State and Federal regulations impact ePrescribing and Medication Management in the long-term post-acute care environments.
Today, Point-of-Care Partners announced immediate availability of the new LTPAC State Navigator solution. This solution enables healthcare stakeholders such as health information technology vendors to stay on top of changing prescribing and medication management legislation affecting all healthcare environments with a special lens on long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) environment.
Point-of-Care Partners currently offers several legislative tracking solutions including the ePrescribing State Law Review solution that provides access to our team of regulatory consultants and perpetually updated data sets for all 50 states and Washington, DC. The new LTPAC State Navigator builds on the ePrescribing State Law Review by adding an LTPAC overlay to highlight the impacts of regulatory nuances by state on LTPAC facilities and the companies that offer technology solutions used to support LTPAC workflows.
The LTPAC State Navigator provides clients who have a stake in ePrescribing with a foundation to easily assess their compliance with state and federal rules and regulations and to stay ahead of the evolving ePrescribing landscape in general and as it relates to the LTPAC environment.
“Long-term post-acute care environments have historically been overlooked or exempted in legislation and standards creation related to Health Information Technology (HIT) adoption, ePrescribing and medication management, which has contributed to the lag in adoption of HIT in LTPAC settings. Changes to existing legislation and new legislation are needed to bridge the gap between acute and post-acute care environments. We see this as an area that will become a focus of policy makers in the near future,” said Tony Schueth, CEO at Point-of-Care Partners.
Long-term post-acute care facilities and health information technology
HIT is the backbone of prescribing and medication management related legislation. Adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) and other HIT in hospitals and physician practices has reached its highest level of adoption, almost becoming ubiquitous. Unfortunately, the level of EHR adoption within LTPAC environments is only around 34 percent for chains and large nonprofit post-acute care systems, which is a much higher rate than their smaller, independent counterparts but still considerably lower than acute care settings.
A large contributor of the slow pace of HIT adoption in LTPAC settings is that legislation such as American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, which provided grants to offset HIT investments costs for hospitals and physician practices, did not include LTPAC facilities. In addition, the complex workflow differences in LTPAC presented challenges for standards organization to address their unique business cases. The result is a much lower implementation of HIT solutions and the use of a patchwork of software rather than enterprise systems. The result is that important data is unable to follow the patient through the full continuum of care.
As adoption of HIT in the LTPAC setting inevitably grows, HIT vendors creating software tailored to workflows in LTPAC environments will benefit from staying abreast of the regulatory activity by state in order to proactively plan rather than react as regulatory changes occur.
“Our aim with the new LTPAC State Navigator is to provide a comprehensive reference tool and access to regulatory consultants so stakeholders can plan confidently and avoid hot fixes required to meet new requirements that can be a huge distraction for development teams.” Schueth said.
Point-of-Care Partners is a health IT management consulting firm with in-depth expertise in ePrescribing, eMedication management, health information exchange, population health management and multi-stakeholder initiatives. To learn more about how Point-of-Care Partners can help your company understand the changing healthcare landscape and implement effective strategies, contact info(at)pocp(dot)com.
