The rising cost of health care is creating a shift toward new care models that promote health prevention and wellness. This shift focuses on changing the way health care is delivered as well as where delivery occurs. Mobile health technology has served as a catalyst for this transformation enabling care delivery in the outpatient setting while keeping individuals linked to health professionals. Mobile health technology reduces health care costs via monitoring and intervention before conditions become acute preventing associated complications and hospitalization. Sensor technology and mobile applications facilitate knowledge and empowerment creating a patient centric care model focused on health improvement. Mobile health is poised to alleviate …show more content…
For the purposes of this paper the term mobile health technology will include some characteristics of the varying terminologies leaning toward a broader understanding of mobile health (mHealth) as defined at the first mHealth summit in 2009. mHealth is defined as the delivery of healthcare services through mobile communication devices (As cited by Torgan, 2009). mHealth creates a participatory environment and helps to facilitate individual responsibility over health care and prevention. mHealth is becoming increasingly more important as the health care industry shifts to new care models that focus on prevention and …show more content…
This technology fits well with as industry looking for new care models to help alleviate the financial and physical burden created by chronic diseases. Mobile health technology is allowing for a shift of care from the acute-care, hospital setting to rehabilitation centers, patient residences, and skilled nursing facilities. This becomes crucial as CMS expanded its Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program to include five conditions: chronic lung problems, heart failure, pneumonia, heart attack, and elective hip and knee replacements (Rau, 2014a). Hospitals can be penalized up to three percent of Medicare payments due to hospital readmissions that occur within thirty days of discharge. According to Rau (2014b), 18 percent of Medicare patients in 2013 were readmitted within a 30 day period costing Medicare roughly $26 billion, $17 billion of which comes from avoidable readmissions. The financial strain associated with chronic illness has catalyzed a movement toward using technology in a meaningful manner to improve health quality. Meaningful use is forcing entities to use certified electronic health records (EHR) in order to improve care coordination and quality. mHealth serves an extension of the electronic record enabling remote data capture that can be monitored in order to improve health outcomes and prevent
The federal government has taken a stance to standardized care by creating incentive programs that are mandated under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009. This act encourages healthcare providers and healthcare institutions to adopt Meaningful use in order to receive incentives from Medicare and Medicaid. Meaningful use is the adoption of a certified health record system that acquires or obtains specified objectives about a patient. The objectives or measures are considered gold standard practices with the EHR system. Examples of the measures include data entry of vital signs, demographics, allergies, entering medical orders, providing patients with electronic copies of their records, and many more pertinent information regarding the patient (Friedman et al, 2013, p.1560).
Thus, reducing administrative work gives an opportunity to clinicians to spend more time with their patients. Through health informatics, some medical procedures can be automated, saving money for the health care budget. Research by Blumenthal and Tavenner (2010) states that, “The widespread use of electronic health records (EHRs) in the United States is inevitable. EHRs will improve caregivers' decisions and patients' outcomes. Once patients experience the benefits of this technology, they will demand nothing less from their providers.
Many new technologies are being used in health organizations across the nations, which are being utilized to help improve the quality of health care. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) play a critical role in improving access, quality and efficiency of healthcare ("Electronic health records," 2014). In order to assist in expanding the use of EHR’s, in 2011 The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), instituted a EHR incentive program called the Meaningful use Program. This program was instituted to encourage and expand the use of the HER, by providing health professional and health organizations yearly incentive payments when they demonstrate meaningful use of the EHR ("Medicare and medicaid," 2014). The Meaningful use program will be explored including its’ implications for nurses, nursing, national policy, how the population health data relates to Meaningful use data collection in various stages and finally recommendations for beneficial improvement for patient outcomes and population health and more.
“Meaningful Use” implemented in July, 2010, set criteria’s for physicians and hospitals to adhere, in order to qualify for certain financial incentives and to be deemed meaningful users (MU) of the EMR. Meaningful use in healthcare is defined as using certified electronic health record to improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce mortality and morbidity. There are 3 stages of meaningful use implementation. The requirements for the 3 stages are spread out over a period of 5 years. MU mandates that physicians meet 15 core objectives and hospitals meet 14 core objectives (Hoffman & Pudgurski, 2011). The goal is to in-cooperate the patient and family in their health, empower autonomy to make decisions while improving care in all population.
Unfortunately, the quality of health care in America is flawed. Information technology (IT) offers the potential to address the industry’s most pressing dilemmas: care fragmentation, medical errors, and rising costs. The leading example of this is the electronic health record (EHR). An EHR, as explained by HealthIT.gov (n.d.), is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. It includes, but is not limited to, medical history, diagnoses, medications, and treatment plans. The EHR, then, serves as a resource that aids clinicians in decision-making by providing comprehensive patient information.
Healthcare professionals associated with medical billing and coding know the progress the technology has made so far. In the last few decades, medical billing and coding has switched from being a paper-based system to a computerized format. Under HIPAA laws, medical practitioners had to develop new software in order to send out electronic bills. With the advent of electronic medical records (EMR), with one touch of a button, doctors, Nurse Practitioners and PAs can gain access to all the care a patient has ever received from every healthcare facility the patients visited previously and can figure out possible illnesses. This enables statistical documentation of the population as a whole as well. EMR can also make the healthcare system more transparent and allow integration with reimbursement data. As the healthcare system changes, this will prevent unnecessary costs and make it easier to get the reimbursements needed to treat a patient.
