Visit often for the latest member news from GRIPA. Click on any of the topics below to read more.
October 1, 2007
GRIPA Launches New Newsletter
The inaugural edition of GRIPA News was mailed to physicians, practice managers, and board members the first week of October, 2007. Links to newsletter issues in PDF format can be found in the right column on this web page. GRIPA News will be published bimonthly. We send out notices via email to those newsletter recipients for whom we have email addresses. If you would like to be included in that email notification, please contact Provider Relations at 922-1525.
September 18, 2007
GRIPA Receives Favorable Advisory Opinion from FTC for Clinical Integration Program
Second in the Nation; First in Five Years
(Rochester, New York, September 18, 2007) The Greater Rochester Independent Practice Association (GRIPA) received a favorable advisory opinion yesterday from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for its Clinical Integration program. This is only the second time that the FTC has given a favorable advisory opinion to a clinical integration program and the first time in five years.
GRIPA has been developing this program, called GRIPA Connect™ Clinical Integration, over the past two years. The initiative is focused on improving the quality of health care and access to care, while curbing costs. The goal of GRIPA Connect Clinical Integration is to create a connected community of physicians, hospitals, labs and imaging facilities which will share electronic access to patient information.
“The Federal Trade Commission’s staff opinion issued today on our plans for GRIPA Connect Clinical Integration indicates that the FTC does not intend to challenge our program, which includes our negotiating payer contracts on behalf of our members, and lets us move forward,” said Gregg Coughlin, GRIPA President. “We believe that GRIPA Connect Clinical Integration will return Rochester to being a national model for quality health care that’s affordable.”
As part of clinical integration, the physicians in the GRIPA Network are required, when medically appropriate, to adhere to Clinical Guidelines developed by the physicians themselves based on research into the best practices in the country.
GRIPA physicians will also have an easy-to-use, secure, web-based portal for access to patient information and electronic tools to act on that information, including such features as electronic prescribing, electronic lab test ordering and tracking of referrals between physicians. Security is paramount, with access to a patient’s record limited only to that patient’s care team.
A Health Information Exchange (HIE) — a virtual electronic network for physicians to securely collaborate with each other and the patients they’re treating — is at the heart of this effort. Patients will benefit because physicians will have easy access to more complete information and will be able to move more quickly and effectively to implement the best treatment plan. Physicians will have more time to spend with their patients because they will be able to spend less time looking for patient results and referral materials.
“Too often, physicians don’t have complete information about a patient,” said GRIPA Chief Medical Officer, Eric Nielsen, MD. “Whether it’s a list of the medications that a patient takes, lab results, or imaging studies, it’s imperative that physicians have a comprehensive view of all of the relevant information. We expect that having that information at the point of care will dramatically improve patient outcomes while reducing the cost of care.”
Visit the Advisory Opinions page on the FTC site.
Download the GRIPA Advisory Opinion from the FTC.
GRIPA is a partnership of physicians and ViaHealth hospitals in Monroe and Wayne Counties and the Greater Rochester region, including private physicians and employed physicians on staff at Rochester General Hospital and Newark Wayne Community Hospital as well as Rochester General Physicians Organization and the Wayne County Physicians Organization. GRIPA was named to the Rochester Top 100 for the past three years. For more information visit www.gripa.org and www.gripaconnect.com.
September 2007
GRIPA Connect Web Portal Update:
More Information, Easier to Access
We regularly make changes and updates to the GRIPA Connect™ web portal to ensure that it’s easy to use and includes the most valuable information for your practice. Some of the changes and updates are the result of suggestions from physicians and their office staffs. Suggestions are initially brought to the GRIPA Portal Enhancement Committee and those that require physician input are brought to the GRIPA Connect Technology Steering Committee for discussion and implementation recommendations.
Here is an up-to-date list of additional features and changes we have made to the GRIPA Connect portal.
Clinical Guidelines
To date, 22 Clinical Guidelines have been approved by the GRIPA Board of Directors and 20 of them are currently on the portal. The goal is to have at least one guideline for each specialty by the end of the year.
Health Care Resources
This section is regularly updated with additional physician tools and patient education material, as well as links recommended by our physicians. New to this page are RGH and Newark- Wayne Hospital Nursing Unit phone number lists. We’ve also added a Pharmacy Locator as well as medication formularies and insurance formularies with web links to insurers. Links to information on advanced directives and some disease-specific information have been added as well.
