MU Crystal Reports v1.10.4 now available

Message from GE Healthcare:

December 22, 2014

Dear Centricity Customers:

The Meaningful Use Crystal Reports that support Meaningful Use 2013 criteria have been updated to support Patient Level Detail. The package includes all changes from versions 1.10, 1.10.2, and 1.10.3. It updates all Functional Measures to display Patient Level Details when running the reports in Centricity Practice Solution v12.0 and Centricity EMR v9.8.

We recommend that you run these patient level detail reports and save them for audit purposes. For more details, please reference the release notes for CPS and CEMR that we have posted to the service portal.

As a reminder, these reports are available to support the MU Flexibility rule finalized by CMS August 29, 2014, where some Eligible Professionals (EPs) may qualify to use alternate methods for attesting for Meaningful Use in 2014. Review the recorded webinar and CMS Meaningful Use Flexibility Scenario Tool on the service portal for further details on the available flexibility options.

Sincerely,

Peter Kinhan, Vice President & General Manager, Ambulatory Practice Solutions, GE Healthcare IT

Additional Meaningful Use Resources

Message from GE Healthcare:

December 22, 2014

Dear Centricity Customers:

We have recently released additional resources to help you make your final preparations to attest to Meaningful Use.

  • Service Pack 7 is now generally available. This release supports 14 additional Clinical Quality Measures (bringing the total of supported CQMs to 36), it includes PQRS updates to identify Medicare Part B patient visits, and it incorporates the MU Functional Measure changes originally available only through the Meaningful Use Update Patch.
  • We published a revision to the Meaningful Use Workflows Info Sheet that describes new workflows and resolutions to help ensure you capture the appropriate data for calculations.
  • Finally, we released an updated version of the Meaningful Use User Guide for Centricity Practice Solution and Centricity EMR customers that will serve as your comprehensive resource for understanding how the measures are calculated and workflows that support those measures.

We hope you find these resources useful. We are committed to your success and are standing by to support you through your final phases of Meaningful Use 2014 preparation.

Sincerely,

Peter Kinhan, Vice President & General Manager, Ambulatory Practice Solutions, GE Healthcare IT

CLINICAL VISIT SUMMARY – Product Information Notice

Message from GE Healthcare:

December 19, 2014

Dear Centricity Customer,

We would like to make you aware of potentially unexpected behavior when attaching a clinical visit summary to a patient’s chart that, if not immediately addressed as instructed below, has the potential in limited cases to inadvertently lead to health information from one patient being available to another patient. Users of Centricity Practice Solution 12.0.x or Centricity EMR 9.8.x should follow the instructions in this letter to determine if you have experienced this issue in the past. We recommend that you upgrade to Service Pack 7 to ensure you avoid the situation in the future.

Clinical Visit Summary Appending Incorrectly SPR 60572: In certain rare circumstances, a clinical visit summary (CVS) generated from within one patient’s open chart will append to another, previously-closed patient chart. This CVS could then be provided to the other patient, whether manually or automatically via secure message.

Recommended Actions We have posted to the service portal a script that can identify the patients’ charts at risk of containing an incorrectly appended CVS. We recommended that you follow the steps in the Release Notes to run the detection script. The Release Notes can be downloaded from the Access Documentation section of the CPS Service Portal or the CEMR Service Portal. We recommend that you examine any at-risk charts identified by the script for incorrectly appended summaries. If any are found, we sugges you

  1. change the incorrect CVS to Filed in Error AND
  2. retract any secure messages that may have delivered the summaries.

Please note: only some of the charts identified by the script will contain an incorrectly appended summary. You will need to run the detection script frequently and manually remediate any issues until you upgrade to a version where the situation is corrected. A fix is available for those on Service Pack 6, and the situation is corrected in Service Pack 7.

Contact Information If you have experienced this issue or have questions, please contact Centricity Support by calling 1-888-436-8491.

Maintaining a high level of quality is our highest priority. If you have any questions, please contact us immediately per the contact information above.

Sincerely,

Peter Kinhan, Vice President and General Manager, Ambulatory Practice Solutions GE Healthcare IT

Is there Light at the end of this Healthcare Tunnel?

