Worcester Business Journal

14 Worcester Business Journal • March 2, 2015 www.wbjournal.com H E A LT H C A R E << AS THE ATTORNEY COSTS START TO PILE UP, WITHOUT A STRONG FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE, PEOPLE OFTEN WALK AWAY WITH A SHORT-TERM – AND INADVERTENTLY DAMAGING – FIX TO A LONG-TERM PROBLEM. ATTORNEYS AND MEDIATORS CERTIFIED DIVORCE FINANCIAL ANALYSTS also offer unbiased expertise in their review and analysis of divorce settlement options. Our vast experience with financial planning can help mediators and attorneys bring clarity when evaluating proposals, and discussing scenarios with clients. We provide tools to assist attorneys that can help them execute proper due diligence. DIVORCING INDIVIDUALS Divorce is one of the most stressful, challenging and confusing times of a person's life. During this time, you will be pressured to make financial decisions that will impact the rest of your life. It is a time of self-preservation, not long term planning, and serious, life-changing decisions are often made based on short-term goals and objectives. DIVORCE FINANCIAL ADVICE CERTIFIED DIVORCE FINANCIAL ANALYSTS HELP ATTORNEYS, MEDIATORS AND DIVORCING INDIVIDUALS Christopher Provo, RFC, CRPC ® • President 385 South St., Shrewsbury, MA 01545 508.842.0539 Office • 508.842.0571 Fax Chris@ProvoFinancial.com • www.ProvoFinancial.com Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through Provo Wealth Management Group, a registered investment advisor. Provo Wealth Management Group and Provo Financial Services, Inc. are separate entities from LPL Financial. Awards W o r ce s t e r B us i n e s s J o u r n a l 2015 B E S T O F B U S I N E S S W o r ce s t e r B us i n e s s J o u r n a l Provo Financial Services, Inc. voted Best of Business in Financial Planning/ Investment Services in central Massachusetts based on The Worcester Business Journal online polling. Chris Provo and Pedro Silva Visit www.FinancialPlanningForDivorce.com or Contact our Wealth Manager and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst Pedro Silva, CRPC, CDFA advanced, and the most expensive, hos- pital in Central Massachusetts, and President Patrick Muldoon said the cost of care is definitely an issue. He said the UMass system tries to encour- age patients to seek care for most of their needs at their local community hospitals. In any case, hospital leaders expect the question of what fee payers will provide for any given appointment or operation to become less relevant over the coming years. Insurers and govern- ment agencies are beginning to switch to global payment systems, in which a health care system gets a set payment to provide all the care a patient needs rather than get paid for each service. Muldoon said UMass got certified under Medicare's version of this sort of system in January, and about 10 per- cent of commercially insured patients already have a similar plan. "That pendulum is slowly swinging," he said. "Our mission here at the medi- cal center and UMass Memorial Health Care is to serve this population of Central Massachusetts. I think if we do that well everything else will take care of itself." n Hospitals keep an eye on Partners >> Continued from Page 13 taking, and it must be done correctly. "Currently, there is not a single, 'uni- versal' EHR and there are multiple EHR options available to hospitals, physician practices and health systems," said Tim Tarnowski, senior vice president and chief information officer at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. "Given the variety of EHRs that are available, interoperability among the various EHR products continues to be challenging," he said in an email response to a question from the WBJ. Still, Tarnowski said, interoperability has made much progress in recent years. "For example, health information exchanges (HIE) have emerged as a means to securely share patient data among health-care providers. Also, the various EHR vendors offer interopera- bility capabilities and work continues to evolve in this space," he said. HIEs are vehicles through which health-related information is shared electronically using nationally recog- nized standards. They must, for instance, comply with the patient-priva- cy provisions in HIPAA, the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. As described at HealthIT.gov — a web- site maintained by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — there are three types of HIEs: directed, query-based and consumer mediated. A directed exchange involves encrypted communication between providers involved in a patient's ongoing care. A query-based exchange is provided on request, such as for unplanned or emer- gency care. A consumer-mediated HIE refers to patient-controlled management and flow of health information. In the quest for system interoperabil- ity, the software industry is on the case. "Data needs to be portable so that the difference in systems does not matter and, as an industry, we are getting there," said Heather Caouette, spokeswoman for eClinicalWorks. The Westborough- based company is one of the nation's largest providers of EHR technology, counting Tufts Medical Center and its physician network among its clients. "At many doctor's offices, various points of data are already coming into the EHR from several sources, including from insurance companies, discharge summaries from emergency rooms, lab- oratories and referrals with different practices," she said. "We support stan- dards that will further move the industry towards true interoperability." Caouette noted that EHR systems' expectations have changed vastly over the last decade, "making it difficult to say definitively if EHR technology is where we want to be. … We are continu- ously innovating." Already, she said, "EHRs are more than a way to digitize records.," including features that aid clinical-decision support, analytics, and tools to boost patient engagement. In recent years, medical organizations large and small have faced three crucial questions on switching from paper to EHRs: whether, when and which one. Hundreds of companies offer EHR- related products. UMass Memorial Health Care, the largest health-care system in Central Massachusetts, has a variety of EHRs for its various care settings, Tarnowski said, and a task force is eyeing two finalist vendors for the future: Cerner, of Waltham, and Wisconsin-based Epic. Once the choice is made, UMHCC will implement the new system gradually, aiming for a seamless transition of some 40,000 patients. With the 2009 passage of the HITECH Act — Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health — which provides incentives to deploy EHRs, installations of such systems have accelerated in hospitals, physician prac- tices and health systems, Tarnowski said. A 2013 HHS report showed a steady rise in EHR adoption, with nearly three- quarters of office-based physicians hav- ing a system in 2012. Hospital adoption rates were higher. Many in Central Massachusetts and around the U.S. are working to ensure the prognosis is good. EHRs are here to stay, and the more techno- logically sophisticated and universal they become, the more routine they'll seem. n Electronic health records still a work in progress >> Continued from Page 12

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