Medical Libraries
VisualDx and Micromedex were previously accessed via the Health Care Resources section. We’ve created a new directory called Medical Libraries where these links can now be found.
Data Sources
ACM labs is the latest data source to be added to GRIPA Connect. Coming soon are Elizabeth Wende Breast Clinic and Rochester Radiology. We’ll keep you posted as we approach launch dates on these sources.
Portal Access
To ensure a robust Referral Management service, all GRIPA physicians who have signed a CI contract or portal user agreement will have access to this portion of the portal.
Clinical Applications
This is a new category on the left-hand navigation bar where you’ll find a link to the ViaHealth Clinical Care System (CCS) log-in screen. You’ll need a CCS username and password to access the system. If you don’t have one, please contact 585.922.HELP.
“Triggered Messages” for Demographic Changes
In response to requests by a number of practices, we have turned off the triggered messages about demographic changes that were appearing in the Message Center. New information will continue to appear in the patient’s record but a message will no longer be sent every time demographic information is updated.
Portal Timeout
The length of time before the portal “times out” for lack of use— requiring you to log in again—has been increased from 15 to 20 minutes. We cannot make this longer and stay within current regulatory guidelines.
Coming up
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GRIPA Connect Web Portal Tutorial. A tutorial will be added to the portal to supplement in-person training. The tutorial will guide users through GRIPA Connect with step-by-step instructions and demonstrations. Users can select visual or audio cues, and can control the pace of the training.
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Referral Management. This feature will allow physicians to refer patients through a secure online channel. Physicians and their office staff s are currently being trained on this feature.
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e-Prescribing. This function, available in the fall to early adopters, will allow practices to send prescriptions directly to pharmacies. In addition, the information from e-Prescribing will be displayed in the portal for just those users involved in the patient’s care.
Thank you for your interest in the GRIPA Connect web portal. We welcome your questions or additional suggestions. Please call GRIPA Provider Relations at 585-922-1525.
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August 2007
COMING SOON: Referral Management
A New GRIPA Connect™ Portal Feature
One of the most valuable tools at the GRIPA Connect™ web portal is the soon-to-be-implemented Referral Management feature. Primary Care Physicians will be able to refer their patients to specialists using this secure online channel, which will limit phone calls and increase patient satisfaction.
To ensure that the feature is easy to use and has all the tools that physicians need to successfully manage referrals, GRIPA is currently testing the Referral Management feature of the portal with several offices that have agreed to be early adopters.
Referral management will work most effectively with a full complement of physicians using the system. Thus, it is open to all GRIPA physicians. Physicians who have not enrolled in Clinical Integration can participate in Referral Management by signing a Portal Use Agreement, which will also provide limited access to other portal features such as Secure Messaging and Results Viewing.
According to Kelly Taddeo, GRIPA Director of Provider Relations, the goals of Referral Management are to enhance quality of care and increase patient satisfaction. Offices will now have a secure channel to communicate with each other and patients will have less responsibility for transferring their own records and test results.
“The referral process will be streamlined,” said Eric Nielsen, M.D., GRIPA Chief Medical Officer. “Now referrals can be made on the GRIPA Connect web portal, which will ensure confidentiality and efficiency.”
When referrals are sent to providers using the portal, physicians can communicate with referring offices through the portal. The urgency level of the referral can be specified, and specialists can use the portal itself to accept or reject the referral.
GRIPA Connect trainers will be contacting offices in the next few months to schedule training sessions on using Referral Management. For more information, contact GRIPA Provider Relations at 585.922.1525.
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June 2007
Ensuring the GRIPA Connect™ Portal Is Secure, Up-to-Date, and Useful to Physicians and their Staff Members
The GRIPA Connect™ Web Portal has been operational since January of this year and is being used by physicians and their office staff members, who have been trained by GRIPA experts.
“Our goal is to ensure that the portal is secure, up-to date and useful to physicians and office staff members,” said Victoria Viglucci, GRIPA Chief Information Officer. “We have received many suggestions for additions and revisions to information on the portal and we have formulated a process to review the feasibility of the suggestions and implement them when appropriate.”
GRIPA Portal Enhancement Committee
The first step in the process is the GRIPA Portal Enhancement Committee, an internal GRIPA staff group chaired by Ben Smith, GRIPA Physician Technology Consultant and HIPAA Security Officer. The group also includes members of GRIPA IT, Provider Relations, Care Management and Public Relations.
