Author: SOS Blog

Creativity: Running out of ideas…

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I have been struggling with a topic for this week’s blog. The only thing that has come across my path that feels compelling is the hummingbird who showed up at our coral honeysuckle on Sunday. Unfortunately, integrating that ruby throat into my article does not seem like an easy task.

Sometimes, I feel like I have run out of ideas. When that happens, I am reminded of feelings I experienced as a child and young adult. I knew I was not an artist and felt myself also to be not creative.

It took many years before I learned that my creativity takes forms different than that of artistic individuals. At some point in the process of doing psychotherapy with some very difficult clients, I realized that most of my creativity takes the form of what I will call creative alternativism. Generating possibilities…especially possibilities for different types of behavior and different kinds of thinking…was the primary manifestation of that creativity. Helping my clients find different ways to be in the world in order to overcome their pain and problems was the most important way I expressed that creative urge.

I have since realized that I often apply that process to myself as well. Since I can be a pretty rigid person when it comes to my own thinking and behavior, I have found that I need to make systematic efforts to implement the alternatives I generate for myself. I may well come up with many ideas about how to change my behavior, but I need structure to implement those changes.

Three years ago, I knew that adding yoga into my fitness efforts would benefit my arthritic joints and relieve some of my stress. Signing up for a yoga class was the structure that allowed me to make that a regular part of my activities. After three years, I have found other structures to help me extend that one class to two and now into a daily practice. I need and use structure to implement the possible changes I creatively generate for myself.

I had an email this week from a colleague I have not seen in years. I was delighted to learn that for the past year, she has been painting! At age 60, she took a pastels class at her local community college. She was hooked on the medium and has found a new outlet for her creativity. In my experience, she has always been creative. She has been a psychologist and psychotherapist for her entire professional life. She has researched and written and published…an aspect of her professional creativity; and now, she paints!

I am delighted to know that a new aspect of creative expression can manifest itself at any age, as long as we are open to it.

How do you express your creativity? Do you manage to do this within your professional life? Does the place you work benefit from your creative endeavors, or is it just for you?

Please share your thoughts about creativity, regenerating it, and keeping our lives…and blog topics…fresh.

UCLA and WellPoint Fined for Data Breaches

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I am sure many of you remember the reports dating back to 2005 that celebrity patient files were being viewed by casual lookers…employees who had access to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Health System electronic medical record (EMR) but who had no legitimate reason to view those records. Well, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has entered into an agreement with UCLAHS to settle potential HIPAA violations for $865,500. Additionally, UCLA has made a commitment to correct gaps in their security, to improve their policies and procedures to better safeguard patient information, and to adequately educate their employees.

In a separate case, FierceHealthPayer reported that WellPoint will pay $100,000 to the state of Indiana because they waited several months before notifying Indiana officials of a security breach that could have exposed the data of 32,000 members.

It also will reimburse each affected member up to $50,000 for any breach-related losses as part of the settlement reached with the Indiana Attorney General.                                                                  [Read more; Subscribe]

For me, the important issues here are the following:

  • OCR is serious about data breaches and safeguarding patient protected health information (PHI).
  • State laws are just as important as Federal law. You must know and follow those local regulations as well as HIPAA and HITECH.
  • The cost of a data breach is significant and would put many small provider organizations out of business.

Have you reviewed your security and privacy practices and policies this year? Are you confident that your PHI practices are solid and that your employees are using the procedures as written? How do you review these and how do you educate your employees?

Please share your experiences and concerns about data privacy and security with us below.

Prevention and Pain: A major way to save money

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This morning I read an editorial (An ounce of prevention could heal a pound of pain) by Dina Overland of the FierceHealthPayer newsletter. She decided to use her platform as the editor of a newsletter that is aimed at insurance payers to directly address those payers about prevention of healthcare problems and diminishing future costs. She focused on an area that behavioral health and substance abuse professionals work in often . . . pain.

Ms. Overland’s review of the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) report on pain and prevention cited some facts I had not heard.

Chronic pain affects 116 million Americans–that’s more people than affected by heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined–and costs the United States
$635 billion each year. That’s what the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found in its report, Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education and Research.

