Big News in the World of Medical Informatics

Medical informatics can be described as the application or use of information technology to assist in resolution of various medical issues. Since technology is rapidly changing, it makes sense that the face of medical informatics would be changing rapidly as well. Researchers and practitioners now have access to more information than ever before, and at least one research institution has recognized this fact and is doing something about it.

The University of Missouri at Kansas City recently brought on Mark Hoffman to work with and expand the scope of the University’s Center for Health Insights. The Center’s main goal is to better understand and use informatics in a variety of research settings and clinical medical settings. Hoffman was formerly the vice president of Cerner Corporation  and is expected to bring much knowledge and expertise to the university and to the informatics field in general.

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Medical Informatics Inc. and Health Tech Hatch Launch Funding Project

Medical Informatics, Inc. has long been known as a company devoted to creating technological products

that focus on helping patients by improving their experiences with healthcare professionals. Likewise, Health Tech Hatch is well known in the community as an entrepreneurial source for those who create products and offer services related to the healthcare industry.

Recently, the two organizations have joined forces to launch a funding project on the fundraising site, Indiegogo. Medical Informatics, Inc. and Health Tech Hatch have labeled their effort as “One Patient, One Number, One Card,” and describe it as a way to create a unified health records database from medical providers around the globe. If successful, the funds raised would be used to create easy identifiers for patients via new technological formats. Patients using the planned service would be able to see their health records whenever they wanted via smart phones, tablets, laptops, and other mobile devices.

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Medical Informatics Learns from E-patient Dave

It's no secret that there has been a push, in recent years, for health care professionals to share more information with their patients and with consumers in general. Recently, at a meeting of the American Medical Informatics Association's Annual Symposium, this belief—the belief in the importance of shared medical informatics—was driven home by the powerful testimony of a man known as “e-patient Dave.” His real name is Dave deBronkart, and he shared a moving story about how he survived his stage 4 renal cell

carcinoma, which he was diagnosed with back in 2007, with the help of online information and support.

Because deBronkart was diagnosed with cancer in a time before doctors were sharing a lot of information with patients, deBronkart didn't know where to turn for help dealing with his bleak prognosis. Finally, he decided to visit the Association of Cancer's Online Resources website for help. Quickly, he found all kinds of advice and information he hadn't known existed, as well as a strong support group that not only encouraged him through his battle but gave him tips and helped him to know what to expect as his treatments continued. deBronkart strongly believes that the information and support he found online saved his life, and he pleaded with the group at the meeting to continue pushing for information sharing with patients. 

How Many Error Claims were Made Last Year?

American Medical Association (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The American Medical Association recently released results from its study, conducted last year, of medical claims errors. The study found that, in 2013 alone, a massive 7% of medical claims contained some kind of error, and many of these errors cost the patients to which the bills were addressed money.

The new coding system is predicted to cause the percentage of error claims to rise even higher in the coming years, as healthcare professionals get used to the new medical informatics coding system.

With patients being warned so regularly and so fervently about the possible rise in errors, it’s really important to be on top of your game when it comes to the billing and coding process. Fortunately, that’s not as hard to do as you might think, even when the time comes to switch to the new coding system. Medical informatics professionals are advised to take advantage of useful apps, such as DeductorMD.com, that make billing and coding much easier processes.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app for Medical Decision Making, DeductorMD?

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Mistakes Matter

According to a recent report from Fox Business, as many as eight out of every ten hospital bills contains some kind of a mistake! When you consider how “advanced” and “infallible” medical informatics professionals are supposed to be, that’s pretty shocking.

With figures as high as that, you should never just assume that your own medical informatics team is

foolproof. In fact, you or someone you trust should be double-checking each and every bill before it gets sent out.

The main error found on medical bills, Fox reports, is duplicate charges. A good practice is to flag any bill with duplicate charges and to take just a little extra time to make sure those charges are actually legitimate. You’ll save your clients a lot of hassle and ensure your business keeps its good name.

For more help with billing—because the easier billing is, the less likely it is that mistakes will happen—check out the app for Medical Decision Making at DeductorMD.com.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app for Medical Decision Making, DeductorMD?

Are you ready for ICD-10

Most medical informatics professionals are already aware that, like it or not, the ICD-10 will replace the ICD-9 as the standard medical coding system. While some people are refusing to think about the new MedPage Today recently released a list of tips to help healthcare professionals prepare for the big transition.

 system until the time comes, others are wisely seeking out tips and advice on how to best adapt to this new system. Even

One of the tips on the list was to consider which codes you use the most often. Once you know the codes that you will need regularly, accessing them and staying on top of how you use them becomes a whole lot easier.

Plus, you can seek help from quality apps that will assist you in all aspects of medical informatics and medical billing, such as the new app available from DeductorMD.com.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app for Medical Decision Making, DeductorMD?

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What Counts as a Plan of Care?

The world of medical informatics can be tricky. For example, physicians are often called upon to write physician’s notes and plans of care. However, there’s a very fine line between these two different things. Include one thing in your note, and you’ve suddenly got a plan of care. Leave one thing out, and you only have a physician’s note. In order to make sure you’re actually creating what you want to create, it’s important to be able to distinguish between the two.

In order to be considered a plan of care, the physician’s note must include: 

l  Clinical decisions about treatment

l  Diagnosis

l  Long-term treatment goals

l  Type and frequency of services

l  Medications

l  Tests

Without one or any of these things, a note is just a note. Tread carefully to ensure you only establish a plan of care when you actually mean to.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app for Medical Decision Making, DeductorMD?

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