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Electronic Health Records News & Views Archives
January 2007 - April 2007
(in reverse chronological order)
(See menu on left for EHR Notable Quotes and latest News & Views)
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April
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HIMSS first virtual conference launches May 16
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society,
the professional organization known for staging the biggest
conference and exhibition in the healthcare IT industry each
year is launching something new this month – an event
designed to draw attendees from across the country while
eliminating the need to travel or book hotel rooms. The
HIMSS Virtual Conference and Expo runs May 16-17 online.
Like HIMSS convention hall conferences – the most recent one
in New Orleans – the virtual conference offers education
sessions, demonstrations, chances to network and to amble
through the exhibition hall. HIMSS President and CEO H.
Stephen Lieber said the organization’s intent is to present
its members with more resources. The virtual conferences are
planned for twice a year. The next one is set for Nov. 6-7.
They will be in addition to HIMSS annual conference, he
said, not replacements.
(April 30, 2007)
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PHR Translates into Other Languages
MyMedicalRecords.com has added multilingual functionality to
its Web-based personal health records software to aid users
who are traveling. The Los Angeles-based vendor can
translate a PHR to Spanish or Japanese and soon will add
Korean, French, German and Chinese. Other enhancements
include integrating the PHR’s calendar entries--such as
scheduled appointments--with a user’s Microsoft Outlook
calendar, sending reminders to up to three e-mail addresses
and a searchable medical encyclopedia. More information is
available at
mymedicalrecords.com.
(April 30, 2007)
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CCHIT Certifies More EHRs
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information
Technology has certified 30 additional electronic health
records systems for ambulatory care. The industry-sponsored
commission, now working under a federal government contract,
has now certified 81 specific ambulatory EHR products and
believes 40% of such products are certified.
(April 30, 2007)
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Security Update Part of Fed Agenda
The federal government is getting ready to tighten the HIPAA
security rule in the wake of several incidents of
compromised patient data involving laptops and other mobile
computing devices. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services expects in July to propose a rule “intended to
provide a more prescriptive set of remote security
requirements designed to reduce the likelihood of
unauthorized uses and disclosures of sensitive health
information,” according to a notice published April 30 in
the Federal Register.
(April 30, 2007)
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AHIC works to expand boundaries of remote care
Government health care policy-makers met last week to
discuss ways to expand incentives for health care providers
to use telemedicine applications and systems. Members of the
American Health Information Community (AHIC)’s chronic care
workgroup met to try to remove rules that allow providers of
remote health care to be reimbursed by Medicare only if they
work in specific geographic areas and clinical settings.
Access to remote health care — or telemedicine — has
increased with the expanded use of health information
technology.
(April 30, 2007)
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CVS/Caremark Charitable Trust Will Award $2.5 million to
Rhode Island Quality Institute
The CVS/Caremark Charitable Trust, the private foundation
created by CVS/Caremark Corporation, announced today that it
plans to award a five-year $2.5 million grant to the Rhode
Island Quality Institute to fund its ongoing work to improve
the health and health care of Rhode Islanders.
(April 30, 2007)
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Nurses' Involvement With IT Systems Increasing
As hospitals continue to develop and adopt electronic health
record systems, the demand for nurse informaticists, who can
serve as a link between IT and clinical care, has increased.
(April 30, 2007)
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U.S. Joins International EHR Terminology Standards Effort
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Friday announced that the U.S.
will be one of nine member countries in an international
organization's effort to encourage the worldwide adoption of
terminology standards for electronic health records.
(April 30, 2007)
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New Jersey hospital links to 'sister' facility on Staten
Island
Bayonne Medical Center, with Newark Bay on one side and
Upper New York Bay on the other, has completed a wireless
link to its sister hospital on Staten Island, 2 1/2 miles
across the channel. The link to Richmond University Medical
Center means the two hospitals can consolidate their help
desk functions, said Anthony Antinori, Bayonne’s IT
director. “We can share resources, he said. “We currently
have a large Citrix environment. We can run everything
remotely from Bayonne. ”
(April 30, 2007)
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Modern Healthcare and HIMSS Announce 2007 CEO IT Achievement
Award Recipients
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
and Modern Healthcare have announced the recipients of this
year’s CEO IT Achievement Award. This year’s honorees are:
Alan Aviles, President & CEO, New York City Health &
Hospitals Corporation; John Ferguson, President & CEO,
Hackensack University Medical Center; Michael Murphy,
President & CEO, Sharp HealthCare
(April 30, 2007)
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SAP deal could simplify health info management
A new agreement between IT giants SAP AG and Microsoft Corp.
could lead to a groundbreaking integrated platform for
healthcare information management, SAP executives said last
week at the SAPPHIRE '07 conference in Atlanta. The
companies announced that their Duet application, which
allows information workers to use SAP management systems in
Microsoft Office, would be expanded into two new versions,
the first of which is to be released at the end of 2008. The
new roadmap for Duet could have vital applications for
healthcare IT, according to Carlos Chou, senior vice
president for SAP America. “One of the major challenges of
adopting standardized solutions is user adoption,” said
Chou. “The level of the information user in any industry is
that they resist change.” He said user adoption rates would
increase if users didn't have to use multiple programs to
perform business processes. “We bridge the processes to
allow the information worker to stay in the same place.”
(April 30, 2007)
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OhioHealth Gets E-Rx
The Columbus-based integrated delivery system OhioHealth has
purchased electronic prescribing software from RxNT,
Annapolis, Md... The delivery system is offering the
vendor's application to more than 2,500 physicians at four
of its hospitals.
(April 30, 2007)
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The Digital Divide Between Doctors
When the FDA recalled Zelnorm last month because of findings
that patients using the drug risked heart attack and stroke,
Dr. Joseph Perkinson dropped his stethoscope and reached for
his laptop. From there, it took the family physician seconds
- not hours or days - to search thousands of medical records
and produce a digital list of his 40 or so patients
prescribed the drug. Sally McCoach was on that list of
patients telephoned. "It's encouraging," McCoach, 67, said.
"You don't have to wait a long time for them to go through
all the papers." McCoach is on a short list of U.S. and
Victoria patients whose doctors use electronic medical
records: paperless charts with vast medical information
stored on computers. It's estimated that fewer than 20
Victoria physicians - and less than 10 percent of U.S.
doctors - use paperless systems that "store all necessary
data, allow electronic ordering of tests and provide
clinical reminders," the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Electronic medical records are not new. But recent advances
have uploaded them into a new-age health policy debate.
(April 29, 2007)
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Let technology help to reshape our health care
After Neil Armstrong's great leap for mankind, a common
lament became, "We can send a man to the moon but we can't
cure the common cold." The gripe was that for all of our
scientific and technological advances, we couldn't solve
simple health problems. Four decades later, we are on the
threshold of applying data, information and technology in
bold ways that could do far greater things than solving the
common cold. Our ability to aggregate, analyze and then
distribute vital health information will enable us to tackle
the most serious diseases and afflictions that human beings
face, and at the same time also help with very common health
issues. At the center of this health revolution will be the
simple act of sharing information.
(April 29, 2007)
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HHS Wants to Survey EHR Adoption
The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking
permission from the Office of Management and Budget to
conduct a survey later this year to measure the adoption of
electronic health records among physicians and group
practices.
(April 27, 2007)
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Katrina Aftermath Drives EHR Adoption in Louisiana
Early adopters of health IT in Louisiana say the technology
helped them care for patients during Hurricane Katrina, and
many providers who were dependent on paper records since
have adopted electronic health record systems.
(April 27, 2007)
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Georgia Telemedicine System Connects With Specialists
Mountain Lakes Medical Center in Rabun County, Ga., this
month launched a new telemedicine program that links local
patients with specialists at five hospitals via computers
and video technology.
(April 27, 2007)
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Wireless Health Care Devices Catching On
Wireless technology has been used in health care for
decades, but as microchips become more powerful, devices
decrease in size and battery life is prolonged, more and
more companies are beginning efforts to expand the use of
wireless technology.
(April 27, 2007)
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Healthcare IT big piece of 'Medicare-for-All'
If Medicare is a good thing, then why not expand it? So say
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass. ), chairman of the Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and Rep.
John Dingell (D-Mich. ), chairman of the House Committee on
Energy and Commerce. The use of healthcare information
technology is key to the success of their proposal, they
say. In what they called “bold action” to address the ailing
U.S. healthcare system, the two staunch Democratic leaders
introduced April 25 a bill to make affordable healthcare
accessible to all Americans through a single payer – the
U.S. government.
(April 27, 2007)
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ONCHIT awards AHIC privatization contracts
Robert Kolodner, the head of the Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology, announced
Tuesday that his office has issued contracts to three firms
to help HHS plan for the transition of the American Health
Information Community to the private sector. AHIC was
created in 2005 by HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt. Chaired by
Leavitt and co-chaired by David Brailer, the former ONCHIT
head, it is a panel with 18 members, 10 of whom serve
various federal and state agencies that are providers,
purchasers or overseers of healthcare, with the rest of the
panel membership drawn from the private sector, including
not-for-profit organizations and two for-profit companies,
Intel Corp. and Wal-Mart. But from the beginning, it has
been Leavitt's stated aim to privatize the organization and
Brailer and Kolodner gave a presentation to AHIC members on
the government's plans for succession and sustainability. A
"key next step," according to Brailer, was coming up with a
business plan for the new entity.
(April 26, 2007)
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Effort To Develop ED Systems Standard Moves Forward
Health Level Seven, a standards-development organization,
has adopted the Emergency Care Function Profile as the first
"registered profile," or subset of an existing standard, to
facilitate the development of certification criteria for
emergency department information systems.
(April 26, 2007)
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Universal Health Bill Includes Incentives for Health IT
Adoption
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. John Dingell
(D-Mich.) on Wednesday introduced legislation that would
provide incentives for adopting electronic health records
and clinical decision support systems.
(April 26, 2007)
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Aurora to install TeraMedica's Evercore technology
Citing the need to
deliver an independent, lightweight image set to all
desktops within the context of its electronic medical
records,
Aurora Health Care will install the Evercore clinical
information management product developed by
TeraMedica, a privately held medical software company.
The installation, which will occur over the next several
months, will enable Aurora to integrate its medical images
and distribute them to attending healthcare providers within
the Cerner power chart module of Aurora's electronic medical
record.
(April 26, 2007)
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News Release: HHS Joins International Partners to Promote
Electronic Health Records Standards
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt today
announced the United States will participate in an
international effort to encourage more rapid development and
worldwide adoption of standard clinical terminology for
electronic health records. The United States is one of nine
charter members of the new International Health Terminology
Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO), which has
acquired Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED)
Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) from the College of American
Pathologists (CAP). Other charter members are from
Australia, Canada, Denmark, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Membership is open
to all countries.
(April 26, 2007)
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HIMSS Foundation donates to New Orleans free clinic
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
presented a check for $38,153 this week to the Common Ground
Health Clinic in New Orleans. The free clinic in the
struggling Algiers section of the city serves needy patients
who have little or no health insurance. “All of us at HIMSS
wanted to ensure that the work of Common Ground Health
Clinic could continue in New Orleans,” said H. Stephen
Lieber, HIMSS president/CEO. “We recognize the effort our
members made to provide the needed assistance to this clinic
will help improve the delivery of healthcare as well as the
use of technology in the local community.” ... The HIMSS
Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Society, managed
all monetary and in-kind donations of software and
affiliated services. The Foundation also administers the
HIMSS Katrina Phoenix project to help rebuild healthcare
facilities destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The
Katrina Phoenix project coordinates donations of electronic
medical record software and services from healthcare IT
vendors to practices in need of assistance. HIMSS also
announced that eight other practice sites to-date in
Louisiana have benefited from the HIMSS Katrina-Phoenix
Project with three practices in various stages of EHR
installation or implementation.
