Healthcare Management Systems, Inc.® (HMS) has been following closely the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) as it unfolds, especially its impact on community hospitals.  HMS currently serves nearly 650 community hospitals, and we are fully committed to providing solutions that comply with all existing and future regulations of the ARRA to assist these providers with satisfying the forthcoming health IT standards mandated by the government. We understand certification, integration and time to implement are going to be key deciding factors for hospitals looking to select a vendor.

Whereas it may require multiple years and millions of dollars to implement larger systems, we believe HMS' turnkey approach and focus on rural and community hospitals will be an advantage. As a vendor of integrated clinical and financial hospital information systems, HMS is uniquely positioned to provide community hospitals with an EHR within a condensed timeframe; in fact, the average time to implement an EHR from HMS is six months or less.

HMS goes to Washington:
On Tuesday, October 27 and Wednesday, October 28, HMS went to Washington DC to attend the HIT Policy Committee meeting as well as meet with TN legislators regarding HITECH. David Blumenthal, committee chair and national coordinator for health information technology, began the meeting with opening remarks to fellow committee members on 2011 meaningful use criteria stating, "your work is done." Now the focus will be on subsequent years and that work is slated to be complete first quarter of 2010.

HMS was particularly interested in attending this meeting due to the testimony to be provided by small hospitals and practitioners. Both parties testified that access to capital, time to implement and available technical resources are specific challenges for smaller hospitals and physician practices. We also found it very easy to talk directly with several members of the committee and express our concerns (see link below). By the end of day two, we started to believe the committee members were not only hearing these concerns but were beginning to question whether or not they should take another look at the criteria and make adjustments going forward to focus on overall application adoption as a phased approach versus being so specific in their current proposed measurements.

However, one thing was clear, the train has left the station as far as 2011 criteria goes - it's done, pending public comments and approval by the HHS Secretary. We continue to voice our concerns directly to committee members and plan to engage them regularly regarding HMS and our customers. The next time they call for testimony we will attempt to get a customer on the panel.

Meaningful use:

Here's the HIT Policy Committee's set of recommended meaningful use objectives as of August 14, 2009.

Meaningful use matrix

"Show me the money.":

This is probably one of the first, if not the first, thing that comes to mind when thinking about this new law.  There are many sources of information available and it's important to get your information from a reliable source.  We have combed various sources incluing the law itself, multiple state hospital associations, trade associations, etc. to compare our calculators for accuracy. 

Select your choice below and fill in the blue cells with your facility's information to calculate potential reimbursement.

Critical Access Hospital Calculator

Non-critical Access Hospital Calculator

FAQ:

You can also download our newly added FAQ document which shows examples of potential reimbursements for both critical access hospitals as well as non-critical access hospitals.  download here

ARRA Funding Opportunities by State:

Follow this link to an interactive map that allows you to see ARRA funding opportunities by state.
http://transparency.cit.nih.gov/RecoveryGrants/

Timeline:

ARRA Related Links and Resources:

• http://www.recovery.gov
  • this is a key resource for all things related to the ARRA including how, when and where the money is spent
• www.grants.gov
  • this site allows you to search all Recovery Act available funding
• http://www.hhs.gov/recovery/
  • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Recovery Act Coordination
    • on this site you can track the progress of HHS activities funded through the ARRA
• http://www.hhs.gov/healthit/
  • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Information Technology home page
    • this is where the government will list more specifics related to the initial set of HIT standards, implementation specifics and certification criteria
    • you can also find information on the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) here as well
• http://www.cms.hhs.gov
  • Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
    • this is where the Secretary will post a list of names of eligible hospitals that become "meaningful users"
• http://www.nahit.org/index.asp
  • The National Alliance for Health Information Technology (NAHIT)
    • NAHIT identifies and develops strategies and best practices around the use of EHRs and other technology.  It has been said they hope to evolve into the government's HIT Standards Committee however that is still to be determined.
• http://www.hitsp.org/
  • Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel
    • HITSP is a cooperative partnership between the public and private sectors. The Panel was formed for the purpose of harmonizing and integrating standards that will meet clinical and business needs for sharing information among organizations and systems.  It has been said they hope to serve the goverment's HIT Standards Committee however that is also still to be determined.
• http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/collections.cfm?collect=12
  • Congressional Budget Office
    • The CBO provides objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on the wide array of programs covered by the federal budget including the ARRA.  You can view the report "Estimated Macroeconomic Impacts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" which estimates more than expected spending in healthcare IT.
• http://www.himssanalytics.org
  • HIMSS Analytics
    • To get started in determining your facility's current EHR adoption progress check out the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model. Click on "EMR Adoption Model".
      

HMS is also a member of the HIMSS EHRA (Electronic Health Record Association), and our product teams continue to work with its committees working on standards and adoption of the EHR.  To learn more about the HIMSS EHRA  read on...