GE Centricity EHRs Need To Fix Their Algorithms (Math)-Some Customers May Not Be Able to Attest Until The End of November After the Software Update

I just made a post about healthcare being a few miles ahead with certifying software in comparing other industries so now it looks like I have to eat some of those words. The clinical records for patients are sound and no problems there but rather the problems lie within the integration portions for reporting. Crystal Reports and the Medical Quality Improvement Consortium are the problem areas. Now even if you have already attested, they still recommend you run the reports after the update and compare. If it means missing out on some of the stimulus money you can bet a new report will be run. Just want the doctors wanted, more administrative time spent on their incentives. Let’s hope the software update makes the target date of the end of November.

February 29th of 2012 is the deadline for those who achieved Meaningful Use for 90 consecutive days n 2011, so getting that software update in a timely fashion is needed here. These folks were “certified” by CCHIT so what went wrong there? Did an update cause something to go wrong or was it missed would be the obvious questions one might ask. CMS is working with GE to figure out what to do in the cases where the original attestations and those revised after the update have different numbers. Will that happen, I don’t think we know yet:)

I said flawed data, two years ago would become a big focus and it is, not only in healthcare but bigger even in the financial areas, and GE plays there too. This is not to say there’s anything wrong there at all but just stating they are in both markets. It looks like the folks at CCHIT were caught off guard when asked and were not aware of the GE letters that went out, so gee, good that everyone works to communicate these days? Don’t ever think that software is a simple matter today and millions and billions are being spent and hopefully all doctors and hospitals will be able to get systems up and running before the money runs out. BD

Some customers of GE Healthcare may not be able to achieve Meaningful Use with their current electronic health records (EMR) systems, as the vendor has discovered "inaccuracies" in its software's reporting functions.

GE Healthcare VP and general manager Michael Friguletto disclosed the problem in a Thursday letter to users of GE's Centricity Practice Solution and Centricity Electronic Medical Record (EMR) products.

According to Friguletto, the unspecified inaccuracies may throw off results from SAP's Crystal Reports or GE's Medical Quality Improvement Consortium (MQIC) reporting tools that many Centricity customers rely on to produce reports necessary to prove Meaningful Use. "The underlying clinical data and logic of the electronic medical record system remain sound," Friguletto wrote.

"If you have already attested in 2011, we recommend that you run the reports again for your particular attestation period after we provide the updates. If your results are different from those used for attestation, you may need to evaluate if you have still cleared all applicable Meaningful Use thresholds for the original period or would meet the thresholds for all applicable measures (not only those that may have changed in the initial reporting period) for a later reporting period in 2011," according to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by InformationWeek Healthcare.

Both affected Centricity products have been certified for Stage 1 Meaningful Use by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT). When contacted, CCHIT was unaware of the GE letter and offered no further comment.