The Health IT – Quality Connection and More

October 19, 2011 -- The medical community is nearly one year into its transition to using health IT to improve practice efficiency and outcomes. On Oct. 3, the final three-month period for reporting under the Medicare Incentive Program began; on Sept. 27, Oregon’s Medicaid HIT program began accepting enrollees and attestations for clinics seeking incentive payments under the Medicaid portion of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act programs.

Many Oregon medical practices are well on their way toward the adoption and implementation of this technology. However, plenty of clinicians and their office staff may be asking themselves – “I feel like the window is closing, and I don’t know where to begin!” With the incentive program designed to continue through the coming years, it is still a great time to get moving on adopting health IT.

A workshop series hosted by the OMA offers education to help get on the right track. The series, with events on October 21, December 6, and November 15 use Health IT curriculum materials developed by a consortium of universities including Oregon Health & Sciences University, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University and the University of Alabama-Birmingham and presented by Oregon’s Community College Consortia (CCC) to Educate Health IT Professionals; both programs are sponsored by the ONC (Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT).

The event on October 21, which is accredited for 5.0 hours of AMA Category 1 CME, will focus on Quality Improvement, focusing on practice workflow redesign and its ability to improve quality, and incorporating quality management and reporting through electronic systems, among other topics.

This is essential education not just to keep pace with health IT, but also to keep pace with the growing demands on clinical practices to track and report quality data across a variety of metrics. As Oregon’s health care delivery system transitions into creating medical homes and Coordinated Care Organizations, this trend will only continue.

The workshop on Oct. 21, and the entire seminar series, is the result of an collaboration among the Oregon Medical Association, O-HITEC, the Oregon Health Network, the Oregon Health Authority and the Community College Consortia for Health IT, each of which is working to support the larger transformation of the health care delivery system through Health IT.

Registration for the event is open to all, and is $169 for OMA members and their staff, and $203 for non-members.  Complete series information, including online registration and series discount information, are available through the OMA website at www.theOMA.org/workshops.