Health Care IT: The Latest from the Obama Team

By now you've probably caught wind of Obama's advocacy of health care IT -- exciting news for doctors and EMR vendors alike. According to President Obama, our shared goal of improved efficiency, connectivity, and cost-effectiveness is achievable through widespread EMR adoption.

Most recently, Congress has approved of allocating $19 billion toward health care IT -- specifically, transforming paper charts into their electronic form -- as part of a greater $100 billion push for better, more widespread health care coverage. (Read more...)

Moreover, Congress has declared that physicians who use electronic medical records are eligible for up to $44,000 in incentive payments, which will be delivered over a four or five-year period as of 2011. Early birds who begin using EMR by December 31, 2010 or 2011 are eligible for an $18,000 first-year payment, followed by $12,000, $8,000, $4,000 and $2,000 in subsequent years. If practices begin use by December 31, 2012, payments in years 2-5 are the same, but their first-year payment is reduced to $15,000. The reception of this EMR incentive, however, will preclude physicians from collecting additional money for e-prescribing. As for penalties, those who do not adopt HIT incur a 1 percent penalty in their Medicare fee schedule payments in 2015, 2 percent in 2016, 3 percent in 2017, and 3 percent every year beyond that.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, we continue to speculate on how exactly, in practical terms, the Obama team will aid in the implementation of this plan for digitized health records. Indeed, IO Practiceware believes in the value of some form of standardization for EMRs -- to enable and promote practice interconnectivity -- but is wary of the roadblocks posed by CCHIT's limited definition of a "certified" EMR system.

In the meantime, we applaude the Obama administration for encouraging EMR adoption through monetary incentive, enabling the emergence and implementation of specialty-specific EMRs like IO Practiceware.

What do you think? Contact Obama's team or write to your state's senator.

In the meantime, you can check out some related articles: Obama's Big Idea: Digital Health Records, from CNN.com or our previous Blog post on Obama.

IOInfo: How To Clean Your Touch Screen

Let's face it: all that touching can make you feel...dirty.

So get cleaning!

Any standard glass cleaner can be used to clean the IO Touch Screen, but be sure to avoid products containing ammonia.

Always spray the glass cleaner on the cloth or towel first and then clean the Touch Screen. Glass cleaner sprayed directly on the monitor could possibly leak inside a non-sealed unit and cause damage.

Dirt and fingerprints do not affect the operation of a properly sealed AccuTouch or IntelliTouch touch display.  

Which means if you clean your IO Touch Screen effectively, you'll never have to wash your hands or trim your nails again!   Your patients may object, but your Touch Screen won't.

Help Us Revise Our Website

IO Practiceware's Company Website is undergoing a number of changes.  

We're trying to determine how exhaustively one can (or should) represent an EMR or PMS system via the World Wide Web.  We're like moody adolescents: we go back and forth between wanting to tell you everything and wanting to be as concise as possible, and wanting you to mind your own business, Mom! and then wanting to paint our nails and talk on the phone and go to the prom and [insert adolescent cliché].

Because, seriously -- trying to get you to like our multi-faceted and expansive EMR and PMS system just by looking at our website is like trying to get you to marry this guy named Neville based on his Facebook profile.

We'd like your input!  You there.  Yes, you.  We're wondering:

What information is most crucial to you when you're looking online for an EMR or practice management system?  What purpose should that company's website serve for you -- should it be a preliminary introduction, a "preview" of the software, or a comprehensive representation of the software?

Leave us a comment, send us an email, or give us a call (212) 844-0105.

Yours in Truth,

IO Practiceware

From the archives: A testimonial

Don't just take it from us, read here about one practice's successful implementation of IO Practiceware.  

(Of course, in the two years that have past since its publication, IO has made significant changes and improvements; still, this article might give you some useful perspective.)