(April 26, 2007)
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Bill would advance use of information technology in health
care industry
The following is a news release from Rep. Erik Paulsen
(R-42B): Representative Erik Paulsen said his bill to
encourage innovative uses for information technology to
improve health care was included in the Minnesota House
Omnibus Health and Human Services bill. “The skyrocketing
costs of health care are in need of solutions. Minnesota is
a leader in technology. We should use our expertise and
utilize leaders in this area to provide a solution that will
improve health care and reduce costs,” said Representative
Erik Paulsen. Paulsen’s legislation expands the duties of
the Health Information Technology and Infrastructure
Advisory Committee. The primary purpose of the committee is
to make recommendations for implementing a statewide
interoperable health information infrastructure.
(April 25, 2007)
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Wal-Mart CEO Calls on Businesses To Step Up Health IT
Efforts
Just who is responsible for transforming the U.S. health
care system? The private sector? The public sector? Health
care providers? According to one of the nation's top
business leaders, transforming health care is a shared
responsibility. "The time for politics in our nation's
debate on health care has passed," Lee Scott, CEO of
Wal-Mart, said on Tuesday at the World Health Care Congress
in Washington, D.C. According to Scott, it's time to take
action, and businesses should be a "catalyst for positive
change." Scott said that businesses can further the effort
to transform health care through three steps: 1) Empowering
consumers; 2) Applying technologies; and 3) Increasing
efficiencies.
(April 25, 2007)
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Majority of British Physicians Oppose IT Project, Survey
Finds
Sixty-six percent of
British general practitioners said they will not allow their
own health records to be shared through the National Health
Service's Summary Care Record program, according to a survey
of general practitioners by Pulse magazine.
(April 25, 2007)
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Children's Hospitals in New Jersey, Tennessee Connect
Electronically
St. Joseph's Children's Hospital in Paterson, N.J., has
connected with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in
Memphis, Tenn., to consult with physicians through
high-definition video conferencing on complex pediatric
cases.
(April 25, 2007)
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California Pilot Program Uses Software for Clinic Referrals
The University of California-San Diego Medical Center and
three clinics this month began using a new computer program
aimed at helping emergency department patients without
primary care providers seek follow-up care at a clinic.
(April 25, 2007)
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Public Health Data Network Expected To Triple by 2012
The number of states with the ability to share information
on pandemics and other national health threats will triple
to about 40 states by 2012, according to a forecast released
Tuesday by Government Futures, a government market research
firm.
(April 25, 2007)
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Federal Advisory Group To Recommend Rewarding Physicians for
EHR Use
The American Health Information Community on Tuesday
accepted in principle a pay-for-performance recommendation
from its Electronic Health Records Workgroup that called for
federal contracts with health plans and insurers to include
provisions to reward physicians for quality performance,
including the use of certified electronic health records.
(April 25, 2007)
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Information technology could cure U.S. healthcare ills
Information technology may be the best way to reform the
ailing U.S. healthcare system, said a number of leading
employers at a session of the Fourth Annual World Health
Care Congress held April 23-24 in Washington, D.C. Glen
Tullman, CEO of Allscripts, repeated a common mantra that
the U.S. healthcare system is “broken,” and many employers
“are getting their hands dirty and jumping into the fray.
They see healthcare IT as part of the solution.” “We’ve
tried everything else,” Tullman said. “Every other major
industry has been able to use IT to improve quality and
reduce costs.”
(April 25, 2007)
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CIGNA to offer members Intuit's Quicken Health
Intuit Inc. of Mountain View and CIGNA HealthCare said on
Tuesday they have teamed up offer an online health tool for
the insurance company's more than 9 million members. The
program, called Quicken Health, is scheduled to be available
at no additional charge in 2008. It will allow members to
manage and direct their health care finances, view and
organize medical expenses, payments and service histories,
and download and organize personal health claims data.
(April 25, 2007)
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Emergis to Provide Electronic Health Record Solution to
Hawkesbury General Hospital of Ontario
Emergis Inc. (TSX:
EME) today announced that Hawkesbury General Hospital, a
69-bed community hospital in the Champlain Local Health
Integration Network (LHIN) of Ontario, has purchased the
Company's Oacis electronic health record (EHR) solution. An
EHR solution allows health care professionals to rapidly and
securely access a complete record of a patient's health
history online and in real time. Hawkesbury General is the
second hospital to purchase the Oacis solution in the
Champlain LHIN after The Ottawa Hospital and the fourth in
Ontario.
(April 25, 2007)
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Medicare NPI Contingency May Be Brief
Medicare could begin as early as July 1 to reject
fee-for-service claims that do not contain a national
provider identifier for the primary (or rendering) provider,
according to a notice recently posted online by the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The notice outlines
Medicare’s fee-for-service contingency plan for the NPI and
follows guidance on April 2 that CMS will not bring
enforcement action against entities following the May 23,
2007, compliance date if the entities are acting in good
faith to become compliant. But the new notice makes clear
that while enforcement may not be aggressive, Medicare’s own
contingency plan may be. In May, Medicare will assess the
number of fee-for-service claims containing an NPI. “If the
analysis shows a sufficient number of submitted claims
contain an NPI, Medicare will begin to reject claims on July
1, 2007, that do not contain NPIs,” according to the notice.
“If a sufficient number of claims do not contain NPIs in the
May analysis, Medicare FFS will assess compliance in June
2007 and determine whether to begin rejecting claims in
August 2007. Medicare FFS will provide advanced notification
to providers, Medicare contractors and the shared systems of
the date they are to begin rejecting claims when a decision
has been made to do so.” The notice does not specify what a
“sufficient number” of compliant claims would be, which
concerns the Medical Group Management Association.
(April 24, 2007)
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New Electronic Medical Records Device Can Save Lives in an
Emergency
A recently released
computer application called Med Records to Go™, that stores
electronic medical records, can help reduce errors in
emergency conditions, as well as in hospital or medical
clinic admissions. Introduced by the Vital Record
Corporation in November, 2006, Med Records to Go™ uses flash
drive technology to record and store
health information for emergency viewing by medical
personnel. In addition, the portable application can
transfer electronic medical records from the small storage
unit to a standard cell phone for emergency reference.
(April 24, 2007)
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Fed health plans likely to reward docs for using EHRs
A high-level Health and Human Services Department advisory
group will recommend that federal contracts with health
plans and insurers include provisions to reward physicians
for good performance, including the use of certified
e-health records. The American Health Information Community
today endorsed in principle the recommendation on pay for
performance from its Electronic Health Records Workgroup. It
sent the recommendation back to the workgroup for refinement
of the wording. AHIC is expected to approve the
recommendation at its June 12 meeting.
(April 24, 2007)
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Transformative IT: What It Means for Employers, Providers,
Government
As employers, the federal government and providers grapple
with how they should approach health IT adoption, it has
become clear that the technology has different implications
for everyone. However, the overall goal remains the same --
improving care through more efficient processes and reducing
costs.
(April 24, 2007)
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Western North Carolina Hospitals Get Electronic Link
Western North Carolina's 16 hospitals, which operate a
variety of disparate electronic health record systems, have
been integrated into a single system so that physicians
throughout the area can access patient information.
(April 24, 2007)
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Federal Exemptions Have Not Encouraged IT Donations, Survey
Finds
A survey of CIOs found that 62% of respondents said that
federal exemptions from the Stark and anti-kickback laws --
which are meant to provide a safe harbor for IT donations
from not-for-profit hospitals -- have not prompted their
facilities to fund or extend their health IT systems to
physicians
(April 24, 2007)
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Insurer Offers Free EHRs to Physicians in Four States
BlueCross and BlueShield plans in four states are entering
the health records of more than 11 million patients into a
single electronic health record system that physicians can
access at no cost.
(April 24, 2007)
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Denmark, U.S. Military Set Sights on Worldwide EHRs
Health IT efforts by both Denmark and the U.S. aim to
increase the quality of care while reducing health care
costs, Arne Kverneland, head of Denmark's National Board of
Health's health informatics department, said on Monday at
the World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C.
(April 24, 2007)
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Internal Kaiser E-Mail Spurred CEO To Defend EHR Project
A November 2006 e-mail from a Kaiser Permanente employee
describing problems with the company's electronic health
record system and the reaction to it shows that "in the
digital age, flicking away whistleblowers isn't as easy as
it once was.
(April 24, 2007)
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400 Health Clinics to Open in Wal-Mart Stores During Next
Three Years
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.,
(NYSE:
WMT) intends to contract with local hospitals and other
organizations to open as many as 400 in-store health clinics
over the next two to three years, and if current market
forces continue, up to 2,000 clinics could be in Wal-Mart
stores over the next five to seven years, Wal-Mart president
and CEO Lee Scott will say in a speech later today at the
World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C. The clinic
program's expansion is just the latest in a series of moves
by Wal-Mart to help implement customer solutions to
America's health care crisis, including the $4 generic drug
prescription program, health information technology and
participation in a major coalition supporting comprehensive
healthcare reform by 2012.
(April 24, 2007)
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Wal-Mart, Walgreens to Participate in Rx History Initiative
The National Association of Chain Drug Stores announced on
Tuesday that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Walgreens are among
the nation's pharmacies that will participate in a new
initiative allowing faster, safer access to prescription
medicines during emergencies and natural disasters. The
initiative, "Rx History," is made possible through the
Pharmacy Health Information Exchange, operated by
SureScripts, an organization founded by NACDS and the
National Community Pharmacists Association... Rx History
uses technology that will allow licensed prescribers and
pharmacists across the country to securely access
information containing the prescription history of a patient
from the affected area.
(April 24, 2007)
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Lahey Clinic to Provide Physicians with Integrated View of
Patient Data Through Orion Health Concerto Medical
Applications Portal
Orion Health, a global provider of clinical workflow and
integration technology for the health care sector, today
announced that Lahey Clinic Medical Center in Burlington,
Massachusetts has selected Orion Health's Concerto™ Medical
Applications Portal to provide a unique approach to ensure
clinic staff have quick and easy access to patient data from
a variety of applications for clinical decision-making. By
choosing Orion Health's Concerto Medical Applications
Portal, Lahey colleagues will be provided with a solution
that moves beyond simple Single Sign-On (SSO) password
management capabilities to present a completely unified view
of patient data that resides on disparate applications
throughout the clinic's facilities.
(April 24, 2007)
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Privacy, trust still the biggest barriers to electronic
record sharing
Is America rushing into the adoption of electronic medical
records and patient data exchange without enough concern for
data security? The question has been raised on many fronts,
including the Congress, where some bills seek to provide
incentives to encourage the adoption of interactive personal
health records, and others that raise privacy concerns are
construed as a barrier to the adoption of EMRs. Moreover,
headline-grabbing data breaches in both the public and
private sector are still fresh in the public's mind.
