News in brief - Oct. 16, 2006

MinuteClinic obtains accreditation - New EMR standards proposed - Tenet enters into integrity agreement - LifePoint to sell recently acquired facilities

MinuteClinic obtains accreditation

MinuteClinic announced in September that the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has accredited its ambulatory care program, becoming the first operator of retail or in-store based clinics to receive such accreditation. The accreditation means that Minneapolis-based MinuteClinic complied with more than 180 national standards in the implementation of established clinical practice guidelines and more than 500 performance measurements, according to MinuteClinic and the Joint Commission.

In-store clinics, which are staffed by nurse practitioners or physician assistants who treat minor problems on a walk-in basis, typically operate in supermarkets, drug stores and shopping malls.

New EMR standards proposed

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology on Sept. 25 proposed additional certification criteria for ambulatory electronic medical records for 2007. It also released its initial proposed criteria for inpatient EMRs. The proposed criteria are open to public comment until Oct. 27.

CCHIT, which has a federal contract to develop certification criteria for EMR functionality, security and interoperability, will test the criteria in early 2007 and start accepting certification applications from vendors in the spring.

CCHIT was formed in 2004 by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, the American Health Information Management Assn. and the National Alliance for Health Information Technology.

The goal of the certification criteria is to give physicians and hospitals a tool enabling them to select systems that have a set of standard capabilities and will eventually be compatible with each other regardless of vendor. To date, more than 20 vendors have received CCHIT's seal of approval, meaning that their products met the organization's 2006 criteria for ambulatory EMRs.

Vendors seeking certification or recertification of their ambulatory EMRs in 2007 will have to meet additional interoperability standards.

In 2006, they only had to self-attest that their products could receive laboratory tests to meet the interoperability standard. In 2007, CCHIT proposed that ambulatory EMRs, among other things, be able to receive laboratory results, transmit an electronic prescription to a pharmacy, and respond to a refill request sent from a pharmacy. The proposed criteria can be accessed online cchit.org/.

Tenet enters into integrity agreement

Tenet Healthcare has signed a five-year corporate integrity agreement with federal regulators to ensure its compliance in certain areas.

The agreement stems from the broad settlement Tenet reached with the U.S. Justice Dept. in June, in which the troubled Dallas-based hospital chain agreed to forfeit $900 million to resolve investigations into its billing and coding practices and relationships with physicians.

Under the integrity agreement, which expires in 2011, Tenet must maintain certain quality initiatives, a compliance program and code of conduct; formalize certain policies and procedures regarding billing and other issues; provide compliance training to employees; and engage outside reviewers to examine its compliance in several areas.

Tenet said it has already adopted several of the standards and procedures outlined in the agreement.

LifePoint to sell recently acquired facilities

LifePoint Hospitals has announced plans to sell two of four hospitals it bought from Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA a few months earlier.

The Brentwood, Tenn.-based hospital operator announced on Sept. 15 that it reached definitive agreements to sell the 325-bed St. Joseph's Hospital in Parkersburg, W. Va., to Signature Hospital Corp. of Dallas and the 155-bed Saint Francis Hospital in Charleston, W. Va., to the Herbert J. Thomas Memorial Hospital Assn. of South Charleston, W. Va.

Terms of the deals were not disclosed. Proceeds from the sales were slated to be used to pay down company debts.