FOCUS TOPICS ADVANCED PRACTICE CLINICIANS RECRUITING ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS
July 2013 >> $5
PHYSICIAN SPOTLIGHT PAGE 3
John Bates, MD
ON ROUNDS
Ranks and Roles of Nurse Practitioners Accelerating With the Affordable Care Act pushing cost-effective healthcare and coinciding with a shortage of primary-care physicians, nurse practitioners are becoming more numerous ... 4
Electronic Health Records: How Far Have We Come? By SUZANNE BOyD
Much progress has been made, but much work remains to be done, in getting healthcare providers to embrace electronic health records as a way to improve patient care. Among those pushing hard for EHR adoption are the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that as of the end of April, more than half of all doctors and other eligible providers had received incentive payments for adopting, implementing, upgrading or meaningfully using EHRs. More than 80 percent of eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals have demonstrated meaningful use. That equates to $14.6 billion in incentives having been paid to Medicare and Medicaid providers and hospitals. According to data collected by the state of Tennessee, 3,197 eligible professionals and 127 eligible hospitals have received incentive payments totaling more than $78 million since the program began in January 2011. A survey from CMS indicated that the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009 has dramatically accelerated providers’ use of key health IT capabilities across the nation. Office-based physician use of e-prescribing has increased from less than 1 percent in 2006 to 53 percent in early 2013, with more than 94 percent of all pharmacies actively e-prescribing. Physicians are also exchanging information (CONTINUED ON PAGE 13)
HealthcareLeader State Pharmacy Board Strengthens Oversight of Drug Compounding In the wake of another suspect drug case with reports of adverse patient events, the Tennessee Board of Pharmacy has announced actions to better assure the safe, sterile compounding of drugs by state-licensed entities ... 8
ONLINE: WESTTN MEDICAL NEWS.COM
Deena Kail Executive Director, Ayers Children’s Medical Center By SUZANNE BOyD
As a child, Deena Kail always knew she wanted to be a nurse. Management, however, was not included in her childhood dream but is ultimately how she is fulfilling that dream of being a nurse. As executive director of West Tennessee’s Ayers Children’s Medical Center, Kail is still applying what drew her into health-
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care into her daily routine, the love of caring for others. “When I graduated with my associate’s degree in nursing from Union University in 1981 I went to work in labor and delivery at Jackson General. My heart was at the bedside and I loved taking care of women and children to the point that I thought I would never leave it.
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