by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | May 15, 2014
From the May 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“That has huge repercussions for Meaningful Use, not only to lower health care costs, but to order the right test at the right time for the right patient,” Halabi says.
The Epic EHR system used by Halabi’s organization has the ability to add a third-party decision support system, but decision support is not tightly integrated with the ordering process yet, Halabi says.
The American College of Radiology has its own clinical decision support product called ACR Select and hired the National Decision Support Company to help the product work within other EHR systems.
Within the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014 is the requirement to use clinical decision support in radiology during the order entry process.
“That dovetails into the Meaningful Use requirements,” says Dr. J. Raymond “Raym” Geis, chair of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine. “Meaningful Use wants to use clinical decision support. They didn’t say you have to use clinical decision support for radiology. Radiology already has a clinical decision support product, so it’s sort of a win-win for everybody.”
According to Cooke, radiologists can also work with physicians participating in the Meaningful Use program who write orders for imaging exams.
“It creates an opportunity for radiologists to engage with those doctors,” Cooke says.
In general, radiologists participating in the program see the overall benefits to health care.
“In the future I think healthcare information technology is going to be more and more important,” Mangrum says. “Our group sees this importance and thus is investing now in meeting Meaningful Use compliance so as to be in the forefront of information technology innovation. We hope that Meaningful Use requirements in the future will be more tailored to meet the specific needs of radiology. I think that those radiology groups that do not voluntarily meet these requirements now will be forced into compliance in the near future.”
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