Ease of information capture and recordkeeping will help enable smoother transition to EHR systems

The proven ability of the medical transcription sector to deliver innovative, physician-friendly, and cost-effective solutions to the challenges of electronic health record (EHR) adoption will be the message taken to Capitol Hill by members of the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) and the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) for the organizations’ fifth-annual Advocacy Summit on March 24 in Washington, DC. The HITECH and subsequent proposed regulations concerning “meaningful use” of certified EHR systems have prompted the medical transcription sector to educate legislators on the importance of securing continued access by physicians to the dictation-transcription process. This long-proven method for documenting care (a) frees up physician time from cumbersome EHR capture systems and allow them to focus on patient care, (b) promotes information-rich narrative reports for clinical and reimbursement decision support, (c) and facilitates the risk-management role of the medical transcriptionist, whose extra “set of eyes” on the health record ensures accurate, complete capture of patient care encounters patient records for patient safety and coordination of care.

AHDI and MTIA members will call for their Representatives and Senators to encourage the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to explicitly acknowledge in the regulations they are drafting that the dictation-transcription process is a viable means by which to achieve “meaningful use” and that certified EHR systems should be able to receive structured narrative reports from the dictation-transcription process.

“Meaningful EHR adoption must be practical,” states Peter Preziosi, PhD, CAE, AHDI/MTIA chief executive officer. “The dictation-transcription process is still the preferred method physicians use to document care encounters. Narrative notes are easier to read and understand among clinicians and patients. Ease of information capture and recordkeeping will accelerate EHR adoption and will enable a smoother transition to EHR systems – a win-win for physicians and their patients.”

In support of their central message, AHDI and MTIA members will provide legislators with information on innovative consortium projects AHDI and MTIA support to expedite health information exchange adoption – Verizon Medical Data Exchange and Health Story Project. The Medical Data Exchange provides a means to accelerate the sharing of a wide range of digital health information between physicians and health care organizations. Health Story Project is creating document format standards, utilizing a consistent computer-readable structure, for clinical records commonly used in healthcare facilities to improve the flow of information between patient narratives and EHR systems.