EMRs Don't Meet ACO Needs
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
A new KLAS report examines the physician-led ACO segment.
One desired outcome of the ACA is a decrease of healthcare costs by the establishment of ACOs which would incentivize providers to keep patients healthy. However, ACOs also represent a new class of customer for EHR solutions providers — the ACA provides financial incentive for healthcare providers who are making efficient use of electronic records to curb Medicare costs.
Third-party ACO vendors are outperforming EMR vendors when it comes to meeting the needs of physician-led ACOs. This and other key findings were released in a KLAS report, entitled “Physician ACOs 2014: Variations on the Accountable Care Theme.” Providers gave feedback on product usage and performance as well as the products’ abilities to meet certain ACO needs. The report includes products from Advisory Board, Allscripts, eClinicalWorks, Epic, GE Healthcare, Medecision, Milliman, NextGen, Optum, and Phytel.
According to Fierce EMR, KLAS researchers interviewed 46 physician-led ACOs to determine how well their record needs were being met by both EHR and niche ACO solutions providers. Of the healthcare providers surveyed, 68 percent said they used a third-party ACO solutions provider instead of an EHR vendor. When it came to service rankings, the ACO solutions providers beat out their EHR counterparts in all functional areas, including connectivity, care management, and reporting, and scored significantly higher in risk stratification. The report states that “Overall, EMR vendors are not ready for prime time, rating on average 6.3 on a 9.0 scale for meeting ACO needs.”
“With very few exceptions, EMRs are not meeting all ACO needs, causing many third-party products to be invited to the ACO discussion,” said report author Erik Bermudez. “As we look at where healthcare is headed and the rapid growth in the number of physician-led ACOs, we see that this area will only increase in importance. We want to put a spotlight on the enabling technology within these ACOs.”
EHR use is an important element of participation in ACOs, particularly for those entities involved in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) created by the Affordable Care Act. The final rule implementing the MSSP, issued November 2011, notes that the quality measure, "Percent of PCPs who successfully qualify for an EHR Incentive Program Payment" will be given double the weight proposed initially by CMS to stress the importance of EHR adoption among ACOs.