Fishing Line
Medical practices have all the normal office information technology, of course, and many submit bills electronically to insurers because it improves cash flow. But almost entirely missing are systems that keep patient records electronically instead of in the paper files that choke most medical offices.
The federal Health and Human Services Department estimates as few as 12 percent of private physicians’ offices keep patients’ medical records electronically, despite studies that show electronic records improve patient safety and lowers costs. A survey conducted last year found that 6 percent of practices in New Mexico have electronic records. Since that survey, the state Health Department began offering cash grants to help practices adopt electronic records. About 150 more practices have installed electronic records systems in the past 10 months. During the last New Mexico legislative session, physicians mobilized against a Richardson administration bill that would have required medical providers to convert to electronic medical records over a period of years. The measure failed in the state Senate on a 13-23 vote. Resistance boils down to one simple problem, according to physicians, government officials and health information technologists: most practitioners don’t think there is enough business benefit in a potentially disruptive, expensive and painful transition to electronic systems to make it worth doing. In the long run, the federal government is hoping to use its clout through Medicare payments and regulations to create a system that allows medical providers to share patients’ records wherever the patient shows up for care. If a patient arrives unconscious in an emergency room in Cleveland, a physician ought to be able to look at her electronic chart online and learn she was treated for a bee-sting allergy in Las Cruces two years ago. Right now, electronic records, at least in larger practices, hospitals and integrated clinical systems, can protect patients from duplicated procedures and medical errors. A single electronic chart is updated and viewed by everyone in the system, so if your primary care physician has ordered a test or prescribed a drug, your cardiologist in the same system knows it and avoids ordering the same test or prescribing the same drug. Better yet, electronic systems can warn providers if they have prescribed drugs known to interact badly with other drugs that were already prescribed. The patient is protected and the insurance company isn’t paying for unnecessary care, and that’s the problem. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt told the Journal during a visit to Albuquerque last month that physicians are right to wonder “why they should disrupt their practices when the benefits flow to insurance companies and consumers.” Even information technology fans are quick to acknowledge the many difficulties transforming a medical office from paper to computer files presents. Technology skeptics are just as quick to acknowledge information technology in the doctor’s office has benefits and is probably inevitable in any case. Case studies provided by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, based in Chicago, describe medical practices that have increased revenue by up to 15 percent through improved billing. One practice found that eliminating the cost of managing paper files saved $6,000 per physician per year.
(Wednesday, August 13, 2008)
Fishing Line
Catches of the Week: On the Pecos River between Tererro and Willow Creek, Friday, Eugene Salas of Clovis caught a 27-inch, 7-pound, 4-ounce rainbow trout on a Panther Martin....At Shady Lakes, July 31, Caleb Mancini, 7, caught a 20-inch rainbow trout on stinky bait.
(Thursday, August 07, 2008)
Hike With a View
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — Up there, mercilessly, two lengths of steel cable some 440 feet in length await.
(Thursday, August 07, 2008)
Safety first
Boating safety should be a matter of common sense, but as Edith Hamilton suggests in "The Echo of Greece," it isn't laws that make civilization work so much as unwritten, unenforceable rules. So it is with boating rules and regulations, which often seem like laws (made to be broken), but they make sense:
(Thursday, July 31, 2008)
Play on
They keep telling me to quit.
(Thursday, July 24, 2008)
IN BRIEF Hunters to get deer licenses this week Hunters who were successful in the drawing for 2008-2009 New Mexico deer hunting permits will receive their permits and carcass tags in separate mailings this summer, the Department of Game and Fish announced.
(Thursday, July 24, 2008)
Fishing Line Catches of the Week: On Quality Water of the San Juan River: On Tuesday, June 15, Gene Horner of Memphis, Tenn. caught and released a 24-inch brown trout on a streamer at the Lower Texas Hole. On Saturday at the Upper Flats, Andrew Torres of Las Lunas caught and released a 27-inch rainbow on a Beadhead RS2. Also on Saturday, but just above the Texas Hole, Judy Rizek of Albuquerque caught and released a 22-inch rainbow, 12.5-inch girth, on a cream-color UFO....At Heron Lake over the weekend, Livia Landrum, 8, of Albuquerque caught a 17-inch kokanee salmon trolling a Double Whammy baited with corn on a downrigger rig at 22 feet; Livia was fishing with her uncle, Russ Steward of Albuquerque....At Shady Lakes: On July 12 (a delayed report), C. J. Baca of Albuquerque caught a 20-inch rainbow on a Pistol Pete. On July 16: Dillon Montoya, 7, of Bernalillo caught a 22 1/2-inch-rainbow on PowerBait. Anthony Chavez of Albuquerque caught a 20 1/2-inch rainbow on PowerBait. July 19, Tom Gallegos of Albuquerque caught a 21-inch rainbow on PowerBait. On Sunday Destini Cordova age 8, of Albuquerque caught a 22-inch, 5-pound rainbow on a Pistol Pete. Joshua Gray of Rio Rancho caught a 20 1/2-inch rainbow on PowerBait. ... Sunday at Santa Rosa Lake, David Thibeau of Edgewood caught a 26-inch, 5-pound walleye on night crawlers.
(Thursday, July 24, 2008)
The outdoors just got Greater
Thousands of acres of the state's wildlife areas were recently opened to activities other than hunting and fishing for the first time with the expansion of the Department of Game and Fish's Gaining Access Into Nature program.
(Thursday, July 17, 2008)
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