October 2019

Thoughts From Our President

We are pleased to have earned a spot on Modern Healthcare’s 2019 Best Places to Work list in the suppliers’ category. This is the sixth year in a row we have received such recognition. NHA was ranked #24 of all vendors in our industry, ahead of every other company that provides services to the MEDITECH community.

We strongly believe happy employees do the best work. This is reflected in the positive recommendations our clients provide to our prospects and share with industry sources such as KLAS and Black Book.

I want to thank my leadership team for maintaining a culture that supports our staff who do great work for our clients.

John Haffty, President
Navin, Haffty & Associates

MEDITECH Announces Collaboration with Google Cloud to Bring EHRs to the Public Cloud

Earlier this month, MEDITECH made this significant announcement:

The contemporary Expanse platform will be one of the first EHRs available through Google Cloud Platform (GCP), delivering a new level of digital transformation to an increasingly diverse range of healthcare facilities.

Visit MEDITECH’s news page to read the full story.

MEDITECH’s CEO, Howard Messing, was recently interviewed by Becker’s to discuss why this transition to Google Cloud is the beginning of a bigger movement.

MEDITECH Announces Integration with Apple Health Records

MEDITECH announced support on its Expanse and 6.0 platforms for Apple Health Records on the iPhone, which brings together hospitals, clinics, and the existing Apple Health app to make it easy for consumers to see their available medical data from multiple providers whenever they choose. Early adopters are Grand View Health, Sellersville, PA, Hancock Regional Hospital, Greenfield, IN, and Doylestown Hospital, Doylestown, PA. Click here to read more about this integration. MEDITECH is also working on integration with the Client/Server and MAGIC platforms.

Visit MEDITECH’s Apple Integration product brief for specific information on how to proceed with integrating your MEDITECH EHR. If you are seeking assistance with this effort, MEDITECH’s Professional Services division is available to help. Contact Larry O’Toole or Joe Wall for more information on MEDITECH Professional Services.

Reporting Your Promoting Interoperability, Stage 3 Results

During this year’s MUSE conference, Bill Winn, Director of Strategic Services, presented on the topic of Promoting Interoperability (PI) Stage 3. (Bill’s full presentation is available here.) Since then, we received several inquiries regarding whether hospitals need to purchase these reports from a third-party vendor or whether they are available directly through MEDITECH.

MEDITECH has CMS/Drummond Group certified SQL reports and Best Practices for all PI Stage 3 objective measures and 2019 electronic Clinical Quality Measures (eCQMs) required in 2019. The MEDITECH regulatory web page provides all documentation needed to define workflows, mapping and setup for all platforms. If your site has SQL expertise, you can configure and run these reports in-house.

PI Stage 3 submissions are accomplished via CMS web site entry during the January/February 2020 timeframe. MEDITECH’s eCQM reports create the required QRDA files for submission. You can also engage NHA to run, troubleshoot, and work with you to verify results and generate final results at the end of your 90-day reporting period. NHA can also assist with verifying the QRDA formatted files needed for submission of eCQMs. This includes correcting errors found during the file validation steps, as well as errors reported during the final submissions to QualityNet. PI Stage 3 submissions are accomplished via CMS web site entry during the January/February 2020 timeframe.

If you’d like to discuss further, contact us at info@navinhaffty.com and we’d be glad to set up a call with one of our PI Stage 3 specialists.

Contract Management Approaches

We were recently speaking with a client’s CFO regarding their approach to contract management. They use a third party system and there was frustration with the necessity to extract data from MEDITECH to format to the system and multiple time consuming steps in the data management process. One of our consultants framed the discussion around three points:

• Knowing that MEDITECH and ANSI EDI files have virtually all the information you need for detailed line-item billing/payment/cost analyses, what is the best way to assimilate this information?
• What do you truly envision for optimal contract management and financial viability tools?
• How would you like to get there?

NHA is developing a white paper regarding the capabilities and strategies to accomplish the end goals of maximizing net patient revenue and optimizing contract management with a focus on financial viability.

The key question: Can MEDITECH provide detailed payer-specific and line-item-specific charge, payment and cost information?

The answer is: Yes, there are multiple ways this can be accomplished.

