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Report from tnREC

Physicians across the United States are implementing an electronic health record (EHR) and improving both clinical outcomes and their bottom line. In Tennessee, government incentive dollars for Medicaid providers are set to be available in April to those practices who adopt, implement or upgrade to certified EHRs.

Later this year, Medicare will also provide incentives to practices that meet meaningful use criteria. Tennessee physicians will be ready, thanks to the efforts of tnREC, Tennessee’s Regional Extension Center for Health Information Technology. Established by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH), eligible healthcare professionals and hospitals can qualify for Medicare or Medicaid incentive payments when they adopt certified EHR technology and use it to achieve specified clinical criteria known as “meaningful use.” A division of Qsource, tnREC has recruited 751 physicians to begin the journey to meaningful use. During the next year, tnREC will assist over 1,300 providers in successfully adopting EHR technology and meeting the meaningful use criteria.

Provider interest in EHRs and how to qualify for incentive payment contin­ues to increase at a steady pace, according to Jennifer McAnally, tnREC Director, which is a good thing, considering incen­tive payments started this year.

“Physicians are already hearing that their peers in other states such as Okla­homa and Kentucky are starting to re­ceive incentive payments, and they want to get involved to qualify for those dollars as well,” she said. “Response in Tennessee has been fantastic! The state is one of the nation’s leaders in REC participation, but there is still room for more providers to participate.”

In West Tennessee there are 355 providers working with tnREC to achieve meaningful use with their EHR, with 126 in Middle Tennessee and 270 in East Ten­nessee. This is to be expected, McAnally said, since the provider makeup and EHR experience varies across the state.

Nationally, the majority of the pro­viders receiving REC support are af­filiated with small private practices (35 percent) or community health centers (34 percent), specializing in family prac­tice or internal medicine. Such practices are more common in West Tennessee recruitment efforts, while in Middle and East Tennessee large consortiums are more prevalent and have their own IT in­frastructure. Many of these larger provider groups already have the means necessary to provide their own internal support to meet the upcoming HIT requirements.

“Ultimately, tnREC wants to be able to work with most primary-care providers in the state,” said McAnally. “Practices large and small are invited to participate. However, our main focus is on practices where there is a limited IT infrastructure or where additional EHR implementation guidance is needed.”

Providers rely heavily on tnREC’s experience, particularly in HIT educa­tion and training, vendor selection and workflow redesign. As a result of tnREC support, providers aim to achieve EHR meaningful use and maximize federal incentives while minimizing financial and administrative burdens.

tnREC serves as a direct pipeline to resources provided by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Infor­mation Technology adoption programs. It brings together the local expertise and individual support needed to help primary-care physicians, critical access hospitals, and federally qualified health centers achieve successful EHR imple­mentation.

“Data sparks improvement,” McAnally said. “It’s hard to measure quality, but what we do is help provid­ers understand how an EHR can cap­ture the data necessary to assess quality measures and how to best use that infor­mation to improve patient care. In the end, EHRs trigger the right care, and the patients benefit.”

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