“An electronic health record (EHR) is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. EHRs are real-time, patient-centered records that make information available instantly and securely to authorized users.” (healthit.gov) The EHR mandate was created “to share information with other health care providers and organizations – such as laboratories, specialists, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, emergency facilities, and school and workplace clinics – so they contain information from all clinicians involved in a patient’s care.” ("Providers & Professionals | HealthIT.gov", n.d., p. 1) The process has proved to be quite challenging for providers. As an incentive, the government began issuing payments to those providers who “meaningfully use certified electronic health record (EHR) technology.” (hhs.gov) There are three stages that providers must progress through in order to receive theses financial incentives. Stage one is the initial stage and is met with the creation and implementation of the HER in the business. Stage two “increases health information exchange between providers.” ("United States Department of Health and Human Services | HHS.gov", n.d., p. 1) Stage three will be the continuation and expansion of the “meaningful use objectives.” ("United States Department of Health and Human Services | HHS.gov", n.d., p. 1) The hospital, where I work, initiated the HER mandate many years ago. In this paper, I will discuss the progression and the challenges that my hospital encountered while implementing the EHR mandate.
Advances in technology have influences our society at home, work and in our health care. It all started with online banking, atm cards, and availability of children’s grades online, and buying tickets for social outings. There was nothing electronic about going the doctor’s office. Health care cost has been rising and medical errors resulting in loss of life cried for change. As technologies advanced, the process to reduce medical errors and protect important health care information was evolving. In January 2004, President Bush announced in the State of the Union address the plan to launch an electronic health record (EHR) within the next ten years (American Healthtech, 2012).
Improving health is in the best interest of everyone, including non-health professionals. Health managers need to be constantly looking for ways to improve access to health care, the quality of the care, and cost containment. Often, the biggest barriers to accessing healthcare are cost and location. Lower income individuals just do not have the resources to have optimal healthcare, or cannot take the time away from employment to deal with health issues. One potential solution to help with these problems could be “telehealth.”
There are countless benefits to having a cell phone. A few of these benefits are pleasure, escape, relaxation, inclusion, control, and affection (Jin 612). In the healthcare industry, cell phones are gaining popularity. They’re being used as a medium for clinical assessment and intervention, managing commuter stress, reducing examination anxiety, countering battlefield stress, enhancing emotional self-awareness and socially supportive behavior, and many other things. Cell phones are also used as a means to send out patient reminders about appointments, disease monitoring and management, and to provide the patient education (Sansone 33).
Health Information Technology (HIT) is finally a way for the health care organization to become current and modernized their patient’s records and information electronically. HIT allows patient’s information, such as labs, medication, appointments to be accessed electronically by patients, family members, caregivers and other health care workers to better organize the patient’s treatment plan to ensure a better outcome and service delivery. “The text states, “HIT is not one specific product, but refers to various components, including computers, software, and devices, that function in a larger sociotechnical system, including hardware and software, working together in an organization that involves people, processes and workflows” (Knickman,
While it can cause harm, technology has many good qualities. Health care facilities can work together efficiently to use social media to engage patients to maintain health care needs and promote treatment options worldwide. Healthcare professional can also teach other doctors and nurses through Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. Social media can create innovation and gives the whole medical field a educational value which should be embraced. Phones are also used by patients to gain knowledge that can be used to better their own life: “19% of smartphone owners have at least one health app on their phone. Exercise, diet, and weight apps are the most popular types” (Penn,
ED volumes are not the prime element of overcrowding, ED overcrowding as a condition in which the identified need for emergency services exceeds available resources in the ED, and this situation happens in hospital EDs when there are more patients coming to the Ed than staffed, treatment beds and waiting times outstrip a reasonable period (Barish, Mcgauly & Arnold, 2012). Mobile health (mHealth) is described as the use of mobile and wireless technologies for many health purposes (Ventola, 2014). Researchers and representatives consider mHealth has the ability to enhance health care delivery and outcomes, offer a platform for customized medicine, and support patients in disease management (Ventola,
A myriad of technology startups are pitching disease-management devices to health-care providers. That, in turn, has spurred the health-care industry to study which technologies are best and goes well beyond the current mixture of distant monitoring, conduct modification personalized intervention, directly assisting doctors and providing ubiquitous personalized services to patients. A review of select literature notes that pervasive computing are increasingly influencing health care and medicine. Carsten Orwat, Andreas Graefe and Timm Faulwasser in a quantitative and qualitative (1) analyses categorized present prototypes, case studies and pilot studies, clinical trials as evolving concepts and recent implementations with organizational, personnel privacy, security and financial issues. The study continues to say there is a need for further research on the deployment of pervasive computing systems as these, including clinical studies, economic and social analyses, user studies,
When looking at the primary level of care, technology such as Telehealth and medication dispensers in the elderly population can prevent medication errors and mistakes by sending alerts to care takers and or providers when medications are not taken or taken incorrectly. Technology is beneficial in secondary prevention because as nurses assess and monitor patients in their homes they can instantly share informatics with the health care team and collaborate in order to provide effective interventions in the event of medication side effects and more. Technology is also crucial to tertiary prevention in the home health population. Technology such a telehealth could use live video streaming to educate diabetic patients and their families on healthy dietary habits while they cook in their kitchens and more. The benefits of technology in the home health setting are