In brief, data can be gleaned from the following sources:

• ANSI 835 Insurance Electronic Remittance Advices (ERA)
• MEDITECH Patient Accounting detailed line-item charges and payments
• MEDITECH General Ledger, Materials Management, Payroll, and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) modules
• MEDITECH Cost Accounting
• SQL Data Repository
• Real-time and scheduled Report Designer retrieval

Information can be summarized, trended, viewed and used via any of the following:

• Business and Clinical Analytics
• SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) Dashboards
• Executive Support System (ESS) Views
• Standard and Custom Reports
• Export to third-party systems such as Kaufman Hall with assimilation via their dashboards

These processes can then be made available to your financial/contract management team, executive leadership and department managers for comprehensive, proactive, efficient, effective usage, monitoring and optimization.

Views of this information can include:

• Actual, expected, prorated, historical and trended detailed charges, payments and costs
• Summary analysis and monitoring by payer, provider, employer, patient type, service type, service line, procedure, department and many other aspects – whatever folks would like and need

As noted above, the next questions subject to further discussion are:

• What is the best way to assimilate this information?
• What do you truly envision for optimal contract management and financial viability tools?
• How would you like to get there?

If you’d like to discuss further, contact us at info@navinhaffty.com and we’d be glad to set up a call with one of our contract management specialists.

MEDITECH Physician/CIO Forum

NHA had the privilege of attending the MEDITECH Physician/CIO Forum last month. It was well attended by approximately 250 physicians and CIOs and MEDITECH packed a lot of content into a few days. For those who couldn’t attend (and those of you who couldn’t get to everything you may have wanted to see), all educational presentations are available on their website. MEDITECH also posted an event recap: Highlights from MEDITECH’s 2019 Physician and CIO Forum.

NHA would like to thank our many clients and friends, along with our co-sponsors CloudWave and Forward Advantage, who joined us at our Welcome Reception. It was wonderful getting together to socialize and trade ideas and stories. Click here to view the full photo gallery.

Canadian Corner

• Unfortunately, ransomware attacks have impacted several non-MEDITECH Ontario-based hospitals in recent months. Click here for more information. MEDITECH assembled a set of blog postings that provide insight and guidance on preventing cyberattacks.
• MEDITECH recently made the following exciting announcements about their presence in Canada:For over three decades, MEDITECH has fostered strong relationships with its Canadian customers, becoming the EHR market leader with over 47% of the Canadian market.The Enterprise Health Record (EHR) vendor continues to elevate care in the region with its advanced web-based EHR technology, Expanse, which was ranked Best in KLAS for Acute Care EMR (Canada) in 2019.“MEDITECH is proud of our 35-year history uniting communities across Canada to deliver exceptional patient care through MEDITECH’s clinically-integrated EHR,” said Helen Waters, Executive Vice President, MEDITECH. “It has been incredibly rewarding to witness our Canadian customers’ impressive achievements, from HIMSS Stage 7 to opening North America’s first fully digital hospital.”

  Some of the exciting MEDITECH news in Canada includes:

  • Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital (Toronto, Ontario) went LIVE with MEDITECH Expanse on June 1. The 75-bed research hospital — renowned for its expertise in partnering with clients and families to provide exceptional care — chose MEDITECH Expanse for its web functionalities. The modern technology supports clinicians from all care areas to improve communication, and enables Holland Bloorview to provide unparalleled, personalized patient care spanning across all care settings.
    • Note: NHA is pleased to be Holland Bloorview’s READY implementation partner
  • MEDITECH’s Fall Risk Management Toolkit is now available in Canada. MEDITECH’s evidence-based toolkit is designed in Expanse and promotes proactive fall risk management best practices that align with the Canadian Patient Safety Institute.
  • MEDITECH’s Antimicrobial Stewardship Toolkit is now available in Canada. The toolkit, which aligns with several Public Health Ontario antimicrobial stewardship strategies, provides outcomes-centered workflow and guidance to identify and monitor patients on antibiotic therapy.

MEDITECH will be hosting a leadership event focused on MEDITECH Expanse at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (Oakville, Ontario) on October 29th

NHA will be in attendance at the October 29 leadership event. If you are interested in scheduling a meeting with us, please contact David LaFontaine or (508) 948-6604.