(April 23, 2007)
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First community-based public health record in the country is
being test driven in Tehachapi
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005 most of the
one million people displaced by the storm were left without
a single medical record. Now, nearly 70 percent of doctors
in the country still do not have electronic medical records
for patients making it nearly impossible for doctors to work
if a disaster strikes. Tehachapi residents are being given
the opportunity to avoid that fate. The Personal Health
Record, known as MyHealthKeeper, is being test driven by a
group of about 40 senior citizens, all members of the
Tehachapi Diabetes Support Group. MyHealthKeeper is
currently tailor-made to fit the needs of diabetes patients,
but it is a program created to be used as a chronic disease
management tool as well as an electronic medical record.
(April 23, 2007)
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Iowa City Health Systems Taking on EHRs
All three major medical centers in Iowa City, Iowa, have
adopted electronic health record systems to varying degrees
and many are more advanced than those at the average U.S.
hospital.
(April 23, 2007)
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Pilot Furthers CMS Health IT Adoption Effort
CMS last week launched an online application to help
physician practices put into place health IT applications
after piloting the program in California and three other
states.
(April 23, 2007)
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VA Gains EHR Access, Adds Patient Tracking System
The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday will allow
every clinician at all its hospitals and clinics to access
in real-time electronic health records of wounded soldiers
evacuated from Afghanistan and Iraq through a VA version of
the Department of Defense's Joint Patient Tracking
Application.
(April 23, 2007)
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Kolodner's 'career appointment': interview
Physician informaticist Robert Kolodner took time out
Thursday for a telephone interview to talk about his
appointment by HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt as the permanent
head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health
Information Technology at HHS and his bidding adieu to a
career serving the nation's veterans. Kolodner has been
interim national coordinator since Sept. 20, 2006, following
the resignation last spring of David Brailer, the first to
hold the top job at ONCHIT. It will mean saying goodbye
"with fond memories," he said, to a distinguished career at
the Veterans Affairs Department, which was called the
Veterans Administration when Kolodner started working there
more than 28 years ago. Kolodner was chief health
informatics officer for the Veterans Health Administration,
the healthcare arm of the VA that operates nearly 1,300 care
sites.
(April 20, 2007)
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Electronic health services without borders
EU Member States and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway have
adopted a common declaration on their commitment to pursue
structured cooperation on cross-border electronic health
services across Europe. 'By adopting today's Declaration, we
seek to ensure that, in the future, electronic health
services for Europe's citizens do not stop at national
borders,' said the German State Secretary at the Federal
Ministry of Health, Dr Klaus Theo Schröder. 'We want to give
patients access to their medical records and patient
summaries from everywhere within the EU. This not only
serves the continuity of care but also affords safety in an
emergency,' he explained. The declaration was adopted at the
2007 eHealth Conference whose theme 'From strategies to
applications' looked at the implementation of electronic
health-service applications and infrastructures such as
electronic prescriptions and electronic patient files, as
well as future services available thanks to the electronic
health card.
(April 20, 2007)
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House bill targets cost of healthcare IT
Reps. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas) and Phil Gingrey (R-Ga. )
Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill designed to help
physicians afford the high cost of adopting healthcare
information technology. The bill, called the National Health
Information Incentive Act, offers grants, loans and tax
incentives to offset the cost of physicians implementing
healthcare IT. Gingrey, a physician, said that many
physician practices are small businesses with concerns for
their bottom line. “By providing financial incentives for
doctors to adopt health IT, this bill will get life-saving
technology into physician offices and into the lives of
American patients,” Gingrey said. According to Gonzalez,
chairman of the Small Business Committee's Subcommittee on
Regulation, Healthcare, and Trade, widespread healthcare IT
adoption will revolutionize the standard and quality of
healthcare received in America.
(April 20, 2007)
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IT Could Reap Big Savings in Australia, Report Finds
If Australian physicians shared chronically ill patients'
information via the Internet, the country could save up to
$1.5 billion Australian, or $1.25 billion, annually,
according to a report by the Australian Center for Health
Research released on Thursday.
(April 20, 2007)
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Alabama Bill To Jumpstart Trauma Communications
Four Alabama state senators are co-sponsoring a bill that
would create a 24-hour trauma dispatch center to help
coordinate the flow of patients to hospitals statewide.
(April 20, 2007)
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Study Finds Broad Variation in Readiness To Improve Care
Quality
"Vast differences" exist in regional markets' preparedness
to improve health care quality for people with chronic
illnesses, according to a survey of 14 communities
nationwide conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
and the Center for Health Improvement.
(April 20, 2007)
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Survey: More Hospitals Complete EHR Adoption
Thirty-two percent of hospital leaders say their facilities
have a fully operational electronic health record system,
compared with 24% in 2006.
(April 20, 2007)
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HHS report: Electronic prescribing standards need more work
A series of tests designed to gauge the readiness of
standards being developed for electronically prescribing
drugs under Medicare have produced mixed results, according
to a report on the tests issued yesterday. Three of six
tests of new standards were able to convey prescription
information in the proper format for use in a Medicare Part
D prescription drug benefit, according to the report, which
was delivered to Congress by Health and Human Services
Department Secretary Mike Leavitt. Three other standards
need more work before they can be finalized, the report
concluded.
(April 19, 2007)
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LifeonKey health database provides the key to crucial
information
You've been planning your Great Barrier Reef scuba diving
getaway for months. It's day one and you're eager to get
below the surface and view the infamous coral reefs you've
heard so much about. But shortly after leaping from the dive
deck, you discover difficulty in clearing facial pressure -
two musts for eardrum and blood vessel preservation. What's
going on? Granted it's been a few years since you've donned
wetsuit and gear but this was never an issue in the past.
Thanks to a new Israeli innovation available in the near
future, you won't have to wait until you're back home to
troubleshoot. LifeonKey, an 'access anywhere' patient and
medical professional retrieval system, allows the Australian
doctors on your case to instantly see information regarding
that bout of pneumonia and sinusitis suffered last year,
which is now affecting your holiday dive expedition plans.
"The LifeonKey technology benefits everyone involved," CEO
Dr. Linda Harnevo of Global Medical Networks, developers of
the technology, told ISRAEL21c. A virtual database of
patient information, the idea is based upon quick and easy
access of patient records using sign-up information and
access codes.
(April 19, 2007)
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Steve Case launches his health revolution
It has ... well, a revolutionary name for a Web site, a
founder with a history and deep pockets and recognizable
partners - Colin Powell and Carly Fiorina. And, today, amid
much hoopla, Steve Case launched Revolution Health’s Web
site. Out came announcements from a flock of well known
partners in healthcare and elsewhere. The American
Association of Family Physicians is on board. The
organization has 94,000 members. IVillage, which has its own
healthcare Web offering especially for women, announced its
partnership with Revolution Health. Columbia University
Medical Center is part of the revolution, too, along with
several others. “Revolution Health is recognizing the
importance of a medical home where a physician practice
serves as the focal point through which all patients receive
acute, chronic, preventive and end-of-life medical care that
is accessible, efficient and of the highest quality,” said
Rick Kellerman, MD, president of the AAFP.
(April 19, 2007)
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Guest Opinion: Investments in health IT save lives, money
Health insurance and Medicare are buckling under the weight
of rising health care costs. Their future depends on
controlling these costs. There is no better single step we
can take toward this end than the widespread adoption of
electronic health information technology (HIT). It will
revolutionize medicine by slashing costs while saving lives.
(April 19, 2007)
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Oregon Telemedicine Project To Connect Pediatricians
Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Ore., on Tuesday
announced a pilot project to create a telemedicine link
between its pediatric department and specialists at
Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, Ore., to reduce
the number of children transferred to Doernbecher.
(April 19, 2007)
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Gov. Schwarzenegger Touts Benefits of Telemedicine
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) on Wednesday at
the Telehealth and Visiting Specialist Center in Eureka,
Calif., promoted telemedicine's ability to increase access
to quality medical care.
(April 19, 2007)
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A Virtual Doctors' Lounge
The vast majority of patient care today takes place on an
outpatient basis in small physician offices. Physicians in
the last 10 to 15 years have become more isolated as they
spend less time in hospitals. Conversing with fellow
physicians in the cafeteria or doctors' lounge is becoming a
thing of the past. Sermo, an online physician community, is
tapping into a "desire in the medical community to have a
sense of the old community that [physicians] once had,"
Daniel Palestrant, CEO and founder of Sermo, said.
(April 19, 2007)
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HHS releases report on e-Rx standards
Three electronic prescribing standards tested in an
e-prescribing pilot project sponsored by the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services are capable of supporting
transactions in Medicare Part D, according to a report
released to Congress Tuesday. U.S. Health and Human Services
Secretary Michael Leavitt announced the results of the
report, which was conducted through an interagency agreement
between CMS and the Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality. “The findings in this report, along with previously
adopted foundation standards, demonstrate that HHS is
effectively advancing electronic prescribing which will
continue to help Medicare beneficiaries receive higher
quality care,” Secretary Leavitt said. The initial
e-prescribing standards that are described in the report as
“technically able to convey the information needed to
support this function for use in Part D” deal with formulary
and benefit information, exchange of medication history, and
fill status notification.
(April 18, 2007)
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LSU Healthcare Network Delivers Online Physician-Patient
Communication and Personal Health Records to Louisianans
LSU Healthcare Network (LHN) is launching iHealth, the
leading online physician-patient communication service that
includes a transportable and secure online personal health
record for all area residents. iHealth, the first of its
kind service launched in the New Orleans area, will directly
engage patients with online access to their LHN physician's
office and a secure, online health record that empowers
patients and protects them in emergencies.
(April 18, 2007)
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Medical records going digital
Paper patient charts will soon be on the way out at
Hutchinson Community Hospital. The Hutchinson Area Health
Care Governing Board on Tuesday approved a list of purchases
for the city-owned hospital’s new electronic medical records
system.
(April 18, 2007)
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Interim healthcare IT chief made permanent
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael
Leavitt announced Wednesday that Robert Kolodner will serve
in a permanent capacity as the head of the Office of the
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
(ONC). And, with the appointment comes a change in the way
the position is structured – ensuring continuity beyond the
current administration. Kolodner has been serving as the
Interim National Coordinator for Health IT since Sept. 20.
During an exclusive interview today with Healthcare IT News,
Kolodner said the delay in appointing him had mostly to do
with “hammering down the details” of making the position
into a permanent career position. “The key message here is
I’m in a career position,” Kolodner said. “This isn’t a
political appointment. And this is a statement [on the part
of HHS] that this is something that needs to transcend the
administration and go forward into the next administration
as long as such leadership adds value in achieving secure,
interoperable health IT.” Kolodner said he does not
anticipate making any changes in ONC’s already aggressive
agenda to accomplish the advancement of healthcare, and his
permanent capacity will not change how he operates in the
position. “The [HHS] Secretary has made clear all along that
I have had authority,” Kolodner said.
(April 18, 2007)
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Mobile Phones To Help Patients Monitor Health
Researchers at Leeds University in England are developing a
mobile phone that can check patients' vital signs and
glucose and blood oxygen levels.
(April 18, 2007)
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Confidentiality and privacy of personal health information
is critical to acceptance of NHIN
"ACP strongly believes in the goal of widespread adoption
and use of health information technology to improve quality
of care," Michael H. Zaroukian, MD, PhD, FACP, told the
National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics
subcommittee on Privacy and Confidentiality today at their
hearing on "Consumer Controls for Sensitive Health Records."
