well as specifying rules regarding the security and privacy of this information. Maintaining archive capacities sufficient for increasing medical storage needs that comply with all the regulations becomes a budget challenge as well as a burden for practitioners.

Healthcare DPS provides a simple solution that overcomes the storage and regulation challenges faced by the medical community. Using Healthcare DPS to store, protect and manage your growing volumes of medical images provides several advantages. Our Medical Image Archiving solution efficiently consolidates medical images, improves storage, and quickly restores necessary medical information while reducing compliance risk.

To reduce costs, medical data is assigned to the most cost-effective storage tier based on specified criteria, such as recovery time requirements. To improve recovery, all data is self-contained which enables the system to quickly respond to a restore request. Additionally, our archiving solution supports HIPAA and regulatory requirements for disaster recovery planning and the storage, transmission, and protection of patient data. For example, our archiving solution produces a “destruction certificate” confirming that backed-up data was destroyed as required under the HIPAA security rule.

Using a centralized medical image archiving solution allows a provider to achieve long-term accessibility and security for all their medical data, reduce recovery time during disaster situations, and reduce long-term costs.

For more information regarding Medical Image Archiving, visit  www.healthcaredps.com/data-protection-and-archiving.html

Healthcare DPS

Often court discovery timelines are short and healthcare professionals must provide necessary information to a legal team quickly. Professionals must effectively manage litigation and regulatory scrutiny by providing lawyers with what electronically stored information (ESI) exists, where it is stored, and its level of accessibility. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Amendment details the duty to preserve and produce electronically stored information (ESI) for litigation or pending litigation. E-discovery describes the retrieval of ESI in response to legal proceeding.

Responding to a legal discovery request requires a message archive system that is indexed, available, and searchable. An efficient email archiving and e-discovery solution serves as an insurance policy against the consequences of the inability to locate a message in response to a legal request.

Healthcare DPS offers a fast and accurate e-discovery response. The hosted email archiving solution enables healthcare providers to overcome the challenges of ensuring the security, privacy, and availability of protected health information through an affordable and simplified solution. Rather than dealing with the burden of email compliance and storage management, healthcare providers can focus on the quality of patient care. For details regarding E-Discovery, please visit: www.healthcaredps.com/email-compliance.html

Healthcare DPS e-discovery, email archive, Healthcare DPS, legal discovery, message archive, protected health information

The HIPAA Security Rule mandates that every covered entity is required to follow the Contingency Plan Standard must determine its risk in the event of an emergency that would result in a loss of operations. Those who have not taken steps to meet the Safeguards, Standards, and Implementation Specifications outlined in HIPAA are vulnerable to potential civil and criminal penalties.

The Contingency Plan Standard is one security rule required by HIPAA. Under this standard, all covered entities must establish and implement policies and procedures for responding to emergencies or other occurrences which could damage systems containing electronic protected health information (EPHI). Understanding the detailed rules and regulations of contingency planning can be overwhelming. For example, there are some specifications which are required and others which are recommended. Misinterpreting the information can lead to non-compliance and ultimately can take money out of your pocket.

Subsequent to disseminating the information and understanding the requirements, another daunting task approaches. The next step is to establish and implement a plan to satisfy the requirements. Contingency plans could range from simple manual processes to highly complex automated procedures. As each business is unique, a contingency plan must be specific to the nature and configuration of a practice.

Healthcare DPS removes the complexity of contingency planning and provides a blueprint for responding to emergencies. By addressing all the components required and suggested by HIPAA through a review and analysis of each organization, Healthcare DPS devises customized plans that define procedures tailored specifically to your practice, whether it is small or large.

For more information regarding Simplified Contingency Plans or the difference between required & recommended implementation specifications, visit Contingency Planning http://www.healthcaredps.com/contingency-planning.html

Healthcare DPS Contingency Planning, data backup, EPHI, Healthcare DPS, HIPAA, hipaa compliance, hipaa safeguards, implementation specifications, Security Rule

With the passage of Obama’s stimulus package, physicians gain additional incentive in the form of US government funding. The funding is designed to accelerate Electronic Health Record (EHR) use, ultimately increasing the quality of patient care by reducing cost, enhancing revenue, and optimizing efficiency. In order to begin receiving the incentive payment being offered by the government, healthcare professionals must implement a certified electronic health record system. One particularly enticing incentive in the stimulus package is the 2% Medicare reimbursement which is available to all providers who use an e-Prescription software such as E-Prescribe.

Healthcare DPS offers a CCHIT Certified® EHR solution that includes e-Prescription thus allowing its clients to take advantage of the 2% Medicare reimbursement. Aside from the cost savings, the benefits of using e-Prescription include: creating prescriptions quickly and easily, improving patient safety, reducing adverse drug interactions and ensuring correct dosages.

In addition to e-Prescription, the Healthcare DPS EHR solution includes many other features including: Document Management, Drug Interaction Alerts, e-Labs, e-Radiology, Encounter Notes & Template Creation, Patient Charts, Disease Management, Care Plans, Continuing Care Documents, Patient Portals & Handouts, and Remote Access.              

All of these great features are incorporated into a user-friendly system that has the functionality and flexibility to suite the way your practice works best; the application adapts to your current workflow and integrates into existing practice management and billing software. The easy-to-use features increase efficiency allowing workers to focus on more personalized patient care rather than tedious paperwork.

The Healthcare DPS EHR system meets your practice’s expectations of being an affordable and simple transition to paperless records, ultimately saving time and money, and providing enhanced patient care. For details regarding Electronic Health Records, please visit: http://www.healthcaredps.com/practice-management-and-ehr.html

Healthcare DPS certified EHR, e-Prescribe, EHR, EHR implementation, electronic medical records, Healthcare DPS, medicare, stimulus package

Healthcare DPS tailors comprehensive Health IT solutions that empower providers to improve profitability and to increase their clients’ quality of care, serving group practices, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and hospitals. Healthcare DPS solutions reduce cost, enhance revenue, and optimize efficiency, resulting in improved quality of life for both providers and their patients.

The complete list of Healthcare DPS products includes: Electronic Health Records (EHR), Practice Management, Medical Billing, E-mail Archiving and E-Discovery, Medical Image Archiving, HIPAA Compliance Documentation, Communications Services which include phone, internet, and television services, as well as technology support and services such as Data Backup, Network Monitoring, Consulting, and Storage. For detailed information, please visit www.healthcaredps.com

Healthcare DPS is a division of Data Storage Corporation (OTC BB: DTST); a disaster recovery and business continuity solutions firm founded in 2001. Additional information about Data Storage Corporation is available on its website: www.dscorp.net

Healthcare DPS Archiving, Business Continuity Planning, Data Storage Corporation, Disaster Recovery Planning, Healthcare Data Protection Services, Healthcare DPS