Posted by: AtlasMD

October 1, 2013

The Future of Big Data in Medicine Looks Bright

MIT Technology Review published an exciting article. Jeff Hammerbacher, a 30-year-old reputed as Facebook’s first data scientist, is working with The Mount Sinai Medical Center. He once said, “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.” But those days are over. He wants to engineer data to help doctors better predict the likelihood of illness and complications.

Hammerbacher will apply his insight acquired while working to target online advertisements. These data-crunching techniques will be used to help doctors and researchers suck in medical information and spit out predictions. The hospital believes this data, if analyzed properly, could cut the cost of health care.

Will Big Data Promote Results-Driven Medicine?
 Read more

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 30, 2013

EHR Study Finds Emergency Docs Click 4,000 Times In A 10-Hour Shift

The American Journal of Emergency Medicine conducted research and found that emergency doctors “spend significantly more time entering data into electronic health records than they do with patients.” The study concluded that “improved efficiency in data entry would allow emergency physicians to devote more time to patient care…”

According to the published paper, emergency physicians spent 43 percent of their time entering data on a given day. Only 28 percent of their time was spent directly interacting with patients. And, during a busy, 10-hour shift, total mouse clicks neared 4,000.

Here’s what the paper’s author, Robert Hill, M.D. from St. Luke’s University Health Network in Allentown, Pa., had to say:

“Emergency department physicians spend significantly more time entering data into electronic medical records than on any other activity, including direct patient care.”

He lists out factors that get in the way of efficient EHR usage, including operating system speed, server/mainframe responsiveness, typing skills, user-friendliness of system, interruptions, extent of training, opportunity to delegate tasks, and various environmental attributes. However, in his opinion, “Efficient use of the EMR system will increase physician productivity and hospital revenue.” We couldn’t agree more. If you agree with his thinking, too, you can tweet it right now.

READ FIERCE EMR’S COVERAGE OF THE STUDY HERE

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 29, 2013

Hands Up — Who’s Bringing Their iPad into the Examination Room?

The Direct Primary Care Journal shared findings recently about the prevalence of iPad usage by physicians. According to the report, the most common activity of physicians who use an electronic health record (EHR) and use a smartphone or tablet is “sending and receiving emails.” The second most frequent activity among tablet users is “accessing EHRs (51% daily).” Compare that with just 7% of physicians using their smartphone to access EHRs.

VIEW THE COMPLETE BREAKDOWN OF RESEARCH FINDINGS ON THE DPCJ’S WEBSITE

We’ve highlighted some of the results here:

Read more

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 29, 2013

Dr. Josh Talks About Practicing Medicine in Kansas

Special thanks to Physicians Practice, who conducted an interview with Dr. Josh. You can stream it on their site here. He talks about why Kansas is a state that lets doctors truly practice family medicine.

While of course we want to see direct care spread EVERYWHERE in America, there are some advantages to Atlas MD’s location in Wichita. Josh explains how great it is to be able to experiment, and offer a wide range of services – colonoscopies, obstetrics, and more. This has given the practice the power to challenge the status quo and reinvent the patient-doctor relationship to the benefit of all parties, insurance companies included.

STREAM DR. JOSH’S INTERVIEW WITH PHYSICIANS PRACTICE HERE

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 25, 2013

‘The Year of the Big EHR Switch’ Confirms Physicians Favor iPad and Mobile Applications

As we know, thousands of physician practices are opting to dump ineffective EHR systems. Nearly one in five physician users indicated the high likelihood of shifting systems after disappointing first vendor results. And it looks like several new EHR mobile apps are being talked about in physician circles.

“A mandate has been issued and progressive vendors are reacting,” reports Doug Brown, Managing Partner of Black Book Research. “A full 100% of practices participating in the follow up poll expect EHR systems that allow access to patient data wherever physicians are providing or reviewing care.” And, as Healthcare Technology Online found out, docs like to be mobile.

READ THE COMPLETE BLACK BOOK RANKING PRESS RELEASE HERE

Check out some convincing stats on which professions are going mobile, and which devices are most popular. Read more

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 25, 2013

One in Six EHR Users Wants to Switch

Healthcare Technology Online followed up on a poll conducted by Black Book Rankings. Looks like many providers are leaving their current EMR systems for web-based alternatives. That’s not much of a surprise, though. It only takes a mild reading of the social web’s pulse to know docs’ sentiments range from frustrated to complacent with regards to available software.