Dr. Zaroukian is a member of ACP’s Medical Informatics
Subcommittee and Medical Director of the Michigan State
University (MSU) Internal Medicine Clinic and the
University’s Chief Medical Information Officer. He spoke
with the subcommittee by phone. "Control of content and
access by individuals to clinical information are critical
issues that will greatly influence acceptance and use of the
National Health Information Network (NHIN)," Dr. Zaroukian
continued. "The impact of policies adopted and implemented
to address these complex concerns could be substantial with
respect to the accuracy, reliability and usability of
information exchanged electronically."
(April 17, 2007)
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Health Data Exchanges Seek Sustainability
The Indiana Health Information Exchange has thrived
monetarily and continues to grow, while the developing
California Regional Health Information Organization looks to
create an exchange that will be financially stable in the
long term.
(April 17, 2007)
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British Columbia Sets Sight on EHRs
British Columbia on Tuesday will announce a
multimillion-dollar contract with Sun Microsystems and other
partners to create a province-wide electronic health record
system aimed at improving patient care and reducing medical
errors.
(April 17, 2007)
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Human vs. Technology
Earlier this year, we learned that one of the most
anticipated technologies ever to be offered to consumers
would soon be available. It would revolutionize our lives,
improve our connectivity with others, and manage complex
information elegantly and error free. No, we're not talking
about the personal health record. We're, of course, talking
about the Apple iPhone.
(April 17, 2007)
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CCHIT to expand workgroups, ease pressure on volunteers
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information
Technology (CCHIT) – an independent, nonprofit organization
that has been recognized by the federal government as an
official certification body for electronic health record
products – announced Tuesday that it plans to increase its
staff and restructure volunteer workgroups in order to
handle an expanded 2008 agenda. According to Mark Leavitt,
MD, CCHIT chairman, volunteer resources responsible for
CCHIT’s success are finding their time spread thinner than
ever. “I believe we must use those resources even more
efficiently this year, making fewer demands on their time
while gaining the maximum benefit from their expertise,"
Leavitt said. Under the new structure, CCHIT will expand
from three workgroups to five, adding a workgroup to handle
emergency department systems and another to develop
certification criteria for health information networks. The
current workgroups for electronic health record
requirements, office-based and hospital-based settings will
remain the same, according a statement released today on
behalf of CCHIT.
(April 17, 2007)
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U.K. National Health IT Program Continues To Struggle,
Report Finds
A group of United Kingdom members of Parliament in a new
report said that the National Health Service's health IT
project is two years behind schedule and needs immediate
action to protect its long-term interests.
(April 17, 2007)
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AHA Leader Cites Need for I.T.
Providing improved access to information must be a core
component of efforts to reform the U.S. health care system,
according to the new president and CEO of the American
Hospital Association. “We have to make information available
at the right place and at the right time,” said Richard
Umbdenstock in his presentation at the American Organization
of Nurse Executives’ Annual Meeting, April 13 in Washington.
“We have to work on standards, on connectivity and on the
interoperability of information systems.”
(April 16, 2007)
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Editor's letter: Health care tipping points
The Internet giveth, and the Internet taketh away —
especially, it seems, in the health care community. Although
it has expanded access to health information for millions of
people, the Internet circulates dross and admits pranksters,
or worse. This has dramatically raised the demand for
precision — in health records, patient identification,
technology certification and treatment. That’s all well and
good because it is forcing us to seek more sophisticated
solutions to problems related to information growth,
openness, and abundance. But lately, the Internet scales
seem to be tipping us into foreign territory and challenging
the notion of what’s possible, what’s scientific and, in
some cases, what’s safe.
(April 16, 2007)
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Banking on privacy
As the federal government continues to push for wider
adoption of electronic medical records, many organizations
are asking how they can efficiently distribute and safeguard
all of that electronic medical information once it’s
captured. One strategy is to create banks of records from
which authorized doctors and nurses can quickly pull
patients’ lab tests and medical histories. Proponents
contend that care will improve and medication mistakes will
decline when specialists and emergency room physicians have
immediate access to the same information that a patient’s
primary care physician has.
(April 16, 2007)
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Opelka: E-prescribing is safe and private
Medical errors, the bane of physicians and the cause of some
100,000 preventable deaths each year in the United States,
may soon be a thing of the past. New technologies already in
use in thousands of clinics and hospitals alert providers to
therapies that may harm the patient, such as overly high
medication dosages and drug interactions. As a practicing
surgeon who teaches medicine, I share the sense of urgency
of all in my profession who are dedicated to preventing
medical errors and ensuring patient safety. So when I was
asked recently to co-chair a major national initiative
offering free electronic prescribing software — a technology
that the Institute of Medicine recommends for every
physician — I gladly accepted.
(April 16, 2007)
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Feldman: Twin win: Privacy and e-health
The U.S. health care community is breaking new ground in
e-health every day. Yet this transformative system will
reach a critical mass of acceptance by health care
consumers, providers and facility-operators only when the
public feels assured that privacy is priority No. 1.
(April 16, 2007)
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Finding Foreman
George Foreman — boxer, clergyman and entrepreneur —
named his five sons after himself. So when the Nationwide
Health Information Network (NHIN) is up and running, how
will a doctor find the records for the right George Foreman?
Accurately matching patients with their electronic records
is at the heart of the proposed network. But what if doctors
search NHIN and find no records for anyone named George
Foreman? If few matches are found, users will soon pronounce
the network a waste of time and money, and they’ll abandon
it.
(April 16, 2007)
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A RHIO that works and pays
The big challenge facing regional health information
organizations is financial sustainability, but the Indiana
Health Information Exchange (IHIE) is not only surviving
monetarily, it’s thriving. This RHIO is doing so well, in
fact, that it recently graduated from a business incubator
run by Indiana University and moved into a large commercial
space that will allow it to grow from 18 to 46 employees by
the end of the year. “We’re extremely pleased with how
things are going,” said Dr. Marc Overhage, president and
chief executive officer of IHIE. “Not only are we covering
all of our expenses, but we are generating enough to invest
in growth.”
(April 16, 2007)
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Perspective: A business model for RHIOs
A lot of splashy new
client announcements were made at the HIMSS 2007 Annual
Conference & Exhibition in February. One of the more
interesting ones involves a
collaboration between two competitive laboratories in
Nebraska. They deployed a Web-based system to integrate
their two businesses. But this system also has the potential
to provide the needed business case for providers to
participate in a regional health information organization
(RHIO).
(April 16, 2007)
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Health care 2.0
New Web tools promise to tear down barriers to health care
information sharing, but will they pass the test for privacy
and accuracy?
(April 16, 2007)
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Not all agree with privacy week's focus
Who can argue with a week devoted to "raising awareness
among healthcare professionals, their employers and the
public of the importance of protecting the privacy,
confidentiality and security of personal health
information?" Deborah Peel, an Austin, Texas, psychiatrist
and founder of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation, that's
who. Peel is arguing about the focus on personal health
records and other nuances of the privacy debate that the
American Health Information Management Association put forth
as part of its fourth annual Health Information Privacy and
Security Week, which was held last week. In particular, Peel
was upset with a statement in AHIMA privacy and security
week education materials that declared: "Consumers should
establish a personal health record." Specifically, she
questioned the privacy of records created by insurance
companies and employers, and worried that the information
stored in these PHRs could be used against patients.
(April 16, 2007)
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New York City brings EMRs to primary care providers
The New York City
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced Monday
that it will provide electronic medical records and practice
management software to 1,300 providers caring for
underserved and vulnerable populations in the City. The
Department has signed a $19.8 million deal with healthcare
IT vendor eClinicalWorks of Westborough, Mass. to provide
the software. The deal is part of New York City’s Primary
Care Information Project (PCIP), an initiative to improve
the quality of healthcare throughout the City. New York City
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has often expressed his belief in
the importance of electronic records in reforming primary
care. “Getting preventive health value from EHRs is by no
means automatic,” Bloomberg said at the Academy Health
National Health Policy Conference in February. “But if we
program and implement them with disease prevention as our
goal, they can be crucial to rebuilding primary care in our
nation.”
(April 16, 2007)
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Ushering in a New Era of Community Health Care
Lake Hospital System today broke ground on a new digital
hospital that will be built in Concord Township. The $150
million state-of-the-art health care facility, named
TriPoint Medical Center, is scheduled to open in the fall of
2009 and will introduce a new approach to community health
care that revolves entirely around the patient... TriPoint
Medical Center will be equipped with computerized systems to
speed the flow of decision-making information to medical
professionals and improve the quality of care. Electronic
medical records and filmless, computerized radiology systems
will provide up-to-the- minute information and fully
integrate with electronic information at other Lake Hospital
System facilities. "Having immediate access to a patient's
complete health records, including lists of a patient's
prescriptions and allergies, can help prevent medical
errors, improve patient safety, and avoid duplicate tests
and other procedures," said John Ferron, MD, president of
the Lake Hospital System Medical Staff and a general
surgeon. "It's all about delivering the highest quality care
to our patients."
(April 16, 2007)
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Johns Hopkins to focus on quality with new technology
The Johns Hopkins Health System will implement Microsoft’s
Azyxxi platform and applications to better measure
performance and improve patient care. Johns Hopkins is the
second health organization to announce deployment of the
newly commercial Azyxxi technology. NewYork Presbyterian,
one of the nation’s largest hospitals, became the first to
choose Azyxxi. The hospital announced the project in March.
CIO Aurelia Boyer said then NewYork Presbyterian was ready
to “push the envelope.” As early adopters, both hospitals
will help Microsoft further develop Azyxxi’s features and
functionality. Microsoft is working with the two hospitals
to tailor the technology to their needs.
(April 16, 2007)
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Wireless technology for doctors demonstrated in La Jolla
Yulun Wang leaned over his laptop computer, grabbed the
joystick and directed his robot forward. Nearly 200 miles to
the north, the robot moved away from its charging station
and rolled to a bed occupied by a mannequin "patient." A
camera mounted on the robot focused on the patient's eyes,
telescoping into high magnification to examine the pupils
for signs of brain injury. "If I was a physician, and I had
a call from my emergency department ... I could be sitting
here and I could see my patient, and interact with him,"
said Wang, chairman of Santa Barbara-based InTouch Health.
Wireless technology from Qualcomm Inc. made the new device
possible.
(April 15, 2007)
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Cook County to tighten up medical referrals
Thousands of poor patients across Chicago may have a harder
time getting specialized medical services at Cook County
under a new policy that starts Monday. Before, private
community clinics could refer needy patients with conditions
such as cancer or diabetes to Stroger Hospital's specialty
clinics via a sophisticated computer system. Apparently,
that system is shutting down.
(April 15, 2007)
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Medical records moving online
In less than a year, patients served by four of the state's
largest health networks may see their medical records
available online.
Officials at MaineInfoNet, a nonprofit corporation, are
creating an electronic system they say will save money,
avoid duplicate tests and procedures, save lives and improve
care. "It's typical to have two or more providers and
they're all prescribing and none of them know what the
others are prescribing," said HealthInfoNet Executive
Director Devore Culver.
(April 15, 2007)
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New technology boosts health care
Lost within the shuffle of the daily news, Zelnorm was
recalled by the Food and Drug Administration Friday, March
30... “In 10 minutes I knew all 527 patients who are on
Zelnorm or who had been on it … ,” said Dr. Joseph Castelli,
a gynocologist at the Murfreesboro Medical Clinic (MMC).
“That afternoon a letter was put together and reviewed.
Monday morning we sent it out to all our patients to notify
them of the recall and to call their doctors. In November
2004, MMC made the switch to Electronic Health Records
(EHR).