NHA Client News

• As noted in our opening article, we are pleased to announce we were recognized as one of Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work in Healthcare for 2019 in the suppliers’ category. We would like to take a moment to congratulate our past and present clients who were also honored this year:
  • 3 – Woman’s Hospital, Baton Rouge, LA
  • 21 – Stillwater Medical Center, Stillwater, OK
  • 24 – Uvalde Memorial Hospital, Uvalde, TX
  • 33 – Conway Regional Health System, Conway, AR
  • 52 – Guadalupe Regional Medical Center, Seguin, TX
  • 62 – Atlantic Health System, Morristown, NJ
• Congratulations to Calvary Hospital of Bronx, New York on its September 1 Go-LIVE of MEDITECH Expanse. The hospital migrated from a mixed-vendor EHR platform with the support of NHA as its certified consulting partner
• We are pleased to announce we have been selected by the following organizations for their upcoming projects:
  • Intensive Specialty Hospital, Shreveport, LA – Client/ Server Implementation
  • Lake Regional Health System, Osage Beach, MO – Clinical Testing Assistance
  • North Country Healthcare, Littleton, NH – Expanse Implementation
  • The Valley Hospital, Ridgewood, NJ – 6.1 to Expanse Migration
  • Valley Presbyterian Hospital, Van Nuys, CA – 835 Project Support
  • Whidbey Health, Coupeville, WA – LAB BBK Interface Build

Quick Notes

• Forward Advantage recently launched a new blog – Forward Focus. It’s a convenient one-stop-shop for readers to stay informed on hot industry topics and find the newest information about Forward Advantage’s solutions and services.
• The opioid epidemic continues to be a significant health challenge for many communities. Here are two articles from the MEDITECH website that might be useful for those tasked with addressing this problem:
  • Progress in the fight against the Opioid Epidemic by Janet Desroche, Associate Vice President, MEDITECH
  • How an EHR can help Physicians practice Opioid Stewardship by Dr. Upendra Thaker, Mount Nittany Medical Center
• MEDITECH recently launched a depression screening and suicide prevention toolkit which helps clinicians to identify patients with undiagnosed depression and suicide risk
• In the previous two months, we shared information regarding how MEDITECH is helping home health agencies preparing for the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) that will create new requirements for the home health industry. The new model relies heavily on clinical characteristics and other patient information to determine payment categories. It also calls for the use of 30-day payment periods, among other changes. Here is a link to the third article in their PDGM series.
• MEDITECH extended its global presence with their recent contract for Expanse with the Aga Khan University.
• Congrats to the MEDITECH Marketing team, winner of the 2019 New England Direct Marketing Association Gold Award in the Integrated Media Campaign Category “Image and Brand Building.” The Integrated Media Award recognizes how MEDITECH announced Expanse through a variety of web and media channels.

Calendar of Events

Upcoming MEDITECH Webinars (all times listed in Eastern):

Practice Makes Perfect with Expanse Ambulatory
October 17, 2:00 PM | 60 min.
During this webinar, you’ll learn how Expanse Ambulatory Practice Management drives revenue while improving the patient experience.

Gain Mobility with MEDITECH’s Expanse Point of Care Solution
October 23, 2:00 PM | 30 min.
Learn how Expanse Point of Care puts medication administration, documentation and chart review in the palm of your hand.

New View of Ambulatory Care with MEDITECH Expanse
October 29, 2:00 PM | 60 min.
See a high-level front-to-back walkthrough of MEDITECH’s modern, mobile, Ambulatory EHR.

Other Industry Webinars

Forward Advantage is hosting three “quick tips” webinars on how they can help during a transition to MEDITECH Expanse.

• Transitioning Forward Advantage Solutions to MEDITECH Expanse
  • Kevin Frazier, Presenter
  • October 23, 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific
• Optimize MEDITECH Expanse with a Secure and Convenient Mobile Strategy
  • Josh Locher, Presenter
  • October 30, 1 p.m. Eastern /10 a.m. Pacific
• Streamline Legacy Migrations
  • Steve Leroux, Presenter
  • November 6, 1 p.m. Eastern /10 a.m. Pacific

Click here for more information or to register.

NHA is Hiring

If you are interested in consulting, consider joining us. NHA continues to need excellent MEDITECH specialists and, for the sixth year in a row, we have been named to the “Best Places to Work in Healthcare” list by Modern Healthcare magazine.

We are currently looking for Canadian residents with MEDITECH implementation experience as clinical leads/project managers for Canadian based Expanse/6.1 projects.

If you are interested, please contact us at recruiting@navinhaffty.com or call us at (855) 309-9334. See what positions are currently available by visiting the NHA Careers page.

Please note at this time we are only able to consider those able to travel up to 80% of the time. Employees of MEDITECH and our clients cannot be considered.

Client Job Board

NHA offers the client job board as a free service to the MEDITECH community.

Job Seekers: If you are interested in exploring positions at other organizations, visit the client job board section of our website often. Feel free to refer colleagues!

Recruiters: If you would like to include your organization’s listing on the client job board, please email the job description and candidate application instructions to Katie Kelly. No recruiting firms, please.