Health Care Guide Press Releases

Hunterdon Medical Center Physician Speaks About Meaningful Use

Robert Murry, PhD, M.D., Medical Director of Informatics at Hunterdon
Medical Center presented on behalf of Hunterdon Healthcare Partners
about the challenges of ‘meaningful use’ to a federally chartered
advisory group, Health Information Technology (HIT) Standards Committee.
  The HIT Standards Committee is an advisory panel to the Office of the
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the United
States Department of Health and Human Services.

The term "Meaningful Use" applies to rules for hospitals and providers
who are on an Electronic Medical Record ("EMR").  Hunterdon Healthcare
Partners utilizes NextGen as their EMR system. EMRs provide many
benefits for physicians and their patients, such as: complete and
accurate information and patient empowerment.  EMRs facilitate greater
access to the information so physicians can diagnose problems earlier
and improve the health outcomes of their patients. They also allow
information to be shared more easily among physicians’ offices,
hospitals, and across health systems, leading to better coordinated of
care.

Dr. Murry was among an elite group of physicians selected to speak
about his experience with adopting and using an EMR system.  “Our team
began an EMR rollout in 2007.  We currently have 121 providers
(physicians, residents, physician assistants and nurse practitioners) in
23 family practices and nine specialty offices using an EMR system.  In
2011, an additional eight practices and 53 providers will begin using
the EMR system,” said Dr. Murry.    Dr. Murry explained to the
Committee, “We had a robust EMR implementation, including
e-prescribing, reporting on quality measures, lab interfaces, a health
information exchange system and uploading data to the NJ State
immunization registry all before Meaningful Use was announced.”  He
explained that even though Hunterdon Healthcare maybe more prepared than
other health systems across the country, there are challenges to the
requirements the government is setting, such as time table, change of
workflow in practices and two upgrades that were made to the EMR system
to enable recording and reporting specific data.  He provided great
insight on how these barriers could be a challenge to an organization
that is just beginning an EMR implementation.

Dr. Murry is also a family practice physician at Delaware Valley Family
Health Center in Milford, New Jersey.

Hunterdon Medical Center
2100 Wescott Drive
Flemington, NJ 08822
Phone: 908-788-6515
Fax: 908-788-6526
www.hunterdonhealthcare.org