I recently had someone ask me about radiology and whether they needed to comply with meaningful use and if they qualified for EHR incentive money. Good thing is that I found this Healthcare IT news article that discusses radiology and the EHR incentive money.

Let’s start off with a stat about whether radiologists qualify for the government EHR money.

An estimated 90% of radiologists are eligible for incentive payments from the CMS, according to the American College of Radiology.

I was surprised that the number of radiologists that qualify is so high. So, I guess the simple answer is that yes, almost all radiologists qualify for the EHR stimulus money. Yes, that also means that radiologists will also be subject to the penalties for not being meaningful users of an EHR system.

Although, I guess there has been confusion around whether radiologists qualify for the EHR money. This quote illustrates how widespread this could be:

“Most radiologists seem to believe that they weren’t included in the meaningful use regulations, but the opposite is true,” said Murray Reicher, M.D., DR Systems co-founder and chairman. “The real challenge is meeting the requirements in time to get the largest bonuses — and just as important, to avoid future penalties.”

With that out of the way, the next question is how hard it is for radiologists to meet the meaningful use requirements. I’d love to hear from some radiologists who have either been through the meaningful use stage 1 attestation process or who have looked through the requirements and can point out the meaningful use measures that will be hard for radiologists to achieve. I’m sure there are a number of them that they won’t need to show.

Either way, it’s worth noting that radiologists do qualify for the EHR stimulus money and also could be subject to the future EHR penalties. I wonder how many EHR software vendors work with radiologists.

Today I’m happy to officially introduce readers of EMR and HIPAA to my latest project: The Healthcare Scene blog network. If you follow me on twitter (@techguy and @ehrandhit), then you’ve probably already come across one or more of the great blogs in this new healthcare IT blog network. I’m really excited with the group of bloggers that I have working on the network and the amazing content they’ve been creating and will create.

Before I introduce you to the various websites on the network, here’s a little background in why I decided to do this. As I looked at the various healthcare IT and EMR bloggers producing content, I was disappointed that many of them were creating great content that wasn’t getting nearly as much attention and traffic as the content deserved. Plus, many hadn’t benefited financially from all the great content they were creating. Combine lack of traffic with lack of financial rewards and these independent voices often disappear.

I saw this as a real opportunity to leverage many of the marketing and advertising tools that I’d created for EMR and HIPAA to the benefit of many others in the EMR and healthcare IT world. Plus, a number of my current advertisers told me that there weren’t enough online healthcare IT advertising options out there. I see this network as a real win for everyone. Independent bloggers can have their voices magnified while making money doing so. Readers and the EMR and Healthcare IT industry get more independently created content (including content by doctors). Healthcare IT advertisers will have more opportunities to advertise next to great content. I get to expand my network and work with a bunch of really smart people.

Now here’s a look at the websites that will be part of the Healthcare Scene blog network:

• Meaningful HIT News – This blog written by Neil Versel started in May 2004 and has over 500 posts. Neil is one of the only pure healthcare IT journalists out there and has been doing it for the past 15 years across more publishers than you can count, but most recently at Fierce Healthcare. I’m excited that Neil has chosen to move his blog to the HealthcareScene.com blog network. He’s a must read journalist for anyone in EMR and healthcare IT. I borrowed much of my writing style from Neil and so if you like this site, go and subscribe to Meaningful HIT News email list and you won’t be disappointed.
• EMR and Healthcare IT News – The firehose of EMR and Healthcare IT news sent out by vendors. A great way for vendors to get their word out and for industry people to see the latest developments in EMR and healthcare IT. I’m looking to partner with healthcare IT PR firms on the site, so hit my Contact Us page if you’re interested.
• Happy EMR Doctor – This blog first started out as a Doctor’s Blog guest post on EMR and EHR, but the content from Dr. West was too good. So, I rolled it off onto its own blog. Dr. West has been through a failed EHR implementation and now is using one of the Free EHR vendors. So, he has some interesting stories to tell.
• Smartphone Health Care – I recently heard that there were something like 30+ mobile health conferences or conferences with a mobile health track in the past year. That seems like far too many, but it is quite clear that Smart Phones and other mobile devices are going to play a huge role in the future of healthcare. Consider this my foray into the mHealth world.
• Wired EMR Practice – Many of you might remember that I already introduced Dr. Koriwchak’s blog on EMR and HIPAA earlier. Many of you subscribed to his blog and have seen the type of quality content he’s creating. I love doctor’s perspectives on EMR.
• nextHospital – We’ll see how this blog evolves, but it’s the Healthcare Scene’s first blog that isn’t really IT focused. Written by Katherine Rourke (mentioned above), nextHospital will focus on the business of healthcare in hospitals.
• EMR, EHR and HIPAA Wiki – Not a blog, but a pretty cool part of the network nonetheless. Be sure to add your EHR vendor if it’s not on there already.
• EMR and EHR Job Board – Not a blog either, but this job board will be syndicated across all the HealthcareScene.com websites. So, it’s a great places to post or look for a job.
• EMR and HIPAA – Hopefully it needs no intro if you’re reading this post. Let’s just say, 1000 posts, 4713 comments, and over 4 million pageviews.
• EMR and EHR – Very similar to EMR and HIPAA, but only about 2 years old. 300 posts, 1092 comments and 700,000+ pagevies. Katherine Rourke, a healthcare IT journalist with 15+ years of experience, recently started posting on EMR and EHR and is a welcome addition to the site.