According to Healthcare Technology Online, “Healthcare providers have never had a ‘romantic’ relationship with EHRs. On the contrary, many physicians despise the technology. However, the HITECH Act and Meaningful Use (MU) incentives did create an environment of unprecedented EHR demand among the provider community. This initiative achieved the desired result of increasing EHR adoption, but it also created an artificial market for dozens of immature EHR products.”

READ MORE ABOUT THE BLACK BOOK RANKINGS POLL

Here are some noteworthy numbers that were extracted from the study:  Read more

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 25, 2013

LISTEN: Atlas MD Podcast, Ep. 9

LISTEN: Atlas MD Podcast, Ep. 9

A new installment of our podcast is live on iTunes. Obamacare is just a week away and the climate is already shifting. That said, we are working to better healthcare with a bipartisan approach, direct care. It’s this bottom up pressure that we believe will transform actual care.

First off, congrats to Dr. John and Dr. Henry who are busy running their new direct care practice in Pennsylvania. They are surprised to be doing the opposite of what most everyone else is doing. Ironically, it’s exactly what they always wanted to do: practice medicine.

LISTEN TO EPISODE 9 OF THE ATLAS MD PODCAST HERE

Drs. Josh and Doug answer more questions and concerns that have been brought up — Should you integrate health apps into your practice? How can doctors use this data effectively? Why is Josh such a fan of FitBit (it’s cool, connected and really helpful for starters)? Will medicine get to a point where docs can track diabetics’ A1c levels daily or weekly?

As always thanks for tuning in.

Also, Drs. Josh and Doug will be in St. Louis on Oct. 12 and 13 attending the first summit dedicated to direct primary care. Send them an email or tweet if you want to meet the docs in person.

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 23, 2013

SUMMARY: Walgreens to Shift Health Plan for 160,000 Workers

Timothy W. Martin and Christopher Weaver published an article on The Wall Street Journal about an announcement that Walgreen Co. is making a sweeping policy change in light of approaching federal healthcare reform. “On Wednesday, the drugstore giant disclosed a plan to provide payments to eligible employees for the subsidized purchase of insurance starting in 2014. The plan will affect roughly 160,000 employees, and will require them to shop for coverage on a private health-insurance marketplace.”

So why the sudden change in policy?
Aside from rising healthcare costs (the complex causes were speedily explained by John Green in his Vlog Brothers video), the company cited “compliance-related expenses associated with the new law” as a reason for the switch.

Is this a trend?
 Read more

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 23, 2013

A Patient Portal To Nowhere

We freaking love Stephen Wilkins over at Mind The Gap. You get a perspective we don’t find as often on the annals of the Web, doctors and healthcare providers sharing their experiences seeing another doctor. Recently, Stephen was given his first and very own patient portal, a way to “take an active role in his healthcare.” His excitement was shortlived, though, since the first email he received was kind of a huge letdown — he had no access to his doctor, no access to his records, and when he thought about it, he was even a bit insulted. Wasn’t going to the doctor, exercising, taking his meds, etc., all part of an active role in his healthcare? This patient portal offered nothing active, except emailing nurses and staff instead of his doctor.

READ ABOUT STEPHEN WILKINS’ PATIENT PORTAL EXPERIENCE FIRSTHAND

Yes, healthcare needs to take advantage of the digital tools at our disposal. But doctors, let’s not insult our patient’s intelligence. Perhaps we don’t even need to directly engage them so much as make ourselves available, helpful and NOT disengaging.

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 21, 2013

Year One Is Mission Critical For Your Direct Care Practice

Michael Tetreault of Direct Primary Care Journal ran a survey suggesting that 10% of direct care practices close up shop after the first year. As with any business the first year is extremely important, and a place where bankruptcy can halt any future plans.

So how can you make it through this phase, recruit patients and bring in a healthy revenue stream? DPCJ offers 7 key steps including the importance of face-time, location planning, minimizing expenses everywhere you can, and pre-planning for emergencies. We’ll stress one of their steps in particular — determining your business model and sticking with the plan. Figure out where your revenue is coming from and how you’re going to achieve that. How many patients do you need to recruit every month to stay afloat through year one? How are you going to market your practice? How well do you know you offerings so you can sell without coming across like you’re selling used cars?

CHECK OUT 7 STEPS TOWARDS DIRECT CARE SUCCESS IN YEAR ONE

We encourage docs to work with our new EMR, Atlas.md. It’s built specifically to help doctors easily collect monthly revenue and not get burnt out trying to do bookkeeping. We also encourage docs ready to take the first step to send us an email and give us a call. We’re more than happy to counsel any doc through the transition, the first year of operation, and beyond. Direct care is small, but we’re gaining recognition. And it’s only going to keep up the momentum if we work together.