First, gloStream guarantees that you’ll qualify as a meaningful user and acquire stimulus funding if you go through gloDNA, which is the exclusive process through which gloStream learns about your practice’s needs and customizes gloEMR to meet them.

Second, gloStream guarantees you’ll be back to full patient load within 15 days of implementation completion. That’s quite a contrast to most EMR companies, which require six to nine months to get practices back to normal after EMR implementation.

How solid are gloStream’s guarantees? If you don’t quality as a meaningful user or you aren’t back to full patient load within 15 days of implementation, gloStream will provide a full refund of all gloStream software and services.

That’s important, because EMR technology is expensive, and knowing whether it will work is the number one concern among health care practitioners. Now you can rest assured knowing we’ve addressed that concern.

The race to meaningful use is underway—and anyone who is participating should look into digitizing information that has been historically stored on paper. One way to do that is digital pen and paper technology.

Digital pen and paper technology digitizes information you write down, provided that you use a special pen and special paper. The benefit: You write as you normally would, but the information you write can be stored and accessed via your electronic medical record (EMR) system.

If you’re a physician on the road to meaningful use, you’ll want to explore this technology because it can reduce the number of things you need to change when implementing an EMR. That, in turn, will reduce your frustration—and get you up and running more quickly.

Interested? You’ll need three components: a digital pen, the software that prints the digital paper, and the digital paper that reads the input from the digital pen.

Here’s how it works. Your IT provider gives you software that lets you design and print your own forms—in other words, they look exactly like the forms you’re currently using. However, they will contain a subtle pattern of barely visible dots that can be read by the digital pen when you write. Although digital pens are larger than normal pens, they’re not so large that they’re hard to use, and they produce ink so you can see what you’re writing. Everything you write is then uploaded to your computer system—saving you time and improving accuracy.

There has been a reversal in the low interest in electronic medical record (EMR) adoption seen in previous years.

This information comes from surveys commissioned by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and carried out in the course of regular annual surveillance by the American Hospital Association and the National Center for Health Statistics.

The survey data shows that significantly increasing numbers of primary care physicians have already adopted a basic EMR, rising from 19.8 percent in 2008 to 29.6 percent in 2010.

Although basic EMRs are a good starting point, physicians would need to further upgrade their systems to qualify for meaningful use incentive payments. But there’s good news there, too: According to the surveys, 41 percent of office-based physicians are planning to achieve meaningful use of certified EMR technology and take advantage of the incentive payments. The majority of those physicians responded that they would enroll during Stage 1 of the programs.

David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health information technology, says leadership from the medical community and the federal government is responsible for the increase in EMR adoption rates.

It appears that practitioners are generally happy with the final rule on meaningful use that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of the National Coordination (ONC) released on July 13.

The 864-page document, which took into account more than 2,000 comments received during a 60-day period, is significantly more flexible than earlier versions.

Specifically, the final rule includes “core” and “menu” requirements. During the first year of adoption, also called stage 1, physicians must comply with 15 core objectives, and may choose five more objectives from a menu of 10. This relief from an all-or-nothing approach should help more practitioners who have certified Electronic Health Records (EHRs) achieve meaningful use easily.

That doesn’t mean EHR implementation will be simple, however. Critics of the final rule note that although its CPOE requirement was scaled back quite a bit, the reporting burden will still be a challenge to individual physicians and small groups.

As a result, the earlier health care practitioners can get started the better.

Related articles: Healthcare CIOs offer first take on final rule

According to National Health IT Coordinator David Blumenthal, MD, quality measures are at the heart meaingful use. “The key to meaningful use is to know how to measure for performance and to be able to give feedback to providers,” he said at an October 2009 conference sponsored by the National Quality Forum, which promotes and develops quality measures.

The requirements for meaningful use in 2011 are tasks that many providers already perform.

• You must send prescriptions to pharmacies electronically.
• Your EMR must connect to other EMRs, such as those at hospitals and other provider practices.
• You must submit statistical information on quality of care to the government so it can determine if EMRs are improving the health care system.

However, for 2013 and 2015 meaningful use will increasingly support improved patient outcomes, said Paul Tang, vice chairman of the Health IT Policy Committee, a public-private panel that advises the national health IT coordinator.

The changing requirements are a poor reason to delay implementing an EHR (and missing out on significant incentive payments). Any EHR you implement will likely include upgrades to meet changing meaningful use requirements.

So act now! Planning for a transition to an EMR is important and with hundreds of thousands of practices moving to an EMR there could be a wait—particularly as 2011 approaches.

To be reimbursed for the installation of EMRs under Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), medical professionals must use a “certified” EMR in a “meaningful” way.

To this point, however, exactly what “meaningful” meant has been up for debate—and without a definition, medical professionals had two unappealing choices: wait to buy an EMR, or buy an EMR not knowing if it would meet future standards.

Now, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology has made recommendations regarding meaningful use criteria. E-prescribing, checking for drug-to-drug interactions, and maintaining an updated problem list are among them.

Physicians must also use these features in their practice on a daily basis to show meaningful use of their EMR system.

There’s still a long road ahead: The recommendations must be approved by David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health IT, after which they will be submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Then, CMS will use these recommendations to make the final meaningful use rules, which are due in December.

This news makes it safer for medical professionals to implement EHRs now, provided that you use a reputable vendor. Larger vendors have the resources to upgrade their products as necessary to meet meaningful use criteria. In fact, many are assuring customers they’ll make any necessary changes, and some are offering money-back guarantees if they don’t.