(April 15, 2007)
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RHIO Finance Survey To Close April 20
The 2007 national Survey
of Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) Finance,
distributed to health information exchanges across the
nation, will close on April 20. The survey focuses on how
RHIOs and HIEs fund startup, and how they finance operations
through the life of the organization. Persons involved in
RHIOs may take the survey at
rhiosurvey.hittransition.com/instrument.htm.
(April 15, 2007)
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Hospitals Buying Big Ticket Tech For Big Health
The promise of better health care through innovative medical
technology can be a expensive promise to keep. Hospitals and
clinics in the Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas areas have
invested heavily in new technology and new construction in
the past year.
(April 14, 2007)
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Gingrich sees computers improving health care
If former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich is right, this is
what will happen in the not-so-distant-future of health
care: Your doctor will implant in you a wireless pacemaker
that continuously monitors your heart waves. The data will
be uploaded into a supercomputer that compares your heart
rhythm with millions of others. Based on that, the computer
will be able to diagnose a heart attack hours before it
happens.
(April 14, 2007)
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EHR Network on Docket for Florida Lawmakers
Florida legislators are considering several bills that would
create a statewide health care information network and
provide physicians with access to an online database of
electronic health records.
(April 13, 2007)
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Washington State Legislation Promoting EHR Adoption Moves
Forward
The Washington state House on Thursday passed a broad health
care measure that would allow online access to a health
science library and encourage the adoption of electronic
health records.
(April 13, 2007)
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D.C. starts digitizing patient records with $5M grant
D.C. health care leaders are switching on a $5 million,
six-clinic electronic network that they expect will
eventually stretch across all the city's hospitals, medical
practices, clinics and pharmacies. With help from a city
grant, the D.C. Primary Care Association (DCPCA) will be
signing up a software company before month's end to link the
electronic medical records of six community health care
clinics for the underinsured.
(April 13, 2007)
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Andy Grove: Your medical history on a chip
The health care industry
had no direct relation
to Andy Grove's long
career at Intel; it
caught his interest when
he himself was a
patient.
Grove, co-founder,
former CEO and president
of Intel,
as well as best-selling
author and winner of
numerous awards, talked
about the relationship
between technology and
health care at the
University of California
at Berkeley's School of
Public Health this week.
Although he's not very
optimistic, and fears a
major war, depression or
pandemic would have to
strike the nation for
U.S. health care to
change its ways, he
considers information
technology a vital
solution for lowering
costs of medical care
(he cited estimates of
$130 billion in annual
health care spending
increases).
(April 13, 2007)
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Workgroup may propose extending HIPAA to health info
exchanges
A workgroup of the American Health Information Community is
likely to recommend in May that the privacy and security
rules associated with the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 be extended to apply to almost
all users of health information exchanges.
(April 13, 2007)
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UnitedHealthcare Launches Online Real-Time Claims System
UnitedHealthcare has begun using a service that allows
physicians to file insurance claims in real-time through a
new Web site... Physicians enter patients' eligibility data
and codes for the care they received, and UnitedHealthcare
will confirm the costs in less than 10 seconds. Patients
know their claims information before leaving a physician
office, and the system reduces paperwork and expedites the
process.
(April 12, 2007)
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Florida Group Initiates E-Prescribing Effort
Several Florida health plans and provider companies are
collaborating to oversee the widespread adoption of
electronic prescriptions to improve patient safety and
health.
(April 12, 2007)
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Survey: Recent Development Signals That More RHIOs Will
Struggle
More than three-quarters of survey respondents said that the
recent cease of operations by the Santa Barbara County Care
Data Exchange -- the longest running regional health
information organization in the country -- indicates that
other RHIOs will struggle in upcoming months.
(April 12, 2007)
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Feds Launch Online I.T. Education
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has
introduced Web-based educational sessions for physicians
about health information technology. The agency calls the
free service DOQ-IT University, short for Doctor’s Office
Quality Information Technology University. Initial sessions
address physician office workflow redesign, culture change,
care management implementation and adding patient
self-management to clinical care. The online university was
developed and is being managed by quality improvement
organizations under contract to CMS. Associations
contributing content and expertise include the American
College of Physicians, American Academy of Family
Physicians, American Board of Internal Medicine, American
Health Information Management Association, and Healthcare
Information and Management Systems Society. Planned
enhancements include offering continuing medical education
credits. The online university’s Web site is
elearning.qualitynet.org.
(April 12, 2007)
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Group Health co-op sending custom medical messages at
birthday time
This is one birthday greeting that's definitely not from
Hallmark: medical advice customized for your personal
health. In a novel effort to prod patients into better
health, Group Health Cooperative on Monday will begin
sending most of its 527,000 members in Washington annual
"outreach" letters around their big days, urging them to
watch their blood pressure, curb their cholesterol, even get
stool tests and mammograms. The letters will be based on
information automatically culled from their electronic
medical records.
(April 12, 2007)
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Most state Medicaid programs use P4P
According to a report released today by the Commonwealth
Fund and IPRO, the majority of state Medicaid programs use
some form of pay-for-performance model or are considering
implementing one. IPRO and the Commonwealth Fund, both
non-profit research organizations, found that more than half
of all state Medicaid programs offer financial incentives to
healthcare providers who deliver better quality of care, and
nearly 85 percent of states plan to create
pay-for-performance (P4P) programs within five years.
(April 12, 2007)
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Press Release: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Launches DOQ-IT University
New interactive learning tool educates physicians in the
adoption and implementation of Electronic Health Records and
Care Management Practices.
(April 11, 2007)
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Industry, Government Partner on Health IT Initiatives in
California
In an iHealthBeat
Special Report, Cathie Markow, manager of the California
Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative, discussed her
group's recent contract with the federal government to track
physician performance.
(April 11, 2007)
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Physician Web Site Hits Milestone
More than 10,000 physicians have registered to use the
online communities of Sermo Inc. six months after the
Cambridge, Mass.-based company launched its services. The
physicians come from more than 30 specialties and use the
site to communicate with peers, share observations about the
effectiveness of treatments, and get advice on troublesome
cases or how certain regulations could affect their
practices.
(April 11, 2007)
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Accenture Partner Garret Wu: Health Info Prototype Is One
Small Step
"Accenture's prototype introduces both common language and
data standards, and integrates information across the entire
healthcare system. It enables a single view of a patient's
medical information. This helps provide better patient care,
more consistent care and supports the secondary use of
data," said Garret Wu, a partner at Accenture Health & Life
Sciences.
(April 11, 2007)
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NYU completes "big bang" CPOE
Given the suspicion with which the industry has regarded
computerized provider order entry implementations in recent
years, you might expect hospitals to take a slow and steady
approach when bringing up a new system. Not if you work at
NYU Medical Center. “Fast and steady” might be the best way
to describe its intense, 48-hour go-live effort – one that
resulted in bringing up an integrated pharmacy systems-CPOE
solution from Eclipsys for about 5,000 physician, nurses and
other clinicians at the tertiary care/academic institution
between March 24-26.
(April 11, 2007)
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Banks Morph Into Health IT Engines
You're online doing monthly bill paying on your bank's Web
site. After making your payments, you take a moment to click
on the latest update of your medical record. Does this sound
like a pipedream, nightmare or near-term reality? Based on
the momentum of the Medical Banking Project, this type of
service could be available sooner than you might think.
(April 10, 2007)
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Iowa Docs Get Discounts
The Iowa Medical Society, West Des Moines, will offer its
4,600 physician members preferred pricing on clinical and
revenue cycle management services from athenahealth Inc.
(April 10, 2007)
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Report Reveals Evolving Role of Healthcare Privacy Officer
In light of new privacy-related issues including the
evolution of health information exchanges, state-level
privacy and security standards that are more stringent than
the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA) and numerous high-profile security and privacy
breaches, the role of privacy officers in healthcare has
evolved over the past four years, according to a report
issued by the American Health Information Management
Association.
(April 10, 2007)
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VA Takes the Lead in Paperless Care - Computerized Medical
Records Promise Lower Costs and Better Treatment
Divya Shroff, a staff physician at the Veterans Affairs
Medical Center in Northwest Washington, stops what she's
doing to answer her phone: It's a doctor down the hall who
needs help with a man struggling to breathe. She calls up
the patient's medical record on the computer at her desk and
scrolls through lab reports, doctors' notes, X-rays and
EKGs, thinking out loud with the medical resident, who is at
the man's bedside.
(April 10, 2007)
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Medsphere’s OpenVista EHR Goes Live at State Hospital in
West Virginia
Medsphere Systems Corporation today announced the successful
deployment of its OpenVista® electronic health record (EHR)
platform at William R. Sharpe Jr. Hospital, the first of
seven state-operated hospitals in West Virginia that will be
equipped with the system under a contract signed last year.
More than 280 physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dietitians
and other staff at Sharpe Hospital, a 150-bed acute care
psychiatric facility in the city of Weston, are now using
OpenVista to record and retrieve patient information
electronically. The installation of OpenVista at Sharpe was
completed in less than a year. Clinicians from the hospital
entered 1,962 orders and 2,323 progress notes into the
OpenVista EHR in the first three days of live operation,
reflecting immediate user acceptance of the technology.
(April 10, 2007)
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18th Annual HIMSS Leadership Survey: Health IT Remains
Primary Focus to Reduce Medical Errors and Improve Patient
Safety
Improving quality of care and patient (customer)
satisfaction have remained at the hub of the evolving
healthcare delivery system…and according to the 360
healthcare IT professionals who responded to the 18th Annual
HIMSS Leadership Survey…they are also the top business
issues impacting healthcare in the next two years.
(April 10, 2007)
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HIMSS Survey: EMR Use Growing
Thirty-two percent of provider organization respondents to a
recent survey reported their organization has a fully
operational electronic medical records system. That figure
compares with 24% reporting full operational status last
year in the same survey, and 18% in 2005. Further, 37% of
respondent organizations are presently implementing an EMR
and another 6% have signed a contract to buy the technology.
Only 8% of respondent organizations have no plans to
implement an EMR, half the rate of two years ago.
(April 10, 2007)
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Rx for quality
In 2005, hospital-acquired infections in Pennsylvania led to
nearly 2,500 deaths and more than $3.5 billion in hospital
charges.
Since most hospital-acquired infections are preventable,
significant cost savings and improved quality of care can be
realized by eliminating them. Improving quality of care
denotes one health care reform in Gov. Rendell's
"Prescription for Pennsylvania" proposal designed to
restructure the state's deteriorating health care system.
(April 9, 2007)
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Medical Data May Go Online
Your doctor in Tampa knows you're allergic to penicillin.
What about the hospital in Miami, where you're headed for a
two-week vacation? Soon, doctors and hospitals throughout
the state may obtain such information via the Internet
instead of relying on patients and their families to provide
it.
(April 9, 2007)
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Wal-Mart to apply its IT expertise to healthcare
Retail giant Wal-Mart not only plans to invest in healthcare
IT, but also intends to apply some of what it has learned in
the retail marketplace to help lower healthcare costs for
its employees - and the nation, a top Wal-Mart executive
said Friday. “It occurred to us that there are lessons to be
learned from other sectors that could be applied to
healthcare,” said Carolyn Walton, vice president of the
information systems division for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart Stores,
Inc. recently announced it would partner with the University
of Arkansas and Blue Cross Blue Shield to conduct research
on how to advance healthcare IT in the United States.
