Area firms poised to profit from electronic medical records push - bizjournals:

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act creates rebates to pay for new medical records technology in a move from paper todigital “It’s certainly ambitious,” says Brad CEO of the Rehab Documentation Co. Inc. in which provides medical and financial recordz software and systems torehabilitatiob facilities. Providers who adopt such technology are eligible for payments ofbetween $44,0090 and $63,000 over five For larger medical facilities, the reimbursements are Reimbursements start dropping, though, if providers don’ t show “meaningful” use of digitall medical records by 2014.
And providers that don’t go digital will starty getting smaller reimbursements for Medicare andMedicaird patients, which make up most of the billings for many healtuh care facilities. Electronic medical records have taken more than 20 yearsz to reach 20 percent penetration in the and now the federal government is pushing to have more than 75 percenft penetration in the nextsevehn years, Dumke says.
The impact on Middle Tennessee-based hospitak companies forced to evaluatr their operations nationwide willbe massive, says Tom president of the Nashville information technology company The potential is greart for positive impacts on companies, Stephenson says, well beyond receiving stimulus funds. But he also predicts challenges “The pieces of electronic health records that most hospitals are lackingg involvechanging people’s jobs, nurses, physicians.
” For companies that approach electroni medical records by building programs that fully exploit the the potential savings in time, money and medical mishaps is huge, Stephenson “In contrast, if you say we’rr going to use tech to do the same things we alwaysx did, only faster, then you’re stil l going to have inefficiencies,” he says. Exactly which digitap records systems are eligiblefor reimbursement, and when the moneg will come, is set to be determinefd before year’s end. David Klements, CEO of Nashville-based medicalk technology firm Qualifacts, anticipates significanrt growth for his firm and othef companies when themoney lands.
His company has been showing more than four times as many producf demos this year comparedto last, and sellingf five to 10 times as many systems, he “It’s creating this big wave of activity for the softwarer vendors that can get customers implemented quickly and efficiently,” Klements says. He predictsw Nashville could become a center for health care recordswtechnology — especially if some of the large health care companies here choose local companieds to provide records systemse for their facilities nationally.
“It’s really a sort of a healthy care tech bellwetherfor Nashville,” he