Cliff's Notes

Digital 2015, The National Health Information Infrastructure

Cliff’s Notes for February 14, 2010
…..E-Blast…..

Cliff Marsh, Henry Schein ……Cell: 201-321-7494……Fax: 201-262-2210…..E-mail cliff.marsh@henryschein.com

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”
Bill Gates

In This Week’s Issue
• DentaCheques, Dentistry for the Handicapped.
• DIGITAL 2015, Are You Ready?
• DCI Emergency Repair Kit.

DentaCheques…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
DentaCheques are once again available through Henry Schein. The book is 100% tax deductable and provides several hundred dollars in merchandise discounts, rebates & free samples. All proceeds go to Dentistry for the Handicapped. The cost of the book is $149.00 (100% tax deductable) and the ordering part # is 108-1812.
http://www.dentacheques.com.

DentaCheques is the easiest way to give something back.

DIGITAL 2015………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The digital revolution is well under way. You will need to have patient files available in a digital format (January 1, 2015) so that the information is accessible at anytime from anywhere. The process is not difficult but it does require a commitment and an investment. If you haven’t started planning and implementing, you need to start now. The chances are that you have many of the necessary tools, but how do you put it together? Call me, that’s what I do (201-321-7494).

The following is an excerpt of an article posted on the ADA Wed Site. More information and this article in its entirety can be viewed at http://www.ada.org/goto/nhii.

What will NHII mean for you?
ADA’s role: your resource Posted Jan. 22, 2007
By Arlene Furlong
If you aimed a telescope toward the future and focused on dental practice 10 years from now, what would you see?
Dentists advocating for ADA members in the development of the National Health Information Infrastructure are optimistic in their predictions. They say changes driven by the NHII will shape the future of dental practice to meet a common objective: Better care for patients.
Scheduled for completion in 2015, the NHII will be a communications system comparable to a network of highways, roads and pathways on which all health information will travel. Its purpose is to enable patients’ electronic health records to be accessed and added to by all health care providers electronically (with patient authorization), virtually anywhere in the country, via the network. The electronic health record will include health information entered for a specific patient at a specific point of service. The EHR will travel, be accessible on the NHII.
Falling under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS defines it as “an initiative set forth to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and overall quality of health and health care in the U.S.”
With the ADA taking a proactive role in the NHII, dentists in the know are enthused about its potential to do what it’s intended to do for health care overall and particularly for dentistry. They say the only real possible danger for dentists is dentistry being left out in the cold during the NHII planning and implementation phases. That’s why the ADA NHII Task Force is ensuring the needs of dental patients and the goals of the dental profession are met during its development.
HHS Sec. Michael Leavitt noted the NHII’s expected global impact at the 2006 ADA House of Delegates and challenged organized dentistry to embrace it. The task force has begun working with several agencies including the ADA councils on dental practice, dental benefit programs, scientific affairs, education and licensure and the Standards Committee on Dental Informatics to move the agenda forward.
“The NHII is not a government plan to establish a central repository for all medical records or a proposed law to mandate the use of computers for storing patient information,” explains Dr. Titus Schleyer, who serves on the ADA’s NHII Task Force and is associate professor and director, Center for Dental Informatics, University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine. “The NHII should establish a national electronic information network for health care that serves patients, providers and the public better than our current system.”
Its dimensions and scope are represented by three overlapping circles, each representing a particular focus with overlap into each of the areas. They are personal health, health care delivery and public health. Health care research and decision support tools to provide guidance for clinicians are also planned for inclusion.
HHS calls it a “comprehensive knowledge-based network of interoperable systems of clinical, public health and personal health information that would improve decision-making by making health information available when and where it is needed.”
For dentists, that translates into the ability to improve clinical decision-making through the use of complete medical records, test results and X-rays at the point of service, says Dr. Robert Ahlstrom, a practicing dentist who serves on the NHII Task Force and also serves on the ADA Standards Committee on Dental Informatics and the Council on Dental Practice.
The ADA develops standards for dental informatics through the ADA SCDI. Dr. Ahlstrom Jan. 5 spoke about the many benefits of the NHII to a meeting of new council chairs at ADA Headquarters. He said that once in place, the system should be seamless or transparent to the practicing dentist.
Who should participate in the NHII?
The ADA says that every stakeholder in dentistry involved in developing, maintaining or accessing patient information should participate in the National Health Information Infrastructure.

“When up and running, it’ll be like accessing a Web page on the Internet,” explained Dr. Ahlstrom. “Dentists will participate through their practice management systems, accessing technology from a main database. “If a patient has already been to a dental or medical practitioner it will be easy to obtain information about that patient from his or her EHR through the standards established by the NHII.”
View the rest of this article @ http://www.ada.org/goto/nhii and begin or revisit your plan today! 2015 is coming fast!

In-Office Emergency Repair Kit……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The DCI Emergency Repair Kit is an office essential. Although our Privileges Members get a guaranteed emergency service response time, simple
repairs can be done in minutes. At $54.99 it could save several patient cancelations.

Sunday, February 14, 2010……………………………………………………………………………..
Today is Valentine’s Day, enough said. Enjoy the day and the Sun Shine.

Cliff Marsh
Henry Schein Dental
P.O. Box 663, 45 Rt. 46 East, Suite 605
Pine Brook, NJ 07058
tel. 201-321-7494
fax.201-262-2210
e-mail. cliff.marsh@henryschein.com
http://www.cliffsnotesblog.wordpress.com

February 14, 2010 - Posted by Cliff's Notes Blog | 1