EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 2/15/18

Lots of people are catching Olympic Fever. I’d much rather see that in the community than influenza. I’ve been catching some figure skating and snowboarding on the TVs in the patient rooms, which I much prefer to the omnipresent HGTV.

This Winter Games marks the debut of GE’s Athlete Management Solution, which sounds like a cross between an EHR and a clinical data repository with a side of SNOMED. GE Healthcare’s CTO noted, “Olympians train for many years to represent their nations at the games. Their Herculean efforts must be matched with superhuman clinical speed and quality.” I’d like to see some superhuman clinical speed in my own EHR, but would settle for seeing what GE has in store for both these games and those upcoming in Tokyo in 2020. If any readers are at GE, let me know if you can refer your favorite anonymous blogger for a demo.

Gallup and Sharecare recently released the “2017 State Well-Being” rankings. I’m not surprised that well-being is on the decline given the political turmoil we’re exposed to on a daily basis along with the pressures of social media and an unpredictable economy. No states showed a statistically significant improvement in the score, and 21 states experienced decreased well-being. The declines were driven by decreased numbers in social well-being and purpose along with the mental health aspects of physical well-being. The highest score was South Dakota with a 64.1 out of 100, followed by Vermont at 64.09. Louisiana and West Virginia rounded out the bottom. I’ll be taking a trip to the latter next summer and will let you know if the beauty of the New River Gorge improves my wellness and sense of purpose.

A reader asked me to further clarify my recent Curbside Consult comments regarding information blocking. In my travels, I frequently encounter major health systems that are guilty of information blocking, throwing up barriers in the way of patients who want to share their information. Examples include telling patients that outside physicians aren’t in the EHR directory for sharing records, refusing to send records by Direct protocol, citing HIPAA as a reason for not sending records to a consulting physician, failing to release specifically requested portions of the record, and downplaying the known interoperability features of their respective systems. Unaffiliated (read independent) providers are blocked from accessing clinical data repositories unless they sign cross-marketing agreements.

People are quick to blame EHR vendors for so-called information blocking, but in my experience, there are plenty of tools available but too many policies and procedures that discourage their use. I guess the theory is that if you make it harder for an independent consulting physician to receive your patient’s data, maybe the patient will be frustrated and choose an employed physician who documents on the shared hospital EHR, therefore solidifying the hospital’s market share.

Failing to accept labs sent from “outside providers” because of perceived compatibility issues and forcing patients to endure duplicate tests is also something I’m seeing more and more of as well. I’m proud to be an independent provider, but given my history in the world of big healthcare, I wish we could all just get along and put the patient at the center of what we do.

The Medicare Quality Payment Program attestation season is in full swing, with practices starting to realize that perhaps they weren’t as prepared as they thought. Organizations have until March 31 to submit their data for the 2017 calendar year reporting period. I’ve already gotten a couple of calls from organizations asking me to do the EHR equivalent of cooking the books, claiming that providers had the right information but just documented it in the wrong place in the EHR or maybe documented it incompletely. We’re 45 days into the new calendar year and I’m not about to manipulate someone’s database regardless of how well-intentioned they act or how much they beg.

The bottom line is that practices need to be monitoring their providers and their respective documentation habits (or lack thereof) throughout the year and catching problems early enough so that a mitigation plan can make a difference. I’ve had a couple of practices complain that their vendor didn’t have their 2017 measures packages ready at the beginning of the year, so they had nothing to run. I remind them that they could have kept running the 2016 packages to at least get an idea of the numbers since some of the measures didn’t change much, or that they can always create their own reports or use a third party to create interim reports. I know there are consultants out there that will help these clients massage their data, but I’m not eager to become one of them.

I spent Valentine’s Day with the good folks at the Marriott, but at least I had some time to read #healthpolicyvalentines and feel the love. This one from California ACEP is my favorite. I also want to give a shout out to Alexander Gaffney @AlecGaffney for sharing the best FDA labeling letter ever:

Misbranded Food:

• Your Nashoba Granola and Whole Wheat Bread (wholesale and retail) products are misbranded within the meaning of section 403(i)(2) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 343(i)(2)] because they are fabricated from two or more ingredients, but the labels fail to bear a complete list of all the ingredients by common or usual name in descending order of predominance by weight as well as all sub-ingredients, as required by 21 CFR 101.4. For example,
• Your Nashoba Granola label lists ingredient “Love.” Ingredients required to be declared on the label or labeling of food must be listed by their common or usual name [21 CFR 101.4(a)(1). “Love” is not a common or usual name of an ingredient, and is considered to be intervening material because it is not part of the common or usual name of the ingredient.

There you have it, folks. Beware of foodstuffs made with love! In other news, chocolate is under scrutiny for its purported health benefits, with critics alleging bias through industry-funded studies. I see their point, but I do know that dark chocolate makes me smile, so I’m counting on it to help raise my personal well-being index.

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