Members review the suggestions made through the GRIPA Connect Support Line, at 585.922.1222, phone calls to Provider Relations, and office visits.
GRIPA Connect Technology Steering Committee GRIPA CIO Victoria Viglucci chairs this committee, which includes: Mark Davenport, M.D.; Beatrice Deshommes, M.D.; Mitchell Ehrenberg, M.D.; Michael Feinstein, M.D.; Steven Howard, M.D.; David Kamowski; Bruce Kleene, M.D.; Harold Lesser, M.D.; John Phelan, M.D.; Frank Salamone; M.D.; John Seaford, M.D.; John Seaman, M.D.; Robert Thomson, M.D.; Gary Wahl, M.D.; Jeffrey Wasserman, M.D.; and GRIPA staff members Jennifer Giudice, Ben Smith and Kelly Taddeo. RGPO President John Genier, M.D. and GRIPA Board Chair Michael Kukfa, M.D. also attend the meetings.
The group’s input helps GRIPA provide physician users with a quality tool for enhancing patient care, improving communication, and simplifying the work flow of day-to-day practice. Members review and prioritize the enhancement requests requiring physician input that are referred from the GRIPA Portal Enhancement Committee.
The committee is also charged with keeping members up-to-date on portal features, understanding current and future needs of users, and addressing access and privacy challenges.
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June 2007
Healthvision National User’s Group Led by GRIPA CIO
Healthvision, a Texas-based developer of online consumer and physician portals, which created and maintains the GRIPA Connect Web Portal, has created a National User’s Group, and asked GRIPO CIO Victoria Viglucii to lead the national effort.
“Our recent meeting in Albany was a great success,” said Viglucci.
Members include GRIPA and other current Healthvision customers including Maine Health, North Texas Specialty Physicians, Yale New Haven, ARCHIE (Adirondack Region Community Health Information Exchange), STHL (Southern Tier Health Link in Binghamton) and St. Joe’s Health System in Los Angeles.
A small group will convene in Dallas in July to meet with Healthvision senior leadership to discuss long-term strategy and develop a shared vision.
The Users Group has developed focus groups with representatives from various sites to work on specific projects with Healthvision and has developed a tight network to ask questions, share lessons learned, and benefit from each other’s experiences.
A common set of needs has been developed and presented to Healthvision to help the vendor focus on appropriate goals.
The next national meeting is tentatively scheduled for November in Dallas. For more information about GRIPA Connect, contact GRIPA Provider Relations at 585.922.1525 or
or your GRIPA Connect web portal trainer.
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April 2007
Meet the GRIPA Connect Web Portal trainers
GRIPA staff members are on the road training our private and ViaHealth employed physicians, and their staff members, to use the GRIPA Connect web portal.
GRIPA Connect web portal trainers include (from left) Michael Van Ornum, Jeannine Noonan, Bridget Casselman and Pam Pharmakis.
Kelly Taddeo, Director, Provider Relations (standing left), is pictured with trainers Jennifer Doran (also standing), Jennifer Giudice and Paul Starowicz (seated).
Training on the basic functions of the portal takes approximately an hour and can be done any time of the day that is convenient—early morning, lunchtime or even after hours. Trainers navigate through the portal and explain the current features and how to access them. Then physicians and/or staff have the opportunity to log in to the portal themselves and ask the trainers any questions. Additional training is required for advanced features.
For more information or to schedule training, contact Kelly Taddeo of Provider Relations at 585.922.1525.
Learn more about GRIPA Connect Training. Download the article from the April 07 issue of Rochester General Forum.
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March 2007
A progress report on GRIPA Connect Clinical Integration
by Eric Nielsen, M.D., GRIPA CMO
As of the beginning of February, we have 331 physicians enrolled in GRIPA Connect Clinical Integration, including 181 private practice physicians and 150 ViaHealth-employed physicians who are members of the Rochester General Physicians Organization (RGPO) or the Wayne County Physicians Organization (WCPO).
GRIPA Connect Web Portal
On the web portal, we’ve completed the basic infrastructure of the site, creating its look, feel and functionality with help from our Physician Advisory Committee. We are loading it with ViaHealth data regarding Admission, Discharge and Transfer and with ViaHealth Clinical Lab data. We are close to adding data from ACM Lab, and Elizabeth Wende Breast Clinic. We will soon add Rochester Radiology Associates and ViaHealth Inpatient Radiology, and we are in conversation with The IDE Group and Borg Imaging, and anticipate they will also come online soon.
