Advancing Healthcare Innovation Through Federal Health IT: Research Paper

Introduction

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, also known as the ONC formulates health information technology of the Federal Government and coordinates federal health IT standards, investments, programs, as well as policies. The ONC supports the goals of the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), which aim to strengthen healthcare and advance innovation and scientific knowledge. In 2004, an Executive Order led to the establishment of the ONC. However, when the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) was enacted, the Order was codified in the legislation (Starkweather et al. 2018). HITECH helped in the provision of short-term funding to the HHS to support a range of health information technology initiatives. The initiatives comprise of Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record Programs. In these programs, eligible professionals and healthcare facilities like hospitals receive payments for adoption and use of electronic health record technology.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Moreover, HITECH provided permanent and broad authorities for the ONC to help promote the adoption of standardized electronic health record technology, delivery of high quality, cost-effective and safe care and facilitate the exchange and use of health information. Through the funding, office-based physicians increased from 17 percent in 2008 to 58 percent. Non-federal acute care hospitals also increased substantially through the adoption of basic electronic health record technology. The ONC continues to leverage the existing authorities and responsibilities that consist of coordination of technical standards, work harmonization, and regulation of certification program (Cousins, 2016). The unique technical expertise of the ONC and its strong relationships with the private sector enable it champion policy changes that may be required to achieve interoperability. The clinical perspective of the ONC gives it insights to enhance reduced electronic health record burdens by incorporating policies that impact physicians.

Comparison and Contrast of the Main Healthcare It Legislation Policies

The main provisions of the Affordable Care Act include expanding healthcare coverage, ensuring the reduced rate of increase in Medicaid or Medicare, adopting delivery system reforms, impose new reporting requirements, as well as the provision of loans and grants to improve workforce education. The Act requires insurance companies to offer comparable policies at similar rates and not exclude any pre-existing conditions and limit the rate increases. The Act requires insurance companies to enrol a representative cross-section of the population (Starkweather et al. 2018). The ACA requires the need to change medical decisions based on the changing needs and interests of individuals. In essence, people need to be provided with new information on efficient treatment alternatives to help inform practice, as well as stimulate value-based design. The success of organizational forms tends to depend on careful decisions that the primary care physicians make concerning how to conduct treatment, especially for the populations that are not properly managed.

On the other hand, regarding the health IT policies of HITECH, it requires the ONC to develop a strategic plan for federal health information technology that addresses the utilization of electronic health record for everyone in the United States, use the electronic exchange, health information, as well as enterprise integration of the information (Cousins, 2016). The HITECH also incorporates privacy and security protections for the electronic exchange of identifiable health information of an individual. Another policy involves the use of security methods to enhance efficient authorization and ensure that health information is electronically authenticated. Through these policies, it will be easy to specify the technologies and methodologies that can be used to render health information unusable, indecipherable, or even unreadable. The HIT provisions of ARRA address three main concerns. One of these is the development of a federal infrastructure to enhance health information network across the nation while facilitating the creation of financial incentives for both Medicaid and Medicare. In this manner, it promotes the need to incentivize the adoption of physician and hospital care (Phillips & Merrill, 2015). ARRA also has additional privacy reforms on health information. The HIT provisions of ARRA tend to bridge the disconnect between medical care and the functions of public health regarding the health system thereby enabling care providers to communicate effectively by obtaining data at a personal level that would be appropriate for public health practice.

The Advantage and Disadvantages of Reimbursement for Health Professionals

Health reimbursement has to be fully funded by the employer. The employer is the person who initiates reimbursement for health professionals. One of the advantages of the reimbursement is that the employers can offset the overall cost of the provision of health coverage to the employees. The health professionals will have unused funds in their reimbursement accounts carried over to the following year. This is a significant benefit since the professionals are not forced to seek care or lose money when the year ends. However, health professionals do not need to be enrolled in other healthcare plans to take full advantage. In the reimbursement, a fee schedule tends to adjust for different cases of physicians and the experiences from group practices hence paying comparatively higher amounts for patients who require more healthcare services (Cousins, 2016). The health professionals can acquire data regarding patient care that would be analysed to help establish performance measures. One of the disadvantages of reimbursement for health professionals is that it has several provisions and rules that are put in place. As such, the professionals are not sure of how the accounts work and whether they are qualified for the reimbursement. Additionally, self-employed care practitioners are not allowed to receive reimbursement. Professionals with high-income levels may also run into limitations based on whatever they are required to contribute. The fee schedules in reimbursement can lead to fragmentation of care and fail to establish whether the type of health service provided was appropriate or not.

Current and Future Status Issues Associated With the Financial Incentives for Implementing Technology

One of the issues involves maintaining and improving access to the quality of care provided within the rural areas. When health IT infrastructure is improved in rural areas, the quality of care provided will increase substantially. However, rural hospitals continue to face particular challenges when it comes to the adoption of health IT even after HITECH was rapidly expanded. Medicare also certifies critical-access care facilities to receive reimbursement that is cost-based. Nevertheless, the hospitals are required to be located thirty-five miles any nearest hospital and have not more than twenty-five bed for inpatient services. Many rural hospitals have been seen to adopt health IT over the recent past. In 2012, most rural hospitals had not yet adopted the electronic health records system (Phillips & Merrill, 2015). Some of the challenges that the rural hospitals have experienced in the adoption of the technology include inadequate broadband, limited access to capital, inadequate Internet infrastructure, shortages of health information technology workforce, workflow issues, as well as security concerns. However, with the incorporation of Medicare HER Incentive Programs, the challenges have been addressed with the aim of improving the use of EHRs in hospitals and their capabilities to exchange the health information of patients electronically.

References

Cousins, K. (2016). Health IT legislation in the United States: Guidelines for IS researchers. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 39(1), 17. Retrieved from https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol39/iss1/17/

Phillips, A. B., & Merrill, J. A. (2015). Innovative use of the integrative review to evaluate evidence of technology transformation in healthcare. Journal of biomedical informatics, 58, 114-121. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2015.09.014

Starkweather, A. R., Coleman, B., de Mendoza, V. B., Hickey, K. T., Menzies, V., Fu, M. R., ... & McCormick, K. (2018). Strengthen federal and local policies to advance precision health implementation and nurses' impact on healthcare quality and safety. Nursing outlook, 66(4), 401-406. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2018.06.001