(April 9, 2007)
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Testing Tomorrow’s Health Care – Today
A rural community builds an advanced broadband
infrastructure and becomes a testbed for 21st-century
medicine.
(April 8, 2007)
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Telemedicine Adoption: A Long Time Coming?
The concept of telemedicine might seem futuristic to some,
but the technology, in fact, has been around for decades.
However, aside from early adopters, widespread integration
of telemedicine has been delayed in part because of
technological, financial and organizational barriers.
(April 6, 2007)
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Retail Clinics Set EHR Standards
The Convenient Care Association has issued mandatory
standards of care for its member organizations that operate
more than 300 retail clinics in 21 states. Members have
committed, for instance, to using electronic health records
software in their clinics and to share the records in paper
or electronic formats with patients’ primary care physicians
and hospitals.
(April 6, 2007)
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Project to Evaluate Web Portal Use
Three dozen physician practices helping to create a new
model of care will use various levels of Web portal
technology from Medfusion Inc., Raleigh, N.C. The practices
are participating in the American Academy of Family
Physicians’ TransforMED program launched a year ago. Under
the project, offices are being redesigned to be more
functional and workflow-friendly, and new processes are
being developed to focus on quality, safety and alternative
reimbursement models. The care model also calls for adoption
of electronic health records, e-prescribing, clinical
decision support, secure messaging and Web portal software.
(April 6, 2007)
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Rural areas get $153M for e-health, e-education
The Agriculture Department has made available $153 million
for distance learning and telemedicine in rural communities:
$62.9 million for distance learning and telemedicine loans,
$75 million in loan and grant combinations, and $15 million
in grants for rural communities.
(April 6, 2007)
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Study Recommends Ways to Resolve Health Information Security
Issues
Establishing a health information exchange policy research
and coordinating center for Wyoming is among the
recommendations resulting from a year-long study of security
issues in health information. Recommendations were discussed
during a recent workshop in Casper, sponsored by the Center
for Rural Health Research and Education (CRHRE) in the
University of Wyoming College of Health Sciences. The
workshop culminated the project funded by the Agency for
Healthcare Quality and Research and managed by the National
Governors' Association and RTI International. The project’s
goal was to resolve privacy and security policy questions
affecting the exchange of electronic health information
among the numerous organizations within the health care
community, says Rex Gantenbein, CRHRE director.
(April 6, 2007)
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Report: More research needed for Medicaid to use health IT
An expert advisory panel has recommended that the federal
government do more research to help Medicaid agencies
identify opportunities for incorporating health information
technology into the country’s largest health care program.
“Medicaid can have an influential role in the adoption” of
health IT and health information exchanges, according to the
new report from the Center for Health Policy and Research at
the University of Massachusetts Medical School. It also
states that health IT could increase the efficiency and
effectiveness of Medicaid programs, which the states operate
with substantial federal support.
(April 6, 2007)
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USDA announces funding for rural telemedicine
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will offer $128 million
in loans and grants for telemedicine and distance learning
in 2007, a USDA representative announced Thursday. USDA
intends to make $62.9 million available for loans, $50
million available for loan and grant combinations, and $15
million available for grants alone, said Agriculture Under
Secretary for Rural Development Thomas C. Dorr.
(April 6, 2007)
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CMS announces measures for P4P reporting amid industry
concerns
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released
information this week on how doctors will be measured for
quality performance under the voluntary 2007 Physician
Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI). The 74 measures include
aspects of treatment and screening for Medicare patients
with diabetes, heart disease, depression, stroke, glaucoma,
cataracts, osteoporosis, melanoma, end stage renal disease,
asthma and pneumonia. In a statement Tuesday, CMS said it
may expand specifications later to include additional
eligible professionals. According to a law passed last
December, doctors who measure and report their performance
from July 1 to December 31 of this year based on the
measures will receive a bonus payment of 1.5 percent of
their total allowed charges under Medicare. Medicare
officials have made it clear that though physician pay for
performance (P4P) is only in the voluntary stages now, CMS
may one day make it a permanent aspect of Medicare.
(April 5, 2007)
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Physicians, surgeons urge states to guard patient privacy
At a meeting of the State Alliance for e-Health last week, a
representative of the Association of American Physicians and
Surgeons urged the newly formed organization to use care
when it comes to patient privacy. Kathryn Serkes, a public
affairs officer for AAPS told the Alliance that healthcare
IT should be market driven and patient-centered.
(April 5, 2007)
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ER Card developers attract ‘angel’ investors
Health care investment group Angel Health Strategies LLC of
Providence has teamed up with electronic medical records
vendor Professional Records Inc., developer of the ER Card,
to establish ER Card LLC.
(April 5, 2007)
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Kansas Hospital To Get Technology Upgrade
Hospital District No. 1 in Crawford County, Kan., has
initiated a three-year IT upgrade for its facility and local
clinics in Cherokee, Kan., and Frontenac, Kan.
(April 4, 2007)
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Ohio Hospital Sets Sights on EHR System, Technology Training
Center
Adena Regional Medical Center in Chillicothe, Ohio, will
partner with primary care physicians in the area to create
an electronic health record system for the community,
according to Mark Shuter, president and CEO of the hospital.
(April 4, 2007)
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Two Ohio Practices Get EMR, PM
PriMed Physicians, Dayton, Ohio, and Health First
Physicians, Cincinnati, will use integrated electronic
medical records and practice management systems from
Allscripts LLC.
(April 4, 2007)
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Redirecting health care
Many experts believe consumer-directed health care -- giving
patients greater decision making powers through greater
transparency in pricing and understanding of possible
outcomes -- is the path toward a better medical system. Yet
one of the key tools to constructing this new model still
lags far behind: the broad deployment of electronic medical
records and consumer access to this information.
(April 4, 2007)
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For the Record
A Lafayette entrepreneur helps local doctors go paperless.
(April 4, 2007)
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Study: docs don't get full benefit from e-prescribing
software
Physicians who use e-prescribing software often encounter
significant barriers to adoption of the most advanced
features of such technology and believe that those features
don’t add value, according to a recent study in the journal
Health Affairs. The results of the study suggest that the
ways in which physicians currently use e-prescribing
technology differ significantly from the ideal promoted by
the advocates of e-prescribing. Researchers at the Center
for Studying Health System Change (HSC) in Washington, D.C.
conducted the study, entitled “Physicians’ Experience Using
Commercial E-Prescribing Systems.
(April 4, 2007)
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Canada's New Government Announces Patient Wait Times
Guarantees With All the Provinces and Territories
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced that all ten
provinces and three territories have agreed to establish
Patient Wait Times Guarantees by 2010... Canadians will be
guaranteed timely access to health care in at least one of
the following priority areas, either cancer care, hip and
knee replacement, cardiac care, diagnostic imaging, cataract
surgeries or primary care. These areas have been selected by
each province and territory based on their priorities,
capacity and different starting points. Today’s announcement
will be supported by Budget 2007, which set aside $612
million for the Patient Wait Times Guarantee Trust, $30
million for wait times pilot projects, as well as $400
million for Canada Health Infoway, the independent,
non-profit corporation through which Ottawa has been helping
advance the use of health information technology across the
country. “Our investment in Infoway will help transform
paper records into bits and bytes so patients and their
doctors have access to this essential data whenever and
wherever they need it,” said Prime Minister Harper. “This
will have a profound impact on the efficiency of our
healthcare system and that, in turn, will help the provinces
and territories implement a comprehensive set of Patient
Wait Times Guarantees.”
(April 4, 2007)
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Department Of Defense Announces Partnership With The Florida
Agency For Health Care Administration
The Department of Defense, together with Florida’s Agency
for Health Care Administration, has partnered to pursue an
interoperable network for sharing electronic medical
information. This marks the first time that DoD has formed a
network with and a non-federal entity to share electronic
medical records.
(April 4, 2007)
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New Speakers Added to EHR Summit
Health Data Management has added more speakers to
the lineup for its Clinical Automation Summit, to be held
Sept. 17-18 in Chicago. The conference will focus on
strategies for electronic health records success. Among the
speakers added are: ...
(April 4, 2007)
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CMS relaxes its insistence on provider ID adoption
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is giving
health care providers and health plans as much as a year’s
grace in which to begin using the National Provider
Identifier (NPI) as their sole identification number. While
continuing to insist that May 23 is the final deadline for
all those except small health plans to use the NPI, CMS
officials said they will focus on obtaining voluntary
compliance and will investigate laggards only when a
complaint is filed.
(April 3, 2007)
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U.S. Healthcare Market Offers Significant Growth Potential
for Healthcare IT Vendors
The US healthcare IT market is currently in its infancy with
low adoption rates across many segments, providing key
opportunities for healthcare IT (HIT) vendors wishing to
enter the market. The federal government is placing heavy
emphasis on electronic health records (EHRs) by providing
financial investment into demonstration projects and driving
the establishment of universal standards. The customer
environment is highly heterogeneous, adding to the
complexity of the marketplace but understanding the
intricacies and idiosyncrasies of such an environment will
be essential to achieving success in the US healthcare
market. "The US healthcare system is in a difficult position
as it tries to deliver quality care to a rapidly ageing
population, while reducing the actual cost of healthcare,"
notes Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Konstantinos
Nikolopoulos in a recent study on the U.S. Healthcare Market
and Implications for the Healthcare IT Industry. "Healthcare
information technology will have an important role to play
in the future of the US healthcare system due to its ability
to assist or directly address with these issues."
(April 3, 2007)
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Study: Medical Errors Increase 3%
Medical errors have risen 3% over the years 2003 to 2005,
according to a survey of over 40 million Medicare
hospitalization records from Golden, Colo.-based
HealthGrades Inc., a publisher of online profiles and
quality ratings of hospitals, physicians and nursing homes.
(April 2, 2007)
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Perspective: a how-to for RHIOs
Everyone knows the
adage, “If you’ve seen one RHIO, you’ve seen one RHIO.”
“There is no RHIO in a box,” agrees
Christina Thielst, COO of Ventura County Medical Center
in Southern California. “Every RHIO is unique – a function
of the culture and climate of the community being served.”
Despite the general acceptance that every regional health
information organization is different, Thielst points out
that there are basic issues every RHIO must address. That’s
the gist of
The Guide to Establishing a RHIO, which was written by
the HIMSS RHIO Guidebook Task Force and debuted at the 2007
HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition in New Orleans in late
February.
(April 2, 2007)
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e-MDs Connects Physicians and Pharmacies Across the Country
e-MDs, a leading provider of electronic health record and
practice management software, announced today that it has
completed certification as a SureScripts Certified
Solution(TM). Through the Pharmacy Health Information
Exchange(TM), operated by SureScripts, e-MDs users will now
be able to electronically and securely exchange prescription
information with community pharmacies. This includes
prescription refill requests, which physicians can receive
via their office computer instead of their fax machine.
Refill authorizations, or denials, can then be
electronically communicated back to the pharmacy with a just
a few clicks of a computer mouse, thereby eliminating many
of the faxes and phone calls associated with the traditional
refill process. New prescriptions can also be sent
electronically, directly to pharmacy computers before a
patient ever leaves their physician's office.
(April 2, 2007)
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State Alliance for e-Health to study sustainable PHR models
The State Alliance for E-Health will study sustainable
models for personal health records over the next year, with
a commitment to seriously address the issue in 2008.
