Estimated read time: 7 minutes
Physicians play an important role in our communities and Doctors' Day is an opportunity to thank these essential health care providers. On March 30, we recognize their sacrifices and their commitment to the health of our society. In honor of Doctors' Day, we have compiled nine thought leadership blogs that deliver the clinician’s perspective on the latest health and technology issues.
- What Health Care Leaders Need to Know About the Latest HL7 FHIR Release
Recently, Health Level Seven International’s (HL7) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard reached a key milestone with version 4—the first normative release of the framework. In this blog, Dr. David McCallie, senior vice president of medical informatics at Cerner, provides his insights on how this update will increase in normative content, provide greater standardized access to complete patient records and support more powerful apps.
“The convergence of these two threads – FHIR as a better interface standard, and APIs as a required part of EHR certification will have profound impact on future interoperability. We are beginning to see many innovative uses of FHIR APIs, such as provider-facing SMART on FHIR pluggable apps, as well as consumer-facing innovations, such as Apple’s Health app that allows for a simple download of core clinical data from EHR portals.”
- How Urgent Care Centers are Changing the Health Care Delivery Landscape
In this blog, Cerner Physician Executive Dr. Anthony Ghidorzi examines the rapid expansion of urgent care centers. Patients seeking care at urgent care centers instead of in their primary care physician’s office or the hospital-based emergency department has increased the need for interoperability and streamlined EHRs.
“With more patients getting treatment and services at UCCs, it becomes important that the urgent care treatment records be visible to the other providers taking care of that patient. There will likely be various state and local entities that require information from the UCC, such as vaccine registries or health departments that collect communicable disease information.”
- How the Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule Will Change Health Care in 2019
For two decades, the health care industry has been concerned about the medical record documentation guidelines for evaluation and management services – a category of the Current Procedural Terminology code set used to bill outpatient and office procedures. In this blog, Cheri Whalen, senior regulatory strategist at Cerner, explains how the 2019 Physician Fee Schedule final rule will streamline workflows and empower providers to spend less time on paperwork and more time with their patients.
“While the complex regulatory changes from the 2019 Physician Fee Schedule final rule require health care organizations to do some thoughtful planning and preparation to stay compliant, the shift toward more modern and efficient care is a positive change for both consumers and providers.”
- How Open and Interoperable Apps Can Extend the Capabilities of Health Informatics
The ability to access a comprehensive, digitized patient record; use evidence-based tools to make care decisions; and automate and streamline provider workflows and share health information securely between providers and organizations has greatly improved the health care experience for both consumers and clinicians. In this blog, Cerner Physician Executive Dr. Jeffrey Wall explains how health care organizations can take the benefits of the EHR to the next level by utilizing the Substitutable Medical Apps & Reusable Technology (SMART) Health IT platform and Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR).
“In opening our EHR frameworks to third-party companies, I see tremendous opportunity to improve and expand our solutions and provide greater value to consumers.”
- Engaging Patients with Technology: Q&A with Dr. Osama Alswailem of King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre
In this Q&A, Dr. Osama Alswailem, King Faisal's chief information officer, discusses how mobile health tools and technology have improved patient engagement and outcomes as well as its implications for Saudi Arabia’s long-term population health goals.
“Being a physician by background has shown me the large impact technology has and will have on health care and how patient interaction has evolved. Some feel that the personal relationship that previously existed between patient and physician no longer exists. I, on the other hand, have seen how health care has become more personalized through technology, where care is more accurate and more specific to the patient.”
- How KLAS’s Arch Collaborative is Improving Clinician EHR Satisfaction: Q&A with Memorial Health System’s Dr. David Graham
Accurate, honest and impartial feedback from EHR users is critical for health care organizations. Yet more than 90 percent of providers do not have recent user-satisfaction data. KLAS Research created The Arch Collaborative to address this issue. Through the Collaborative’s detailed eight-minute survey, members gain insights into clinicians’ thoughts on training, culture, governance, personalization and informatics. In this interview, Dr. David Graham, CMIO and CIO at Memorial Health System in Springfield, Illinois, shares how his organization has benefited from The Arch Collaborative’s robust data collection and global benchmarking capabilities.
“Rather than changing our strategy specifically, the feedback has allowed us to reprioritize the things we thought were most important to go after. It has elevated the physician voice for us, and I absolutely think it will translate into greater physician satisfaction and appreciation for what we do here at Memorial. It will also improve communication with physicians.”
- How to Fall in Love with Your Hospital’s EHR
In his blog, Sharp Healthcare CMIO Rick LeMoine discusses the advantages EHRs have brought to clinical practice as well as the opportunities for improvement and the potential for the future. LeMoine provides insight to the frustrations physicians often have with EHR systems and provides a few ways that health care leadership can make sure the EHR is a partner to physicians on the job.
“I am chagrined to read and hear how experts – sometimes even my colleagues – blame the EHR for everything that is wrong in the world of medicine today, especially in relation to issues of physician burnout and increased dissatisfaction with the profession. I believe that much of the frustration and ill will felt by clinicians toward the EHR is more a product of what we are asking clinicians to do with EHR systems rather than some built-in malfeasance or fault baked into these systems that is aimed at users.”
- Tackling the Opioid Epidemic: Where to Begin
Cerner Physician Executive Dr. Michael Fadden discusses the opioid epidemic and the challenges facing health care providers trying to provide relief to patient suffering. Physician and patient behaviors shape the ‘environment’ of care. Dr. Fadden discusses how recognizing these behaviors and implementing a few changes can enable physicians to mitigate the inadvertent complicity of health care providers in the problem, connect patients earlier to treatment and strive to prevent fatal overdoses.
“I like to conceptualize the problem this way: These are the behaviors of a clinician and a patient playing out in the environment of care. Understanding the behaviors will continue to take time but looking at the current environment is something we can do now."
- How Analytics Algorithms Can Improve Patient Outcomes
There’s a lot of potential for the field of big data analytics in health care. For the organizations that can interpret and leverage data successfully, the implications for patient outcomes are huge. In this blog, Dr. Earl Steinberg, CEO at xG Health Solutions, delves into how analytics algorithms can improve patient outcomes and provider performance.
“Outcomes data is increasingly necessary to manage the populations we’re trying to provide care for. To influence behavior, we have to have actionable insights stemming from data that is integrated within the clinician’s workflow. High-level, descriptive analyses are incredibly valuable, but they won’t change behavior without this ability to pull insights."
Cerner believes being a physician is far more than just a title or a role; it’s a calling. We employ over 100 physicians and work alongside our clients to design intuitive solutions – applications that collaborate across platforms (mobile and desktop) and enhance user efficiency, productivity and satisfaction. Learn more here.