Clinical Care Guidelines
Our Clinical Integration Committee, with help from our Specialty Advisory Groups, has completed development of 13 Clinical Care Guidelines and is actively working on a dozen more.
Patient Privacy
We are compliant with HIPAA and New York State privacy regulations as they currently stand. We recognize that privacy and access to data are both important to good quality care—and are sometimes at odds. We’re doing everything we can to find the right balance between them, and we will continue to work on this issue and keep you informed.
Billing Data
We’ve addressed your concerns about Clinical Integration contract provisions as they relate to sending GRIPA your billing data by making appropriate changes to the contracts.
Federal Trade Commission Update
GRIPA is seeking an advisory opinion from the Federal Trade Commission to minimize the antitrust risk to itself and its members. Our ability to negotiate with payors is contingent upon creating and implementing a clinical integration program that satisfies FTC requirements.
Cooperating with the FTC has been an early and continuous part of our strategy, and we have worked closely with a team of Washington-based antitrust attorneys at Ober|Kaler. According to our attorneys, “GRIPA’s plan is well thought out and comprehensive. Our experience tells us that the likelihood of a positive advisory opinion from the FTC is quite strong.” We believe we may have an official advisory opinion by mid-2007.
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February 2007
On the portal: diagnostic software from Thomson Healthcare and VisualDX®
In addition to the basic features of the GRIPA Connect Clinical Integration web portal—secure messaging, access to patient information including lab and radiology reports, access to clinical guidelines and other useful information—reference tools for physician use will be included.
Two of these special features are Thomson Healthcare and VisualDx® point-of-care diagnostic software. Physicians who have signed a Clinical Integration contract and have been trained to use the portal will have access to these comprehensive tools.
Learn more about these tools: download the article from the February 07 Rochester General Forum.
January 2007
GRIPA announces withhold return and gainshare
In early March, GRIPA will return an average of 125% risk withhold to physicians. In addition, physicians who are members of the RGPO or the WCPO will each receive $1000 in gainshare. This was first announced by Michael Kukfa, M.D., GRIPA board chair, at the January 29 joint meeting of the medical staffs and POs.
Dr. Kukfa also announced that for the years 2003-2006, physicians who were part of GRIPA contracts (as compared to other IPA contracts), received an additional $7.1 million, which translates to approximately $10,900 per physician.
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November 2006
Special thanks to our physician volunteers
You have probably heard mention of the Clinical Integration Committee and Specialty Advisory Groups. These are groups of our physicians who have volunteered their time to help develop clinical guidelines for GRIPA. This process is essential to being a clinically integrated group.
The reality is that there are countless guidelines being drafted by various groups and insurers every day, but our guidelines will be developed by our own physicians for our own physicians.
The Clinical Integration Committee is comprised of both primary care and specialist physicians who are members of GRIPA and are practitioners in the community. This group meets monthly and has the primary responsibility for the selection, modification and evaluation of Clinical Guidelines.
The CIC receives input and recommendations from Specialty Advisory Groups, which include physicians from each of the specialties and subspecialties affected by the guidelines that are being developed.
Many physicians have given up countless hours to help with this process and we would like to thank the following doctors:
Clinical Integration Committee for 2008:
- T. Jeffrey Dmochowski, M.D.
- Michael Dobmeier, M.D.
- John Genier, M.D.
- Marvin Grieff, M.D.
- Michael Jordan, M.D.
- Gregory Oleyourryk, M.D.
- Patrick Riggs, M.D.
- William Rolls, M.D.
- Scott Schabel, M.D.
- Derek tenHoopen, M.D.
- Gary Wahl, M.D.
- Gordon Whitbeck, M.D.
Clinical Integration Specialty Advisory Groups For 2008:
- Charles Albrecht, M.D.
- Ya Li Chen, M.D.
- Shirley Cirillo, M.D.
- Larry Denk, M.D.
- Donald Gabel, M.D.
- Edith Grannum, M.D.
- Joshua Hollander, M.D.
- John Huselton, M.D.
- David Lee, M.D.
- Michael Myers, M.D.
- Anthony Ragusa, M.D.
- Andrew Swinburne, M.D.
- Robert Tatelbaum, M.D.
- Gary Wahl, M.D.
- Jan Walker, M.D.
- Stephen Webb, M.D.
