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New Maryland Law Requires Insurers To Provide Incentives For EHR Adoption
Maryland Gov. Martin O"Malley (D) on Tuesday signed a bill making the state the first to require private insurance companies to offer physicians financial incentives for adopting electronic health records, the Baltimore Sun reports. Starting in 2011, insurers will have to provide physicians who adopt EHRs with increased reimbursements, a single sum payment or in-kind services that have monetary value. According to the Sun, physicians who do not adopt EHR systems by 2015 could face penalties. The bill also requires Maryland to establish a health information exchange that eventually will link all the state"s physicians, hospitals, medical laboratories and pharmacies. Last summer, the Maryland Health Care Commission asked two state physician groups to develop and launch pilot health information exchange programs in an effort to see how a state system should work. Groups wanting to design the statewide system have until June 12 to submit applications to the commission, which will award the contract in August. The seed money for the system will come in part from stimulus funds and from hospitals fees. According to state Health Secretary John Colmers, the network is likely to be gradually phased in with the first elements coming online as early as fall. Colmers said that he expects "fairly rapid adoption" of the information exchange system, adding that "with the incentives in the stimulus package and in this bill beginning to go into effect in 2011, it will be important for it to be certainly ramped up and ready to operate by then." O"Malley said, "This is where government and private health care providers can come together to really improve not only the quality of care but also, hopefully, create some cost savings as well." Colmers said, "The goal here in Maryland was to assure that all of the payers pull their oars in the same direction," adding that the promise of EHRs "comes when it"s done in a coordinated fashion, across all payers" (Brown/Brewington, Baltimore Sun, 5/19).
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NACDS Supports Delaying The Implementation Of The GS1 DataBar Technology
National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) expressed its support for postponing the removal of the Universal Product Code (UPC-A) barcode system - scheduled for January 1, 2010. NACDS compliments and supports the Grocery Manufacturers Association"s (GMA) recommendation that the GS1 DataBar system implementation be delayed until January 1, 2011.
News of the day
Admin, Dems Face Challenge In Showing Voters What Reform Means For Them
As health reform proposals emerge from congressional committees, partisan fighting boils and the president wades into the debate with a series of televised addresses, news reports turn to an unanswered question. "What"s in it for me?" asks David Leonhardt, the New York Times business columnist. "On the subject of health care reform, most Americans probably don"t have a good answer to the question. And that, obviously, is a problem for the White House and for Democratic leaders in Congress," he writes.
Oncology

Computerized Tomography Magnified Bone Windows Are Superior To Standard Soft Tissue Windows For Accurate Measurement Of Stone Size

UroToday.com - Stone size is of key importance in making treatment decisions, especially for ureteral calculi. Earlier studies revealed that stone size on CT could at times be underestimated by as much as 1-2 mm; for ureteral calculi this could be the difference between initiating medical expulsive therapy versus an invasive ureteroscopic procedure. However, there are many ways to "view" a CT scan and by moving from the standard soft tissue view to a "bone" window view, different characteristics of tissue or foreign bodies can be appreciated. Such was first brought to the attention of many urologists when Dr. Stephen Dretler and colleagues reported the use of bone windows to distinguish ureteral stents from denser stone fragments. In this study, both in vitro and in vivo analyses of stones using 5.13x and 4x bone windows, respectively provided more accurate stone measurements than the use of regular or magnified soft tissue windows. From a clinical standpoint, the take home message is that the use of standard soft tissue window can underestimate stone size by upwards of 2 mm, whereas the 4.0 magnified bone window view, underestimates stone size by only 0.3mm. This is highly useful clinical information and allows one to rely on the plain CT scan findings for developing an effective treatment plan. Eisner BH, Kambadakone A, Monga M, Anderson JK, Thoreson AA, Lee H, Dretler SP, Sahani DV J Urol. 2009 Apr;181(4):1710-5. doi: 10.1016/j.juro.2008.11.116 Written by UroToday.com Medical Editor Ralph V. Clayman, MD UroToday - the only urology website with original content written by global urology key opinion leaders actively engaged in clinical practice. To access the latest urology news releases from UroToday, go to: www.urotoday.com Copyright © 2009 - UroToday


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