eBridge Solutions Blog

Document management as an EMR/EHR system?

A 2009 survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed only about 6.3 percent of physicians posses a fully-functional EMR/EHR system. About 21 percent of physicians use a basic EMR/EHR system, the release said.

That's good news for document management providers, like eBridge Solutions.

Office managers and support staff in physician's offices can start moving toward a fully-functional EMR/EHR system by slowly transitioning patient records from paper to digital images, then storing them online in a reputable document management system.

This is far more than scanning and storing patient records onto your hard drive or zip drive. Moving documents into a document management system will allow you to create an organized, searchable database of all your records. And, once you've scanned in any records, you are allowed to shred them, since you've captured the original and date/time stamps will help verify its authenticity.

Financial and technical assistance will continue to be offered to physicians as incentive to move toward full-blown EMR/EHR systems and that's a great thing. Based on the statistics, however, total adoption of systems like that may never happen. And, that's okay with us.

Take a baby step. Start storing your medical records online with eBridge today and see what happens with the EHR/EMR systems tomorrow.

eBridge document management bridges gap between paper and electronic medical records

For many medical facilities (and any other industry, quite frankly), transitioning from paper to electronic medical records can be an overwhelming proposition. One way to make the switch easier is to start scanning patient records into a document management system, like eBridge Solutions, in advance.

While you can absolutely store patient charts and insurance information in your electronic medical record or health record (EMR/EHR) system, it often takes three to six months to get up and running. If you start scanning in patient information prior to the change, you're doing three things:

1.) You are keeping your staff sane. By scanning documents before moving to an EMR/EHR program, you make sure your employees are focused on just one new application at a time. With web-based document management, they don't need to go through several training sessions to learn how to add patient data and attach records. They just need to know how to scan.

2.) You are saving money. By digitizing records - regardless of where they are stored - you are saving money on storage space and office supplies. You are also saving money on labor by putting documents at your staff's fingertips. Some EMR/EHR systems charge additional for document management or record storage. eBridge may be less expensive.

3.) You are buying time. You may not know right now which EMR/EHR system is best for you. By scanning into an unaffiliated document management system, you can choose the EMR system that works best for you without feeling pressured to do something right away. All of the EMR certification information is just being finalized, so it will take some time to figure out which systems end up on top.

Regardless or when the documents are scanned, all of the documents you scan into eBridge can be retrieved from any EMR/EHR (or other software program) using the eBridge Link.

So, if you are getting ready to make the switch from paper to electronic medical records, consider getting started with eBridge Solutions NOW instead of later. Sit in on one of our FREE webinars every Thursday at 2 p.m. EST.

Prison for HIPAA Privacy Violator - He Didn't Use eBridge Solutions

HEALTH DATA MANAGEMENT - BREAKING NEWS: A former researcher at the UCLA School of Medicine has been sentenced to four months in federal prison for violations of the HIPAA privacy rule. If the UCLA School of Medicine had been using eBridge Solutions' web-based document management system, this could have been prevented. Here's what happened:

Huping Zhou, a cardiothoracic surgeon in China before immigrating to the United States, was employed at UCLA in 2003. On Oct. 23, 2003, he received a notice of intent to dismiss him for performance reasons that did not include illegal access of medical records. That evening, he accessed medical records of his superior and co-workers, and during three other periods during the next four weeks accessed UCLA patient records, many of them involving celebrities, a total of 323 times, according to the FBI office in Los Angeles.

Charges were filed in 2009 and Zhou pleaded guilty in January 2010 to four misdemeanor counts of illegally reading private and confidential medical records. He faced up to four years in prison.

A FBI spokesperson did not have information on why Zhou was able to frequently access medical records after being terminated in 2003 and why charges were not filed until six years later. There is no evidence Zhou improperly used or attempted to sell the information he accessed, according to the FBI.

A UCLA School of Medicine attorney was not immediately available to comment on the lag in discovering the breaches and filing charges. The school released the following statement:

"The UCLA Health System cooperated fully with the U.S. Attorney's office in its ongoing investigation of violations of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), including with its prosecution of former UCLA employee, Huping Zhou. Mr. Zhou's employment at UCLA was terminated in November 2003.

"After a subsequent internal investigation revealed that he had inappropriately accessed patient files, UCLA provided the U.S. Attorney's office with all relevant information regarding Mr. Zhou.

"During the past two years the UCLA Health System has put in place a number of safeguards to help ensure patient confidentiality including:

• Expanded the auditing capabilities of our information systems and more than doubled the number of individuals who we proactively audit to ensure their privacy is maintained.
• Evaluated and enhanced our clinical information systems to reduce the risk of information security violations.
• Implemented a mandatory and expanded HIPAA training and certification module required for all physicians, staff and students.

"The UCLA Health System is committed to seeking ways to improve and enhance our policies, procedures and infrastructure to ensure the confidentiality of our patients' medical records."

If UCLA had been using eBridge Solutions' web-based document management system, they could have INSTANTLY deleted Zhou's access to their data. In addition, a routine audit of documents would have shown that he continued to access records AFTER he was let go. While Zhou is the one serving time, rest assured that UCLA Health System will have hefty fines to pay when this is over.

Make sure YOUR company isn't next. Sign up for eBridge's SUPER SECURE document management system today!

-- main article written by Joseph Goedert

HIMSS '09: The Aftermath

We went, we saw and we left a little disheartened. The HIMSS Show in Chicago was ENORMOUS. All of McCormick Place was filled with healthcare software vendors like eBridge Solutions. That's the bad news. There were so many document management options -- ranging from small, single-focus document management companies like ours to large, multi-focus companies like 3M. I didn't even know that they HAD a document management solution. Aren't sticky notes enough?

Attending the show reinforced two things:

1. Everyone sees value in document management systems.
2. eBridge Solutions should focus on industries other than medical. Why? Because there are so many companies that are more entrenched in the hospital and large medical practice areas than we are.

And why wouldn't they be? If you spent $250,000 on a patient management system and the vendor threw in a document management module for an additional $1,500, wouldn't you bite? I would. It also is one less system to manage, bill to pay. You can see where I'm going here.

I'm not giving up on the healthcare industry, not by any means. I'm just going to focus eBridge Solutions' marketing efforts more toward medical billers and smaller practices that don't need the 3M systems that were on display at HIMSS.

eBridge Solutions Document Management and HIMSS '09

Next week, eBridge Solutions will make it's debut at HIMSS '09 (The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) in Chicago - a tradeshow geared specifically toward healthcare IT professionals. Based on the number of e-mails we have received from show service suppliers and other exhibitors, the attendees have already been marketed to very heavily. It will be interesting to see if a small company like eBridge Solutions will find an audience among the 30,000 expected attendees.

While we are out (until Wednesday), feel free to call eBridge Solutions at 877-676-6067 and ask for Sales if you'd like a demo or more information. Or just to say hi.