Leader of the pack; Mercy already has electronic records in place as feds unveil incentives

Beth Newkirk, a registered nurse at Mercy ICU, checks a patient's EHR prior to administrating medication. Scanning a patient's armband and medication is a 'safety net' to ensure patients receive the proper medication and dosage. (Submitted Photo)

With the federal government set to announce incentives for electronic health records today, Sisters of Mercy Health System, including the Fort Scott hospital, says it is well head of the pack.

Mercy invested more than $450 million to provide its patients across Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma with this feature five years ago.

Today, Mercy's continuously updated electronic health record system serves more than 2 million patients across multiple care sites, including hospitals and physician offices. It's a level of connectivity found in less than 4 percent of hospitals nationwide, a news release said.

"Knowing whether someone is diabetic or highly allergic to penicillin is critical to safety. That's why more than five years ago we knew it was vital for us to implement an EHR, allowing us to share information between all our health care providers," Mercy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Glenn Mitchell said in the release. "While now there are government expectations in place, for Mercy it's always been about doing the right thing for clinical care."

The federal government's 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is now providing incentives for health care providers to not only have an EHR system but demonstrate that it has "meaningful use" to those needing health care. Beginning in April, hospitals and providers will have a chance to verify whether or not their EHR meets Stage 1 of the meaningful use standards.

Ten Mercy hospitals will be among the first in the nation to provide this meaningful use verification. They are targeted to provide their attestation to the government for their 90 consecutive day validation period from April 1 through June 30.

According to a recent survey of health care CIOs conducted by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, only 15 percent said their organizations would be able to qualify or attest to Stage 1 by June 2011.

The new act requires hospitals to meet 15 specific objectives. In addition, they must choose five optional objectives from a list of 10.

Kansas Hospital Association Executive Vice President Melissa Hungerford said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid opened online registration earlier this month, so hospitals could express interest in receiving the incentives. The Mercy hospitals in Fort Scott and Independence have done so.

Hungerford said it will take some time to complete the process. "CMS has a set of requirements that one needs to meet 'meaningful use,'" she said. Meaningful use shows CMS that a hospital is using EMRs to document care provided to a patient, look at quality indicators and begin to improve the quality and coordination of care, she said.

There is about $19 billion in government incentives available to foster the meaningful use of electronic health records, the release said.

"The formula is based on the population of patients you serve," Hungerford said. "It's really done to say look you've done a great job. We're going to give you a carrot for the process. In this process there is also a stick. The opportunity to get incentives (lasts) for four or five years."

But as of 2015, if a hospital has not moved forward with EMRs, "there will be penalties" in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, she said. "These incentives address both programs," she added.

Hungerford said "everybody's kind of on the path" to implementing EMRs. "But I think the Mercy hospitals in Kansas and system-wide saw this as something they wanted to take on ... long before the incentives were in the picture," she said.

Mercy says it is in a unique position to meet all the incentive objectives, not only due not only to its EHR system, but also to MyMercy, a free online patient portal. MyMercy allows patients of primary care physicians to access their health record electronically as well as schedule appointments, get test results, track health history and contact their doctor via computer or smart phone.

Only 90 days after its official launch, more than 75,000 people are now using MyMercy to manage their health online.

"For Mercy, achieving all these objectives is not considered an end goal, but merely a foundation for creating a new model of care and changing, for the better, how people feel about health care," said Lynn Britton, Mercy system president and CEO. "It's important to us that our patients have confidence their medical team has the most up-to-date information when we're caring for them."