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, co-chairman of the alliance
said the vote last week to study the issue of sustainability
is an important one because there is “such an enormous gap
in what is actually sustainable and the very high-minded
things we’re all talking about.” Among the “high-minded”
concepts might be the Dossia project under development
through $15 million in seed funding from a coalition of
Applied Materials, BP America, Intel Corp. , Pitney Bowes,
Wal-Mart and Cardinal Health.
(April 2, 2007)
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Google joins fight for better healthcare info
President Bush is not the only one pressing for more
information to be available to healthcare consumers.
According to Adam Bosworth, vice president of Google, the
search engine giant is trying to make healthcare queries
more productive. At the Fourth Health Information Technology
Summit in Washington, DC, March 28-30, Bosworth explained
that Google administrators have struggled with serious
illness in their families and have had difficulty locating
information on diseases and healthcare providers. “It
bitterly brought home to us that there is not enough
information out there,” Bosworth said. That’s when the
company decided to improve the information that comes up in
a Google search on health information, Bosworth said.
(April 2, 2007)
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Health Information Technology: Are Long Term Care Providers
Ready?
This report explores the readiness for health information
technology (HIT) from the perspective of California's long
term care providers: nursing facilities, residential care
facilities, and community-based service providers.
(April 1, 2007)
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Behind the Wires
Andrew Wiesenthal oversees Kaiser Permanente’s massive
effort to connect thousands of physicians and millions of
patients on a single platform. You could call it the mother
of all electronic medical record projects. Touted by
Oakland, Calif.-based health plan Kaiser Permanente as “the
largest civilian EMR system,” KP HealthConnect is indeed
big. Representing more than $3 billion in capital outlay, KP
HealthConnect aims to link 13,000 physicians and 8.6 million
patients on a common EMR platform. And square in the middle
of it all stands Andrew M. Wiesenthal, M.D., the
pediatrician turned associate executive director of the
Permanente Federation, the health plan’s independently
operated but tightly controlled medical group.
(April 1, 2007)
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Avoidable Harm
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s 100,000 Lives
campaign was yet another step in the drive to revolutionize
patient safety. The next logical extension was to look away
from avoidable patient deaths and focus on improving the
rates of avoidable patient harm.
(April 1, 2007)
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Standardizing Medication Reconciliation Across Facilities
Devising an effective strategy for reconciling patient
medications is difficult enough to do at one facility. The
Illinois Hospital Association took the task to another level
by coordinating the development of a standard medication
reconciliation process at 26 facilities across the state.
Becky Steward, who managed the project for the association,
said the task imparted valuable lessons about the numerous
complexities surrounding medication reconciliation. Steward
spoke during the Nursing Informatics Symposium at the 2007
HIMSS Conference.
(April 1, 2007)
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McKesson Ramps Up Group Practice Push
Seeking to capitalize on what it characterizes as a "very
active" electronic medical records market among physician
group practices, McKesson Corp. has plans to fold its most
recent acquisition into a two-prong strategy aimed at
cracking open the group practice market.
(April 1, 2007)
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Making Sense of Business Analytics
Organizations seek to gain efficiencies using I.T. to
measure clinical and financial performance.
(April 1, 2007)
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Erickson Health Takes Long View with Technology
Health Data Management recognizes the efforts of nurses to
drive I.T. adoption at a long-term care organization.
(April 1, 2007)
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Recognizing Nurses for Their Role in I.T. Innovation
More than one CIO has lamented to this magazine about how a
failure to get nurses engaged in an I.T. initiative set a
course for failure. That kind of feedback from the field is
one reason why Health Data Management has consistently
stressed the importance of getting nurses deeply involved
in, and keeping them well-informed about, technology
initiatives. It's also the impetus behind our decision to
create The Nursing Information Technology Innovation Award.
We wanted to recognize nurses for their I.T. leadership.
(April 1, 2007)
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Tips for Improving CEO/CIO Relations
A solid organizational structure that involves a
cross-section of top executives in information technology
decisions plays a vital role in building a good relationship
between the CEO and the CIO. That's the message the CEO and
CIO of The Ohio State University Medical Center, Columbus,
shared with the audience at their session at the 2007 HIMSS
Conference in New Orleans.
(April 1, 2007)
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Getting CFOs, CIOs on the Same Page
CIOs understand technology; CFOs understand money. But CIOs
also need to understand that if they don't get the CFO on
board with I.T. initiatives, their plans can die on the vine
for lack of funding, said Dennis Sato, CIO at Salem (Ore.)
Regional Health Services. Sato and Salem Regional's CFO,
Aaron Crane, provided strategies for CIO/CFO teamwork during
a presentation at the 2007 HIMSS Conference.
(April 1, 2007)
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CPOE Apps Put to the Test
Just because a hospital deploys computerized physician order
entry doesn't mean it has increased patient safety-in fact,
sometimes CPOE systems can even lead to more errors,
according to David Classen, M.D., vice president at First
Consulting Group, Long Beach, Calif. "Can these systems
cause harm rather than prevent harm?" Classen asked
attendees during a presentation at the 2007 HIMSS
Conference. "How do you know if the installed system meets
safety standards?" He also cited research that estimates
CPOE systems do not alert caregivers about possible harmful
drug interactions more than 60% of the time.
(April 1, 2007)
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I.T. Helps Provider Avoid ID Crisis
Four years ago, when the Carolinas HealthCare System first
attempted to install an enterprise master person index, the
project did not go as planned. But the integrated delivery
network didn't give up. It started over. An EMPI system had
to meet the needs of Carolinas' 10 hospitals, 80 physician
practices and other facilities. And it had to update
clinical systems instantaneously when new registration data
was entered, says James Burke, director of information
technology. Purchasing an EMPI was essential because an
electronic medical records system also was being installed,
he explains. "With the creation of the EMR, patients were
going to have a medical record following them very rapidly
around the enterprise. We needed to be able to identify them
accurately from the moment they entered the delivery
system."
(April 1, 2007)
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Georgia Blues award hospitals teleradiology grants
The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia Foundation has awarded
$80,000 in grants to 11 rural hospitals to purchase
teleradiology systems. Teleradiology allows small rural
hospitals to connect with radiologists in larger cities to
receive and interpret radiology images. Utilizing state-of-
the-art digital technology and specialized computer
monitors, remote radiologists in Savannah, Atlanta, Macon
and other major markets will be able to receive images and
provide faster diagnosis and consultations to attending
physicians in rural areas.
(April 1, 2007)
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PHR pilot takes hold
Aetna executives say users of the company’s new personal
health record are giving it rave reviews. “Seeing the
information in one place causes people to ask questions,”
said Meg McCabe, head of Medical & eHealth Products for
Aetna. “This is the kind of engagement we’re trying to
promote.” Aetna launched the pilot program to three large
customers in February. McCabe said the pilot customers
comprise progressive companies whose holistic strategy is to
promote wellness for their populations and provide
information and engage members about their health.
(April 1, 2007)
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EHR vendor reaches out to IPAs
A healthcare IT vendor that serves primarily small and
medium-sized physician practices is attempting to grow its
business by building relationships with Independent
Physician Associations.
(April 1, 2007)
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Hospitals help physicians convert patient paperwork to
computerized systems that could improve care
Ask Dr. James Dom Dera for a pen, and he probably won't be
able to find one. At the beginning of the year, the Fairlawn
doctor and his partners at Ohio Family Practice ditched
their prescription pads, paper charts and pens in favor of a
totally computerized, electronic medical record system.
Summa Health Network, the contracting arm of Summa Health
System that negotiates with insurers on behalf of Summa
hospitals and participating doctors, provided a $22,500
grant to help the practice buy the $60,000 system. Summa
also provided technical assistance, including access to its
server to safely store the electronic patient records. About
200 doctors in the Akron area have made similar deals with
Summa.
(April 1, 2007)
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New York hospital ready to push the data envelope
NewYork Presbyterian, one of the nation’s largest hospitals,
is the first to choose Microsoft’s Azyxxi platform to access
and analyze data from disparate systems throughout the
hospital. NewYork Presbyterian CIO Aurelia Boyer is counting
on Azyxxi to do for clinical data what a number of business
intelligence tools have been able to do with financial data
on the administrative side. In a word: Analyze. Analysis
makes the data more useful and powerful, which translates
into better patient care, Boyer said. But before data can be
sliced and diced it has to be readily accessible, she said.
Her plan for Azyxxi relies on the technology’s capability to
look at data across systems.
(April 1, 2007)
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New report: Hospital IT pays for itself
Information technology employed in hospitals across the
country makes economic sense, concludes a new
PriceWaterhouseCoopers report. More than 60 percent of
hospitals in the United States have made significant enough
investments in information technology to begin seeing
reductions in operating costs, researchers at the New
York-based consulting firm report. The report, the
culmination of two-years of research, asserts that
investment in information technology will improve hospital
business performance and that IT capital investment can
eventually pay for itself in the healthcare environment.
(April 1, 2007)
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Analysts tout healthcare IT as best bet for future
Analysts see healthcare IT as a good investment choice as
the country wrestles with spiraling cost. In a conference
call last month, analysts at William Blair & Company, a
Chicago-based investment firm, said the change to a
Democrat-controlled Congress in the last election worried
many investors in the healthcare sector. “Really, not a lot
has changed, but it’s causing investors increasing concern,”
said analyst Ben Andrew. “The real issue in our view is the
’08 election. The ’08 time frame is really when I think
these issues will come to the fore.” The issues are runaway
healthcare costs, a Medicare fund that is expected to become
insolvent by 2018, and how the government will choose to
handle these problems. Electronic health record systems and
other healthcare information technology will continue to be
safe bets for investors as they look to the stock market,
say analysts at William Blair. Analysts at Morningstar Inc.
, an investment research firm also based in Chicago,
concurred.
(April 1, 2007)
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PHRs - how personal?
Despite all the current focus on interoperability of
electronic health records, there is no doubt that
personalized health records will become more than an
afterthought as time goes on. “There are many parts of the
puzzle we are trying to adopt and PHRs will clearly be a
major part of it,” Department of Health and Human Services
Secretary Michael Leavitt, MD, said last month at an
American Health Information Community meeting. At the Health
Information and Management Systems Society’s annual
conference held in February in New Orleans, Robert Kolodner,
interim national coordinator for healthcare IT, said he
expects the advancement of PHRs to be the precursor that
drives President Bush’s goal that most Americans have an
electronic medical record by 2014. Rep. Patrick Kennedy
(D-R.I. ) last month introduced the Personalized Health
Information Act, which would require the government to
create a public-private PHR incentive program and trust fund
to pay physicians for enrolling patients in a PHR.
(April 1, 2007)
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Poll: U.S. not close to healthcare IT transformation
Seventy-five percent of the Healthcare IT News readers who
responded to the most recent News Monitor poll said the
United States is not close to achieving interoperability
standards and a system-wide transformation to healthcare IT.
These readers disagreed with statements made by Health and
Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt at the 2007 HIMSS
Annual Conference and Exhibition. Only 25 percent of
respondents agreed with Leavitt that the United States is
close to a system-wide transformation.
(April 1, 2007)
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RXHub receives e-prescribing accreditation
The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission
has awarded its first e-prescribing network accreditation to
RxHub. RxHub electronically routes patient-specific
medication history and pharmacy benefit information to
caregivers at every point of care.
(April 1, 2007)
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CCHIT approves 2007 ambulatory EHR criteria
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information
Technology has unanimously approved its 2007 criteria for
ambulatory electronic health records. The criteria will take
effect May 1, when CCHIT begins taking applications.
