For many uninsured and underinsured patients in Yuba City, Calif., seeing a rheumatologist used to mean taking a day off from work and driving 108 miles, roundtrip, to the University of California Davis Medical Center. That changed this year when patients were offered the option of having a telemedicine consultation with a rheumatologist as part…
Ready for a cyber checkup? Auditing your health IT policies, safeguarding your hardware and educating your staff on the importance of data security should be routine, according to industry experts…
With Medicare and insurers now incentivizing physicians for collecting and reporting data, rheumatologists need at least a minimum understanding of the gigabytes of information flowing through their practices. Actually, every medical practice should have at least one person with some informatics expertise, according to computer-programmer-turned-rheumatologist Jeffrey Curtis, MD, MS, MPH. “Physicians need to be more…
(Reuters Health)—People may happily, and safely, forgo in-person doctors’ visits after surgery by opting instead for talking with their surgeons by phone or video, suggests a small study of U.S. veterans. Most patients preferred the virtual visits and the doctors didn’t miss any infections that popped up after surgery, the researchers report in JAMA Surgery….
RISE data entry process syncs with patients’ electronic health records to create quality improvement reports, chart progress
Separate clinical quality reporting measures must be submitted for each program
Focus shifts from voluntary to punitive; makes business associates more accountable for breaches of personal health information
Survey lets physicians compare questionnaire responses with regional, national averages
Rheumatology Informatics System for Effectiveness simplifies physician quality reporting
RISE system compares physician practices with national benchmarks, links physicians with electronic health records