If that’s not jarring enough, here are some more staggering facts: The United States spends $2 trillion on healthcare, but only 4 cents of every dollar goes to prevention and public health, despite being among the best tools to reduce spending. For every $1 invested in prevention, we save $6 in projected healthcare costs, says Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who participated in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’s announcement
of its guidelines to incorporating prevention throughout the healthcare industry.

***

 

I could not help but think about the number of people who would never have become substance abusers if their chronic pain had been addressed and treated at an early stage. How many behavioral health clients have you treated for depression after years of experiencing intractable pain?

The IOM and HHS see the coordination of care among primary care providers and specialists as the best way to address early intervention and prevention of pain. What role should mental health and substance abuse providers play in this coordination? How many of your patients also experience chronic pain? Where do behavioral health providers fit in?

Please share your thoughts and comments below. What role do you want to play in diminishing healthcare costs? Who should we see when it hurts?

 

Data Safety, Consent to Release, and EMRs

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According to a June 14, 2011 report by Government Health IT News, consumers’ confidence in the safety of their data in electronic health records (EHRs) is a prerequisite to the successful adoption of electronic means of recording and sharing health records. So says Dixie Baker, chair of advisory Health IT Standards Committee’s privacy and security workgroup and senior vice president and chief technology officer for health solutions for SAIC. Feeling assured that their information is safe and secure and going only where it is supposed to go will allow the public to support their health care providers in moving to electronic medical records (EMRs).

In fact, Government Health IT News reported on June 24 that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) plans to contract with a vendor “to explore and evaluate methods to electronically obtain and record from patients their informed consent about sharing their health data.” The solicitation focuses heavily on the matter of educating patients about disclosure and consent for release of information.

In substance abuse and behavioral health settings, requirements beyond those encoded by HIPAA and HITECH are mandated in federal and state laws. 42 CFR Part 2 applies to any provider or provider organization holding itself out as a provider of alcohol or drug abuse treatment and to federally assisted alcohol or drug abuse programs. Special “handling” of the record is required, especially when it comes to re-release of the information obtained. It is not acceptable for a provider to receive information from an alcohol abuse program, incorporate it into their EMR and then release it on to other providers of the patient, without the specific consent of the patient.

The legal complexities are immense. Members of the Software and Technology Vendors Association (SATVA) who work with these issues all the time, have been wrestling with the kind of consent that could be used to disclose records and appropriately specify the degree to which such disclosure is authorized by the patient. Anasazi Software has shared a memorandum of understanding about privacy and security issues related to health information exchange (HIE) in California drafted at their expense. California and some other states have even more restrictive laws than 42 CFR Part 2.

The conclusions in this document lead SATVA members Anasazi Software, Valley Hope Association, and Sequest Technologies to work together to develop and demonstrate to SAMHSA a solution for managing automated electronic health information disclosure. The standardized consent for health information disclosure that they developed could go a long way toward assuring consumer control of their record, at least as that record is represented by the Continuity of Care Document (CCD).

This kind of cooperative effort is one of many reasons of why we at Synergistic Office Solutions are proud to be members of SATVA.

APA and Public Education in Behavioral Health

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In a previous life, when I was actively involved in the American Psychological Association (APA), I was for three years a member of and one year the chair of the Public Information Committee of the APA. Prior to that, I hosted a live, call-in television show for two years. Frankly Speaking with Dr. Kathy Peres was entirely focused on educating the public about psychological matters. I believe that public education about how mental health issues affect our day-to-day lives is a significant responsibility of all professionals and organizations that provide services in the behavioral health arena.

Given that belief, I was very pleased today to receive an email from the APA announcing a new series of videos and podcasts by APA CEO, Norman B. Anderson, Ph.D. You can view the introduction and the first two installations in the series This is Psychology, one on bullying and another on children’s mental health.

APA invites you to place these links on your own professional web sites and to share them and the information they contain as broadly as possible.

Last week, I wrote about potential problems with use of social media in your organization. Public education of this sort. . .including sharing of the information created on Twitter and FaceBook is one arena in which I think social media has the potential for more power than in any other area of our professional lives.

How does your organization participate in education of the public about behavioral health issues? Please share your initiatives and activities here so others can communicate them more broadly for you.