Stories from the Front Lines: The Journey to Meaningful Use
Stories from the Front Lines: The Journey to Meaningful Use
Dr. Martin Cahn—A 15-Year Veteran of EHRs, Discusses Meaningful Use and Quality of Care
(Seattle, WA)
And having an electronic health record as an integral part of his practice is critical to making that difference. An EHR “has completely changed how we do things. I feel like I’m a much better doctor. I’m able to have the stuff at my fingertips instead of running hither and yon to try and find a chart which is invariably always misfiled. Also, I can easily see how good of a job I’m doing with the patients. I can really, at a glance, see their labs, their consultation notes, and what’s gone on before.”
Dr. Cahn made the transition to an EHR back in 2006, when WIREC parent organization Qualis Health helped him out with a grant from the Washington Health Information Collaborative, of which Qualis Health was a partner. “We applied for a grant and we were one of the few solo family practices to get a grant. Through Health IT consulting, Qualis Health really helped us push to get the equipment that we needed to be up and running.” Dr. Cahn chose eClinicalWorks, which combines clinical and practice management functionality. Dr. Cahn says the software “makes suggestions about what things we’ve missed and helped us kind of catch up. Honestly, I could never go back to paper charts.”
Dr. Cahn acknowledges that transitioning to an EHR is no small task, but more than worthwhile in the long run. “It’s rough and there is no easy way of making the transition. At first, you may feel like ‘My God, I can’t believe this. Why did we ever do it?’ You’ll feel like you’re moving through molasses. By the end of six months, though, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.”
He advises other doctors to “visit practices that have an EHR in place, particularly the one that you’re interested in. Kick some tires. Any salesperson can make anything look great, but you have to see how your work flow goes and how you can begin to make changes.
“Billing is extraordinarily important. I had picked my particular electronic medical record because of its integrated billing. Others that I looked at separated out the clinical and practice management; invariably, when somebody upgrades, it will break the connection, and then everybody will be pointing fingers at other folks. I recommend looking at a single-source solution.
“I would also recommend a patient portal; you need to be able to bring in documents very easily from outside.”
WIREC has been a boon to the doctor in ensuring his practice qualifies for Medicare meaningful use incentives. His consultant showed him how he wasn’t as ready as he first believed. “I had gone to the American Academy of Family Practice convention and had heard about meaningful use and as I was checking things off, I was thinking, ‘yeah, this will be easy, this will be easy.” Then the WIREC consultant came out and we showed her what we had and I realized we weren’t quite there. We probably were about at 75% and needed to move up to 100%. So WIREC is good for making sure that all the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed for us. We’re further along than probably an awful lot of other physicians.”
Dr. Cahn advises those practices who already have an EHR but are hoping to take advantage of CMS incentives to take advantage of the free support WIREC offers. Even though his EHR vendor is supportive, the additional guidance is really helpful in meeting the requirements for meaningful use in a timely fashion. “You have 2011 and 2012—at the latest—to do it."
