FEATURE
costing, billing, etc., and ProVation, which is a procedural documentation system for GI and pain management.” Craig’s ASC is using an interface
Modifying to Achieve Interoperability
In the absence of CEHRT, ASCs adapt to reach clinical integration BY SAHELY MUKERJI
I
f an ASC needs to participate in the continuity of care across a surgical
episode, it needs to have an IT sys- tem that speaks to a physician part- ner’s electronic health records (EHR), says Roy Georgia, partner in the ASC Division of ICE Technologies, head- quartered in Pella, Iowa. “Herein comes the need for interoperability,” he says. “With a lot of consolidation in the ASC software space, there is going to be more standardization and increased adoption of EHR products. With that, there will be a more spe- cific need for interoperability.” Even though a certified EHR stan-
dard for ASCs has not been established yet, Georgia believes that the available products have matured and that there is a broad enough offering in the EHR space capable of supporting interoper- ability standards for ASCs. “Once you have an EHR, the benefits of interoper-
ability increase significantly,” he says. “As ASCs evaluate technologies, they should seek out products that support the most current standards, such as HL7, with technologies that manage and monitor the interfaces.”
What ASCs Are Doing While surgery centers wait for certi- fied EHR technology (CEHRT) suited to an ASC, they are either adopt- ing their physicians’ EHR or sticking to pen and paper to achieve interop- erability. “Right now, we are seeing so many different situations,” says Rebecca Craig, RN, CASC, ASCA Board president and chief executive officer of Harmony Surgery Center LLC and Peak Surgical Management LLC in Fort Collins, Colorado. “As an example, my center uses AdvantX— a Source Medical product—for our operating system, for scheduling, case
14 ASC FOCUS SEPTEMBER 2017 |
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engineer, Corepoint, to send schedul- ing and insurance info from AdvantX to ProVation and AdvantX to NextGen at the GI physician practice/office, but since the GI practice just moved to Epic, this point of interface no longer occurs electronically, she says. “Our local health system, UC Health, started using Epic about four years ago, so many physician offices—fam- ily practice and specialists—are mov- ing to Epic to be connected as they work toward interoperability,” she says. “We used Amkai for our elec- tronic medical records (EMR) a few years ago, but when our health system partner said Epic would not interface with Amkai, we went back to paper. We plan to continue utilizing paper medical records until we can find an EMR solution that will allow us to achieve interoperability while com- plementing our business operations. “I foresee us possibly moving to Epic in the next few years when they get an ASC module,” she adds. “Right now, we pull most of our data for qual- ity reporting through AdvantX or man- ually from our paper charts.” Ann Shimek, ASCA Board mem- ber and senior vice president of clinical operations at United Surgi- cal Partners International in Addi- son, Texas, says they have EHR for 20 hospitals within their health sys- tem but none for the ASCs. “We have some interoperability within our health system, and we have been looking for an EHR for our ASCs, but we have not found a system that meets our current needs.”
Unless you are connected to a health information exchange (HIE), there is no EHR for ASCs, she says. “None of the vendors speak to each other. Some health system partners have built their own HIE and they can talk to each other, but they cannot talk to the physi-
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