Tapping the Power of EHRs

The passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides incentives for physicians and other providers to tap into the power of electronic health records (EHRs). Physicians, hospitals and health systems may be eligible to benefit from the incentives, whether through first-time deployment of EHRs or completion of existing healthcare IT projects.

We believe it’s important that physicians and hospitals understand the opportunities this legislation creates and so McKesson has launched the Achieve HIT program. The program is focused on helping healthcare providers understand the stimulus package and how it could affect your healthcare IT plans. No matter where you are in your EHR journey, McKesson can help provide the right mix of health information technology solutions.

CCHIT Certification

The certification requirements necessary to qualify for healthcare IT funding are not known yet and may not be defined until late 2009. However, as of today, the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology^SM (CCHIT) certification process represents a common set of standards for EHRs in the healthcare industry. CCHIT certified solutions provide physicians assurance that they are purchasing a quality product that delivers:

• Functionality to create and manage electronic patient records and to automate office workflow
• Interoperability to receive and send electronic data
• Security to keep patients' information safe
  
  

McKesson’s EHR Solutions

Independent Physician Practice Solutions
For independent physicians seeking an ambulatory electronic health record, McKesson offers Practice Partner® Patient Records. Practice Partner offers an award-winning EHR that is easy to use and rapidly deployable. Physician practices may use Practice Partner Medical Billing and Practice Partner Scheduling, solutions that share an integrated database with Practice Partner Patient Records, to address financial and administrative needs. Practice Partner Patient Records Version 9.3 is a CCHIT Certified product for CCHIT Ambulatory EHR 2008 and Child Health.

Hospital Outreach Solutions
Through the McKesson Physician Alliance Program, McKesson focuses on hospitals that wish to partner with physicians in their community to accelerate EHR adoption. The program provides an opportunity for hospitals to work with McKesson and our premium value-added reseller (VAR) partners to perform marketing, sales, implementation and support functions alleviating the burden from the hospital.

Healthcare Organizations
McKesson can help midsize to large hospitals accelerate adoption of inpatient EHR solutions while also promoting IT use among employed and affiliated physicians. In the inpatient setting, the Horizon Clinicals® suite provides a common view of the patient’s condition and needs across settings and episodes of care, empowering all members of the care team to deliver the best possible care and outcomes for their patients. Horizon Clinicals solutions work in concert with our powerful performance management system, Clinical Performance Analytics, to drive and sustain performance improvements as quality and reimbursement become ever more tightly linked.

For healthcare organizations seeking an ambulatory electronic health record that is integrated with McKesson’s Horizon Clinicals® inpatient environment, we offer Horizon Ambulatory Care™. This solution provides physicians with a single, shared online patient record that flows across care settings. Horizon Ambulatory Care leverages the Horizon Clinical Infrastructure and shares the same clinical content, patient data, clinician tools and technical architecture as the inpatient solutions. In this integrated model, hospitals and physician practices can leverage McKesson’s Horizon Practice Plus™, a practice management system integrated with Horizon Ambulatory Care, to address the financial and administrative needs of today’s physician group practices.

For community hospitals, McKesson’s Paragon® community hospital information system is a complete suite of integrated applications that addresses patient safety, financial and revenue cycle management, regulatory and HIPAA compliance, and more. Designed specifically for critical access, rural and community hospitals of all sizes, Paragon multidisciplinary care solutions include order management, medication administration and care planning along with pharmacy, laboratory and radiology solutions. Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) functionality is currently in development. Paragon also is integrated with McKesson’s Practice Partner® solution to improve connectivity with smaller physician practices.

Connectivity Solutions
With RelayHealth’s intelligent network integrated with McKesson’s physician practice solutions, hospitals can streamline clinical, financial and administrative communication between patients, providers, payors, pharmacies and financial institutions in their community. RelayHealth’s solution offering includes:

• Online consultation of physicians by patients
• Electronic prescribing
• Point-of-service pharmacy claims resolution by payors
• Pre-visit patient financial clearance by providers
• Post-visit provider bill settlement by payors and patients

McKesson has a healthcare information technology footprint with over 120,000 providers. Our comprehensive portfolio is designed to satisfy the diverse requirements of physicians giving them solutions with the backing of a leader in healthcare.