Anson General Hospital Leverages Prognosis HIS EHR to Attest to Meaningful Use Requirements

HOUSTON, July 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Anson General Hospital is proving that small community hospitals don't always have to follow but can take the lead: The 45-bed hospital can be counted among the first wave of providers to attest to meaningful use under the government's electronic health record (EHR) incentive program.  

On June 6th, the hospital successfully attested to its meaningful use of the ChartAccess® Comprehensive EHR from Prognosis Health Information Systems (HIS), putting the Texas hospital in a position to qualify for its share of the $27 billion in incentive funds emanating from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).  

"The Prognosis EHR's ease of use made it possible to get the clinician adoption needed to achieve meaningful use," said Sabra Knox, CEO at Anson. "Prognosis worked closely with us to ensure we were gathering the data required to successfully participate in the attestation. They really partnered with us to make the whole attestation process an easy one."

The successful attestation positions the hospital as a leader, when compared to progress being made by other providers. According to a press release from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), as of May 26th, the government had awarded a total of $158 million to qualifying healthcare providers, well below the $4.7 billion that the Congressional Budget Office estimated would be spent in FY 2011.  In addition, according to the American Hospital Association, just 1.6% of hospitals were ready for meaningful use at the beginning of 2011, although 95% ultimately plan to participate in the incentive program.  

To qualify for the ARRA money, healthcare providers need to install certified EHRs and prove that they are using the systems in a "meaningful" way by attesting to the fact that they are meeting specific user requirements. For example, hospitals must ensure that more than 50% of patients' demographic data is recorded as structured data, more than 50% of requesting patients receive electronic copies of their records within three business days and at least one clinical decision support rule is implemented.

Anson General Hospital documented its realization of the quantitative measures required for meaningful use in three months. A meaningful use dashboard in the ChartAccess system enabled Anson to easily monitor hospital progress in relation to required meaningful use measures.

A powerful EHR engineered for speed and available at an affordable cost, ChartAccess meets the needs of critical access and community hospitals such as Anson. ONC-certified, the flexible solution will be ready for all stages of meaningful use, enabling providers to qualify for ARRA incentive funds. The web-native solution is intuitive and easy-to-use, offering built in analytics and health information exchange (HIE) capabilities, which can help hospitals provide consistent, high-quality patient care. In addition, the latest cloud technology allows for a quick, easy deployment with low infrastructure and on-going IT costs.

"We provide technology that is truly tailored to user needs, making it possible for hospitals to quickly overcome the traditional physician and nurse adoption hurdle," said Ramsey Evans, CEO of Prognosis HIS. "But we don't stop there. We forge strong working relationships with each of our customers, ensuring that they understand the ARRA legislation in full.  And, then we work with them, side-by-side, to help them leverage our system and amass the data required to meet the meaningful use requirements."

Although the Prognosis system has helped Anson quickly attest to meaningful use requirements, Knox expects that the clinical benefits will multiply in the future.

"With electronic records in place, information will be able to follow patients from provider to provider. And, eventually the universal use of EHRs will help all of us in the healthcare industry to provide a higher level of care to our patients," Knox said.

About Prognosis Health Information Systems

Prognosis Health Information Systems, Inc., Houston, aims to improve the quality and safety of patient care through ChartAccess, a certified Comprehensive EHR. Designed to be fully operational in less than six months at a predictable, affordable cost, the solution enables hospitals to meet meaningful use and improve patient outcomes by leveraging built-in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) milestone and quality measure tracking functionality. PHIS uses 21st-Century technologies to offer small community hospitals a pure browser-based system that can run on-premise or in the cloud. For more information, go to www.prognosishis.com.

SOURCE Prognosis Health Information Systems