“Stress is not what happens to us. It’s our response to what happens.  An response is something we can choose at any moment.” www.livelifehappy.com

Does anyone else feel like healthcare is consuming most of your life these days? I am reading blogs on Healthcare IT, Healthcare law, Healthcare updates, Healthcare mandates, Healthcare…you get the idea.

As a Practice Administrator, I feel as though I should have an IT, law, administration, accounting, and marketing degree. I am fortunate to work for a Physician that believes in investing in his employees and providing resources to get our jobs done, but I wonder about those that don’t? Even with endless resources, the burden to stay on top of the latest news in healthcare is cumbersome. On top of the things you HAVE to do, what about the things you want to do?

Read more

Join us for CHUG at Centricity LIVE! – Call for Presentations

CHUG at Centricity LIVE April 29 – May 2, 2015 Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Orlando, Florida

Your Expertise is NEEDED for CHUG at Centricity LIVE – Lead a Breakout Session…CHUG needs users like you to lead discussions or present on topics of interest to attendees. This is your opportunity to share your knowledge and establish yourself as an expert who tackles the most pressing issues.

There are plenty of speaking opportunities avaiable. Help teach practical skills to your peers. Participate in or lead a panel discussion. Share best practices or a case study. CHUG at Centricity LIVE 2015 is a terrific venue to explore and discuss healthcare’s most pressing issues.

Here are some of the areas of interest:

  • Meaningful Use – How do we get the patient engaged in the process?
  • How do you utilize eRx?
  • How do you use reports? 
  • What is the best way to enroll patients in the web portal?
  • Techniques to increase IT department productivity and efficiency
  • Change management techniques
  • Training techniques/ systems
  • How do you prioritize in a world where every project is a high priority?
  • How do you keep your Clinical Decision Support information up to date? Organized?
  • How do you get providers to use Orders?
  • How do you take the pain out of the orders module?
  • Customize versus Standardize – How do you balance them?
  • Any other topic that would be of interest to Centricity EMR or PM Users

Chose from the topics above or submit a new hot topic idea.

  • Build a crucial dialogue with your audience through multiple interactive education formats and social media.
  • Spark creative conversations: we WELCOME unique ideas for full sessions or topics for CHUG Table Chat.

Can you draw a crowd or start a discussion? If so, please submit a session!

https://www.gehealthcare-centricity-live.com/2015/portal/cfp/cfpLogin.ww

In exchange for your participation, we’ll provide you with up to two complimentary registrations – each valued at $640 – per session. Plus, you’ll achieve recognition for your organization and for yourself as a thought leader in healthcare informatics.

If you’d like to be a rock star at CHUG at Centricity LIVE 2015 in Orlando or to learn more about leading a session, please contact: chug@beattygroup.com or go ahead and submit a session.

For those of you that don’t plan to lead a session but want to attend, register now and take advantage of early bird pricing.

JOIN CHUG AT CENTRICITY LIVE IN ORLANDO – REGISTER TODAY AND SAVE!

Save $100 per person by registering three or more people from the same organization

As an attendee you have the opportunity to gain knowledge, tips and tricks from the multiple educational sessions and collaborate with healthcare professionals.

REGISTER NOW: https://www.gehealthcare-centricity-live.com/2015/portal/newreg.ww

 

QSS Reminder for PQRS: Step 4 due December 5th

December 5, 2014

Dear Quality Submission Service Participant:

We appreciate your interest in GE Healthcare’s Quality Submission Service (QSS) program for PQRS. Please take a moment to review the details about important next steps in the Step By Step guide  (updated December 4th). We have adjusted the timeframes to allow you more time to complete your upgrade to Service Pack 7. New timelines are outlined below and are reflected in the updated guide which is available on the Service Portal.

Step 4: Due December 5th

Contract for QSS – Sign & submit the GE change order (quotation) for QSS.

Step 5: Due December 31st

Implement CQR & Plan Upgrade -

  • Implement Clincial Quality Reporting (CQR) NOTE: If you have not yet contracted for this, please: email sales  immediately. If you have contracted, please continue to work with your assigned project manager or GE resource to schedule and complete your CQR installation.
  • Plan your upgrade to Centricity Practice Solution 12.0.7 or Centricity EMR 9.8.7 or higher. NOTE: Service Pack 7 is anticipated to be available in early/mid December. If you are in need of our service pack upgrade assistance, and if you have not yet contracted for this, please email sales . If you have contracted, please continue to work with your assigned project manager or GE resource to schedule and complete your upgrade.

