Doctors’ offices are prime focus of Senate concerns
By DON LONG
Healthcare InfoTech Managing Editor
While pacemakers, monitors and other medical devices have been the focus of Y2K concern over the past two years, that focus seems to be changing.
The spotlight of Y2K paranoia either unfounded or very, very well-founded now seems to have turned to a more grassroots level in the medical industry: the doctor’s office. This past Tuesday, a special U.S. Senate panel huddled to review the various industry sectors and identified the nation’s medical industry as "worst prepared," and physicians as the least-informed and least-prepared to deal with the so-called "millennium bug."
That assessment comes from a report following nine months of Senate hearings and research. Its conclusions are supported by a study recently released by the Gartner Group, showing that 90% of the country’s physicians are basically unaware of how Y2K could affect their operations.
The greatest failures are likely to be in computer administrative systems rather than in devices in clinical areas, according to many medical authorities, a situation that puts medical records in the high-risk category.
Much of the advice coming from consultants, expert panels and others is to pursue a "back to the future" strategy: that is, think paper.
Thus, the Chicago Tribune reported this week that the American Medical Association (Chicago) is encouraging patients to find out if their doctors use paper copies of patient records and to request hard copies of any records kept electronically, as well as any important paperwork from their insurance providers.
A good deal of the problem, according to the Senate panel, is that the nation’s 700,000 physicians largely work out of separate small offices and that those small offices or small group practices could be hit hardest.
In its story on the issue, the Tribune interviewed Chicago physician practice consultant Julie Falloon, who gave doctors low marks for "not upgrading anything. Doctors are not really technologically inclined," Falloon said. "As long as they have a stethoscope and are going into an exam room, then they are fine. They want someone else to take care of [Y2K problem]."
Legislation to cap liability costs
As the Senate committee issued its rather gloomy report on the medical state of Y2K, both the House of Representatives and the Senate are considering recently submitted bills that would put limits on the fees and damages that could be claimed and that lawyers could collect as a result of Y2K breakdowns and the subsequent litigation. Last week, an attorney speaking at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference in Atlanta said that the cost estimates of that litigation have been set at $2 trillion (see Healthcare InfoTech, Feb. 26).
Late last year, Congress approved legislation intended to protect business from being sued for Y2K compliance statements, even if those statements were incorrect but were made in good faith. That legislation will have to pass the actual gauntlet of legal challenges, however, and provisions for limits on legal penalties and fees were struck from the bill before its passage.
Besides barring most claims from federal courts, the new legislative proposals stipulate that plaintiffs must prove that injury caused by Y2K failures was the result of malice, and it sets maximum damages at $250,000 and maximum attorney fees at $1,000 an hour.
As might be expected, various business and manufacturing groups are supporting this or similar types of legislation, while trial lawyers and other attorney associations are expected to oppose. According to national reports, the Clinton Admin istration is taking a position of "studied neutrality" on the proposed bills. Thus far, about 45 Y2K suits have been filed as the result of early computer glitches.
Epic rolls out Zero-hour’ plan
Epic Systems (Madison, WI) has released a Y2K plan to implement scheduling and billing systems for healthcare organizations needing to replace non-compliant systems.
Called EpicY2KZip (for Zero-hour implementation plan), the system compresses the time required to implement Epic’s Resolute Patient Billing and Cadence Enterprise Scheduling systems to as little as 60 days for organizations of 85 physicians or more. Working closely with one large organization, Epic says it was able to completely roll out a practice management system that served 250 providers at 40 sites in just 77 days.
Epic notes recent reports, indicating that half of the industry’s top 24 practice management system vendors were not Y2K-compliant by year-end 1998. And many of the country’s 1,400 other practice management vendors lack the necessary resources to fully test their products, these independent reports indicate.
To compress the implementation time of scheduling and billing to 60 days, Epic has developed a set of standard software settings that are so widely used that they require no customization. Initial implementation will focus on a basic subset of functionality to enable users to become operational quickly. If a client decides to customize the system settings, that can be done with Epic’s assistance after Jan. 1, 2000. Epic has also doubled the capacity of its training facilities, in anticipation of the growing demand for training and implementation services.
The Cadence and Resolute versions installed in the EpicY2KZip program are the same, fully functional systems used throughout the industry by such healthcare organizations as the University of Pittsburgh, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Penn State Geisinger, and others.
Rx2000 Solutions sets next meeting
The next Y2K information meeting sponsored by the Rx2000 Solutions Institute (Minneapolis, Minnesota) will be held March 12 in Boston at the Tremont Boston Hotel. This is one in a series of meetings being held by the non-profit organization to help healthcare groups to identify the potential impact of the Y2K problem on their organizations.
The day-long meeting will include the review of a new national baseline assessment model for comparing a healthcare organizations’ Y2K readiness, with featured speakers including Margaret Anderson, director of policy at the Center for Y2K and Society (Washington); Joseph Broseker Jr., Y2K coordinator for the Health Care Financing Administration (Baltimore); and various experts from the healthcare and legal communities.
More information about the conference is available by calling (612) 835-4478 or faxing (612) 831-7196.
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