The State Alliance for e-Health recommends that states consider using incentives and punishments in state-operated health programs to encourage doctors to adopt electronic health records.
At a May 12 meeting in Washington, the alliance adopted a report from its Public Programs Implementation Taskforce that outlines nearly two-dozen strategies that states can use to increase EHR use in Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and other state health programs.
For example, the report suggests that states could form groups of health care providers in counties or regions to jointly buy EHR systems and consultant services, or the state could negotiate discounted prices on behalf of providers.
Not all the recommendations would have a direct financial effect. One calls for reducing Medicaid red tape for newly enrolled doctors who use EHRs. In addition, it states that “Medicaid could consider offering longer re-enrollment cycles, reduced prior authorization and retrospective review of their claims, and faster payment cycles as incentives” for doctors to use EHRs.
The alliance already has recommended that state Medicaid and state employee health plans use financial incentives to encourage providers to adopt and use health information technology systems and participate in health information exchanges.
Alan Levine, Louisiana’s secretary of health and hospitals, leads the Public Programs Implementation Taskforce. He told the alliance leaders that Louisiana is no longer encouraging the formation of regional health information organizations. Technology is now powerful enough that a state-level HIE will be as effective as and more efficient than smaller RHIOs, Levine said.
Among other recommendations the alliance adopted, it suggests that states:
-- Plan for a health IT infrastructure that will support quality, prevention and patient safety improvements.
-- Publish the names of providers who use standards-based EHRs.
-- Require providers to take continuing education courses on health IT as part of requirements for renewing licenses and consider offering discounted licenses to health IT users.
-- Collaborate with private health plans and employers to standardize metrics and incentives for health IT use “in order to send a strong market signal about statewide priorities.”
The task force report suggests that states eventually will want to require doctors in Medicaid and other state programs to use health IT. But such a requirement should be preceded by voluntary incentive programs, it states.
The State Alliance for e-Health is a program of the National Governors Association’s Center for Best Practices.
From the battlefield to the home front: Managing medical data
Government Health IT presents Col. Claude Hines Jr., program manager for the Defense Health Information Management System, in this recent InSight eSeminar. Col. Hines discusses the health information technology and tactical challenges faced by the military medical community in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict. In doing so, he describes the current information technology solutions for transferring clinical data between battlefield care givers to health care personnel at military treatment facilities worldwide.