Step 6: Due January 31st

Complete Upgrade, Update Insurance and Authorize

  • Complete upgrade to CPS 12.0.7 or CEMR 9.8.7 or higher (once available).
  • Update insurance information.
  • Authorize submission of provider measures in CQR. NOTE: Complete the upgrade and update insurance information as early as possible; measure and provider authorization cannot be completed until those steps are performed.

As a part of step 6, you MUST update insurance information so the patient visits will be recognized for the PQRS program. Please review the PQRS insurance update instructions that we have posted to the Service Portal and join us for an informational webinar to learn how to complete this step.

Informational webinar: Capturing PQRS insurance

Date: December 12, 2014              Time: 10:30AM-11:00AM PST     1:30PM-2:00PM EST            Webinar Registration Link

If you have any questions, please contact Centricity Support at 888-436-8491 (Option 2, Option 3).

Thank you, GE Healthcare

CQR Notice: DOWNTIME December 5th-8th

December 3, 2014

Dear Clinical Quality Reporting Customer,

We want to share with you an important downtime notice for Clinical Quality Reporting (CQR). This downtime is necessary to support the continually growing volumes of data and calculation requests. The update also provides support for additional Meaningful Use workflows and makes some changes to the clinical quality measures displayed on your dashboard. Please refer to the release notes that we expect to post to the CQR section of the Centricity™ Practice Solution (CPS) Centricity EMR (CEMR) and Service Portals on Monday, December 8

Please be aware of the following:

  • We will bring CQR down for two short periods starting the evening of December 5th, and we expect the system to be available for full use by the evening of December 8th.
  • The CQR Dashboard will be unavailable Friday evening through Saturday morning.
  • CQR ingestion processes will be suspended briefly for some customers on Monday beginning at 9:00 AM PST.
  • We will be reaching out to some of you prior to the downtime to make configuration changes to your system. A project manager will contact you by Friday, if this is required for your system.
  •  For this Maintenance period, you do NOT need to turn off your CQR Channel in QIE nor your CQR subscription in the CPS or CEMR applications. However, we recommend you review QIE for errors that may have occurred during the downtime or as a result of configuration changes within the CQR application.  Instructions for performing this task will be posted to the Service Portal on Monday.

We will work expeditiously to make these updates, and we will post an announcement to the Service Portal when the system is available.

To receive notifications directly to your email account when we post these updates, please log in to the CQR section of the CPS or CEMR Service Portal, click on “follow” in the top right hand corner of the page, and check “InBox”. Should you need assistance in configuring your account to follow these pages, please read Getting Started: Following Products and Communities and Email or Stream Notifications?.

We thank you for your patience during this time. If you have any additional questions, please call Centricity Support Services at 1-888-436-8491.

Sincerely,

Peter Kinhan

Vice President & General Manager, Ambulatory Practice Solutions GE Healthcare IT

 

New CHUG Board Member!

derrick

December 1, 2014

Dear CHUG Members,

The CHUG Board of Directors is pleased to announce Derrick Bovenkamp has been elected to the Board as a member-at-large.  Derrick is a Senior Systems Administrator with Family Care Network in Bellingham, Washington and will begin his term on January 1, 2015. 

Thank you to all the members who took the time to vote.

Sincerely,

The CHUG Board of Directors

11 Reasons to say “Yes” to a Scribe

How much is your time worth as a provider? Or a better question, what is YOUR hourly rate? With the increase in government regulations and the need for timely, accurate documentation, scribes are a great option.

1. Help Me, Help YOU

Making your job as a provider easier should be a reason to consider a scribe. Not only is your scribe taking down your documentation into the EHR as directed but they are also there as your “assistant.” You may choose to pull an already clinical person, such as an MA or a nurse, to become your scribe. This will allow your scribe to assist you with minor procedures, injections, casting, etc.

2. Can I get a witness?

Unfortunately there are times when a patient visit becomes a “He said, She said” moment. With a scribe, you will have a witness in the room documenting the information in “real time.”

3. Call for some Help

Read more