Health IT Law Blog : Health IT Law Blog : Post & Schell: Law Firm : HIT & Electronic Health Records

The Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP) went live this month connecting three hospitals, three radiology centers and two private companies in Montgomery County, Maryland during the initial stage of this health data exchange.  According to The Washington Post, all 48 hospitals in Maryland plan to join CRISP by 2012. The exchange will allow hospitals, physician practices, hospitals, clinics, labs, radiology centers, and other health care institutions to share information electronically.

Via the Post:

The Maryland Health Care Commission designated CRISP to oversee the state's effort to create a secure exchange for electronic health information within the state. More than 300 such exchanges are in development throughout the United States as part of a larger effort to develop national exchange standards and best practices. More than 20 organizations were involved in CRISP's development, including doctors, insurance companies, hospitals and consumer advocates, who helped structure the network in a way that will protect patient privacy in accordance with applicable law.

The funding for the network came from a patchwork of state and federal grants. In 2009, Maryland allocated $10 million from a fund that insurance companies pay into to reimburse hospitals for the network's start-up costs. The state health-care commission received an additional $9.3 million in federal stimulus money that covered the cost of the exchange's rollout. In April, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that promotes the adoption of information technology gave CRISP $5.5 million to help 1,000 primary care physicians use electronic health records more effectively.

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On May 19, 2009, Governor O'Malley of Maryland signed into law a bill requiring private insurance companies to offer healthcare providers financial incentives to adopt healthcare information technology (HIT), while establishing penalties for those providers who do not bring an electronic medical records system on line by 2015.  According to the Baltimore Sun,

The stimulus money went to Medicare and Medicaid, which are to give it to doctors who adopt electronic medical records. But because Medicare and Medicaid account for less than half of payments to many providers, state Health Secretary John Colmers said, private insurers are now being enlisted to add incentive, beginning in 2011.

The bill allows insurers to choose among several forms of inducement - increased reimbursements, lump-sum payments or in-kind services - so long as it has a monetary value.

"The goal here in Maryland was to assure that all of the payers pull their oars in the same direction," Colmers said. "There is a great promise in electronic health records, but the greatest promise comes when it's done in a coordinated fashion, across all of the payers.

The new law also requires Maryland to develop "a health information exchange, a computer network that would link all of Maryland's physicians, hospitals, medical laboratories and pharmacies. It could be linked with those of other states to create [a] national network."

"Bill pushes doctors to computerize records", The Baltimore Sun, May 19, 2009.

Maryland General Assembly HB706 "Electronic Health Records - Regulation and Reimbursement"

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