I’d say that’s a pretty good start. I’m in talks with a few more bloggers that may or may not join the network. I think there’s still some interesting niches that haven’t been filled. For example, a blog tracking publicly traded healthcare IT stock movements and other healthcare IT investment opportunities could be interesting. Either way, I’m excited to see all the great content that will be created on these sites. Much like this site, each site encourages you to respectfully comment, share the content, and join the conversation. Please let your voice be heard in the comments.

Yes, right now each site looks very much like the rest, but we’re just getting started. Over time I’ll work to give each blogger it’s own brand while also building up the HealthcareScene.com domain to better represent all the activity that’s happening on the network. I see it becoming a virtual hub of the best and brightest conversations happening in and around healthcare IT and EMR.

Let me know what you think of these additions in the comments or drop me a note on my Contact Us page.

I was going to officially launch my new Healthcare IT blog network today, but got a little bit busy. Plus, it’s Friday, so I think I’ll wait until next week or after HIMSS to officially launch it. It’s going to be really cool and bring out some interesting independent voices in Healthcare IT.

Until then, if you want to see the latest news coming out of HIMSS, you should head over to our recently launched EMR and Healthcare IT news site. It’s been hopping and with my wife’s help it will stay well updated during and after HIMSS with the latest news.

Also, I came across the idea of using Foursquare at HIMSS. I thought that sounded like a good way to start using Foursquare. Plus, then more people will be able to find me in order to win a Free HD TV at HIMSS. So, if you’re on Foursquare, then follow @techguy on Foursquare and you’ll know where to find me. Become my friend so we can connect at HIMSS. I’ll be interested to see how my Foursquare experience could translate to healthcare. Should be interesting.

My flight leaves tomorrow. I can’t wait!!

In a recent Healthcare IT News article, they wrote about a KLAS research study that found that the speech recognition market is ready to grow. Here’s a small portion of the article:

Providers report a demonstrable return on their speech recognition dollars, according to a new report from KLAS. Participants of the study indicated benefits of speech recognition such as staff reductions, improved report turnaround times and increased physician satisfaction.

“The speech recognition market is ripe for healthy growth,” said Ben Brown, author of the report. “Currently, less than one in four hospitals use the technology, however, in light of meaningful use and the benefits providers point out in this study, we expect it will assume a more prominent place in the role of clinical documentation.”

It seems like a bit of journalistic spin to say that speech recognition provides a “demonstrable return.” My personal experience tells me that users either love or hate speech recognition. The article does aptly state that it requires some up front investment to learn voice recognition and access the long term benefits that voice recognition provides.

The other obvious part of the report is that Dragon still dominates the voice recognition landscape. I recently also got an email from Eric Fishman of EMR Consultant, EHR Scope, EHR TV, etc fame (and also an advertiser on this site) about a new voice recognition, dictation and transcription software they’re distributing called Frisbee.

They have a bunch of videos showing Frisbee transcription software in action on EHR TV. I found the one called Frisbee, Dragon Medical and EMR Workflow pretty interesting.

I could see this type of software providing the platform for the future of the transcriptionist. Neil Versel recently posted the news that the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) will be changing their name to the Clinical Documentation Industry Association. No doubt transcription companies are looking at ways to survive. One of those ways will be for the transcriptionist to go beyond just transcribing to assisting with the clinical documentation (including the complicated ICD-10). Seems like Frisbee’s voice recognition into the EMR with the Frisbee routing capabilities for doctors approval and sign off could be an interesting workflow.

I’m not quite as bullish on voice recognition as the report linked above, but there’s no doubt that voice recognition will continue to play a role in healthcare. Especially as it continues to improve its recognition ability and becomes integrated with mobile devices.

In this Sunday’s HUH? news we have a report by Healthcare IT news that Google may be considering using their Google Wave technology for EHR. Of course, I think the writer at Healthcare IT news must have had a deadline or something since the paper written by Google engineers Shirley Gaw and Umesh Shankar about representing “Individual Health Records” that are aggregating from “multiple sources” which sounds a lot more like a PHR to me than an EHR

That minor verbiage aside, it’s hard for me to imagine Google Wave used as a PHR or an EHR. Ok, I get the idea that it would be interesting to see all the clinical data elements added to a patients history in real time (basically what Google Wave does). This is an innovation that is needed. I just think that re-architecting the very consumer focused Google Wave product isn’t going to get us there.

Not to mention, Google has chosen to stop supporting Google Wave. I think Google probably has enough to do with health with Google Health. I’ll be very surprised if we really see the Google Wave technology used in healthcare.