The question today for healthcare facilities isn't, "Does your facility use social media?" It's more like, "Who is using social media, for what purpose, and what are your hospital's policies and procedures around it?" It's good to have a strong social media policy and procedure in place for your organization, says Phyllis A. Patrick, MBA, FACHE, CHC, president of Phyllis A. Patrick & Associates, LLC, in Purchase, N.Y. She developed this accompanying checklist for those looking to beef up their policies on social media use in the hospital setting.
If your hospital doesn't plan to take advantage of government financial incentives for those who become "meaningful users" of EHRs, it is in the minority. According to HHS, 85% of hospitals plan to demonstrate meaningful use and earn incentives by 2015.
When it comes to the scanning function, how does your facility compare to those of your peers? To help you answer that question, MRB focused its latest quarterly benchmarking survey on scanning productivity. We hope you'll find the results helpful. More than 200 survey respondents completed the 2012 survey, including:
HIPAA requires implementation of technical policies and procedures for electronic information systems that maintain electronic protected health information (ePHI) to allow access only to those persons or software programs that have been granted access rights [§164.312(a)] as specified in the administrative safeguards under access authorization, establishment, and modification [§164.308(a)(4)].
In November 2006, CMS published a final rule on the Conditions of Participation (CoP) for hospitals. Among the finalized provisions, there was a five-year window given during which CMS permitted orders (including verbal and telephone orders) to be signed by either the ordering physician or another physician responsible for the patient's care (e.g., a covering physician or practice partner). Those five years came to an end on January 27, 2012, meaning that, as of that date, hospitals needed to ensure that their orders were signed only by the ordering practitioner him- or herself. However, in October 2011, CMS released a proposed rule addressing the five-year sunset provision. Per the Federal Register:
