The story of Geraldine Alshamy explains how a minor complication in healthcare network can be catastrophic! The patient started experiencing severe headaches, and she was rushed to an emergency room. Since she didn’t have a Primary Care Physician, she had a previous condition of hypothyroidism. But due to lack of proper communication channel, her care process wasn’t the best that she could have gotten and unfortunately she had a heart attack!

The ideal healthcare of our dreams is far from where we are right now. A healthcare system where patients and their families don’t have to worry about being unassisted, where providers perform their duties with ease. A system where clinically vital information about patients is accessible to providers and patients alike, where patients are tended to even after their discharge. An infrastructure where the system is marked with progressive innovation and is driven towards making healthcare a birthright, extending to each and every citizen.

Whatever we do in the healthcare space, it is eventually meant for the greater good of patients, which is why today the aim of modern healthcare is shifting towards value-based reimbursement and with that the process is getting modified accordingly. Gradually, patient-centric care is becoming prevalent. The current standards require enhanced patient experience, and that comes with improved quality, coordinated care at a reduced cost.

Do you know what is deeply attached and closest to all of us? What is that one thing that touches everyone and drives our sentiments? The more we care for anyone, the more we love someone, the more concerned we are about their health. Even if you come across news about someone from another side of the world losing the battle against health, it stirs up emotions. Healthcare is of paramount importance to anyone and no matter what, it should be affordable and equitable for everyone.

A few days ago, the Human Health Services’ (HHS) Office of Inspector General released a report highlighting the 10 biggest management and performance challenges the healthcare industry is facing, and yet again, EHRs and health IT have made it to the list. Healthcare is complex and the challenges we face today might take years to overcome, in the transition from fee-for-service to value-based care, data analytics has a huge role to play as the building block of the healthcare industry.

PJ Carter in a blog explained how the lack of interoperability resulted in extreme physical pain to his father who had to go into an eye surgery for the repair of a detached retina. His father was told by his eye specialist that and an urgent operation had to carried out. The operation began, but doctors could not access the past medical record of his father.  Since doctors were unaware of the medical history, they had to carry out a painful operation of the eye without anesthesia! His father was awake the whole time and had to endure the pain.

The picture of Healthcare industry is changing rapidly and still continues to evolve, with technology playing a huge role and the other factor being the government. With a new administration in the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, there ought to be numerous changes in healthcare, modifying ACA being one of them. Come January, what will be the effect of the new policies of the GOP have on health IT?

In the last version, we talked about the impacts of the MACRA, how it’ll affect your payments, your practice, and other major aspects. Since this law is going to change the entire health industry, what should be the most important on your checklist for MACRA?

MACRA’s full implementation is almost here. There are anticipation, anxiety, and confusion about this complex law. CMS released the 962 pages proposed role in 2015 and most of the people gave negative reviews on it, predominantly because of the complex of it. Besides this, the proposed rule was considered by many as not for small practices and 9 out of 10 solo practices would have received negative adjustments. CMS spent countless hours and carefully analyzed suggestions to come up with a 2400 pages Final rule with comment period! The modifications have made MACRA hugely flexible and have a lot of spectrum to make the transition to value-based care happen.

Almost a decade ago, healthcare experts noticed a huge in evidence-based care and the quality of care that was being actually delivered. The number of cases of medical errors was rising with the cost. At one point in time US had most preventable deaths among other developed countries. Owing to this clinical data reporting was necessary more than ever to improve the health of the population and create impact at scale.