(April 1, 2007)
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March
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States collaborate on Medicaid EHRs
About half of the 27 states that received $103.6 million in
federal grants for Medicaid information systems this year
have agreed to share the results of their projects to
develop e-health records and related systems. “Basically,
once it’s built, it’s shared” among the 12 collaborating
states and Washington, D.C., said Anthony Rodgers, director
of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System.
(March 30, 2007)
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Florida Hospital Digitizes Entire New Facility
Homestead Hospital in Florida soon will open a revamped
complex that will feature technology upgrades such as online
test results and patient tracking systems.
(March 30, 2007)
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Proof of Impact: New Study Sheds Light on Economics of
Health IT Investment
While many in the health care industry say that investment
in IT leads to better quality and performance, there is a
dearth of solid evidence to support that claim. A new report
from PricewaterhouseCoopers aims to "retire the question of
whether IT has a positive impact on hospital business
performance." The report, titled "The Economics of IT and
Hospital Performance," used "econometric" techniques to
study the relationship between IT adoption and
organizational performance at nearly 2,000 U.S. hospitals
over a five-year period.
(March 30, 2007)
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CHC takes information technology to new level
Cascade Healthcare Community, parent company to St. Charles
Medical Center, announced this week its intention to move
forward with the next major phase in its transition to fully
deploy electronic records for patients throughout the
region. The new initiative, called HealthSync, is
unprecedented in scope for the region, and will set the bar
for similar technology and healthcare initiatives on a
national level. Hospitals across the region are currently
using multiple systems (paper and technology), and
caregivers, physicians and most importantly, patients, will
benefit from the move to an interconnected system which will
streamline processes and contain all necessary health
information in one place.
(March 30, 2007)
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Errors, Delays Linked to Disuse of Military EHR System
Inconsistent use of a Department of Defense electronic
health record system has caused medical errors, redundant
testing and delays in treatment, and it has prevented many
wounded soldiers from receiving benefits, according to
former defense and military medical officials.
(March 30, 2007)
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Free E-Prescribing Program Could Lead to More Health IT
Purchases
Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts, said that a partnership
with Dell and a variety of technology, insurance and other
health care firms to provide electronic prescribing systems
to physicians at no cost could lead to physicians purchasing
more health IT products from Allscripts.
(March 30, 2007)
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Congress should help physicians adopt IT, advocacy groups
say
The president of the American College of Physicians told
members of a Congressional subcommittee this week that a
full-scale adoption of healthcare information technology
would significantly improve quality in the U.S. healthcare
system. Lynne Kirk, MD, president of ACP, testified before
the Subcommittee on Regulations, Healthcare and Trade of the
House Committee on Small Business. She urged Congress to act
decisively to promote adoption of healthcare IT at the solo
and small practice level. “To achieve immediate quality and
healthcare savings through HIT (Healthcare IT), Congress
must recognize the significant financial barriers for solo
and small practices,” Kirk said. “It must offer creative
solutions to stimulate adoption of HIT (Healthcare IT) where
most Americans receive healthcare – in offices of one to
five physicians.”
(March 29, 2007)
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Kolodner says PHRs will advance healthcare IT adoption
Personal health records may be the fastest way to grow
healthcare IT, said Interim National Coordinator of Health
Information Technology Robert Kolodner at a summit held
yesterday in the nation’s capital. At the Fourth Information
Technology Summit -- held for the first time in conjunction
with the Fourteenth National HIPAA Summit—Kolodner said
consumers will push their doctors to use electronic health
records, thus bringing the U.S. closer to the tipping point
for healthcare IT advancement. “It’s a matter of speculation
when the tipping point will take place,” Kolodner said. “We
won’t really know when it will take place until we look
back.”
(March 29, 2007)
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Bill Clinton Backs Electronic Health Records
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Thursday advocated an
electronic medical records (EMR) law and said blogs could
aid the U.S. political process... Electronic medical records
could cut US$100 billion of administrative costs of the U.S.
health-care system, on which Americans spend $800 billion
per year, Clinton said, referring to a McKinsey & Co. study.
An EMR bill backed in the U.S. Senate by his wife, Senator
Hillary Clinton of New York, and former Republican Senate
leader Bill Frist failed despite three years of bipartisan
effort, Clinton said. "That's the number-one thing that can
be done right now to make the American health-care system
more efficient and cut costs," Clinton said. For one thing,
EMR would save the cost of patients recounting their medical
history every time they change doctors, which can also
introduce errors because they may misremember things, he
said.
(March 29, 2007)
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AMIA Announces the Formation of the Academic Forum
The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) today
announces the formation of The Academic Forum, to promote
the development of biomedical and health informatics as a
formal academic discipline.
(March 29, 2007)
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Doctors Community Hospital Selects HealthMatics Emergency
Department Information System from Allscripts
Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX), the leading provider of clinical
software, connectivity and information solutions that
physicians use to improve healthcare, today announced that
Doctors Community Hospital has selected the HealthMatics(R)
ED Emergency Department Information System (EDIS) to
automate operations and improve access to patient
information for its more than 50,000 annual emergency room
visits.
(March 29, 2007)
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Survey: Most U.S. Adults Satisfied With Health Data Privacy,
but Concerns Linger
Sixty-three percent of
U.S. adults said they agree completely or somewhat that
increased use of computers to collect and share patient
health data can be accomplished without jeopardizing patient
privacy, according to a
survey by Harris Interactive.
(March 29, 2007)
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Delaware first with statewide health information exchange
The Delaware Health Information Network (DHIN) will go live
this week with initial functionality for a small group of
users. The network's builders say the network is the first
implementation of a statewide health information exchange.
“All indications are that we’re going to be the first,” said
Paula Roy, executive director of the Delaware Health Care
Commission, which is developing DHIN. At first, the network
will deliver lab test results, radiology reports, and
admission, discharge and transfer reports to the
participants -– three hospital systems, five doctors’
practices with 30 offices and 70 physicians among them, and
LabCorp. More users will be added while the next phase -– a
record locator system --- is developed. The network will
deliver all lab results, regardless of where they originate,
in the same standard format, said Gina Perez, the project's
director. The reports can be delivered by fax or e-mail or
transferred into a provider’s e-health records system.
“About 30 percent of Delaware physicians have electronic
medical records,” Perez said, an above-average percentage.
However, they need only a PC running Microsoft Windows and a
high-speed Internet connection to use DHIN services. Two of
the medical practices in the initial user group will receive
lab results into their EMR systems in April, Perez said.
Hospitals and doctors in the state are eager to use the
network, she added.
(March 28, 2007)
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CIO Leadership Series: Tanya Townsend, Saint Clare's
Hospital
Tanya Townsend didn't
have much time to pass the all-digital challenge, but she
wasn't dreading it, either. How many other information
technology directors have an opportunity to start fresh with
a new building, new network architecture, new people, and
new processes? Not many, and when the still-to-be completed
Saint Clare's Hospital in Weston went shopping for a
chief technology executive in 2004, Townsend beat out all
comers. Her mission - and, yes, she chose to accept it - was
to set the technological foundation for an all-digital
hospital that would hit the ground running with electronic
medical records,
Computerized Physician Order Entry, and the clinical
processes needed to support them.
(March 28, 2007)
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Misys' focus is back on doctors
Misys Healthcare Systems' new general manager is charting a
new direction for the company -- and that could mean good
things for Raleigh. Roger L. "Vern" Davenport arrived at the
Raleigh health-care software company a month ago with a
mandate from its London parent company to shape up the
business. Davenport's strategy focuses on increasing Misys'
business with doctors' offices, a sharp contrast to the
former CEO's ambitions of competing aggressively for
hospital customers.
(March 28, 2007)
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Adoption of Health Information Technology Will Lead to
Higher Standard of Quality Care
The benefits of full-scale adoption of health information
technology (HIT) will be significant, leading to a higher
standard of quality in the U.S. health care system, Lynne M.
Kirk, MD, FACP, president of the American College of
Physicians (ACP), today told a hearing of the Subcommittee
on Regulations, Healthcare and Trade of the House Committee
on Small Business. “Congress has an important role in
promoting HIT adoption and providing the necessary initial
and ongoing funding mechanisms to assist physicians in solo
and small practices,” Dr. Kirk emphasized. “Unfortunately,
without adequate financial incentives, solo and small
physician practices and their patients will be left behind
the technological curve.”
(March 28, 2007)
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Wal-Mart, University of Arkansas and Blue Cross Blue Shield
Announce Center of Excellence to Boost Use of Information
Technology in Health Care Operations
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., (NYSE: WMT announced today it will
partner with the University of Arkansas and Blue Cross Blue
Shield to create a research center to focus on improving the
health care delivery system with the use of information
technology. The Center for Innovation in Health Care
Logistics will be dedicated to conducting research aimed at
identifying and addressing gaps and roadblocks in the
application and delivery of health information technology,
and highlighting and replicating proven applications that
are working to
benefit patients and providers. The goal of the Center's
work is to put the right materials in the hands of doctors
and nurses where and when they need them; it also aims to
eliminate the threat of medical errors arising from wasteful
and unreliable practices in health care supply networks.
(March 28, 2007)
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Lipscher: Veterans shouldn't have to wade through tons of
paperwork
The recent headlines coming out of Walter Reed Army Medical
Center have shocked the conscience of our nation. The health
care process failed veterans in every way imaginable, from
forcing hospitalized veterans to live in vermin-infested
wards to requiring them to fill out reams of paperwork just
to be seen by a doctor. I can't suggest much to do about the
rats, but I can offer advice for a long-term solution to
make the entire military medical experience more streamlined
and efficient, avoiding the long delays and the
transmissions of inaccurate information, or no information
at all, between departments causing vets to receive
inadequate care or be denied care completely.
(March 28, 2007)
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Cerner's Role in U.K. Health IT Project Grows
Cerner has been awarded two contracts to help hospitals in
northwest and southwest England meet a government goal that
patients wait no more than 18 weeks between a physician
referral and hospital treatment.
(March 27, 2007)
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Survey: EHRs Can Be Used Securely, but Data Privacy Concerns
Remain
Sixty-three percent of respondents said that the transition
to electronic health records could be made without
compromising their privacy, compared with 25% who disagreed,
according a new Harris Interactive survey.
(March 27, 2007)
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Wyoming studies health information sharing
Many people aren't wary of giving out their Social Security
number or typing their credit card number into the computer
to buy something off of Amazon.com. It is very different
when it comes to medical records, though, said Dr. Jerry
Calkins, an Cheyenne physician.
(March 27, 2007)
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FirstHealth Helps Develop National Model
FirstHealth of the Carolinas is so far one of only a few
health-care organizations around the country that are part
of the process to develop a nationwide system for the
exchange of electronic health record information.
(March 27, 2007)
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Midland Memorial Goes Live with VistA-based EHR
Midland Memorial Hospital in western Texas has become the
first private-sector hospital in the nation to fully adopt a
commercialized version of the Veterans Health
Administration’s VistA electronic medical record system.
VistA, or the Veterans Health Information System and
Technology Architecture, is a much-touted open source system
developed and currently used in more than 170 Veteran’s
Administration (VA) hospitals. VistA is credited with
helping turn the VA into a national leader in quality
patient care.
(March 27, 2007)
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Texas med school builds on VA EHR software
The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of
Medicine has begun deploying a public domain version of the
Department of Veterans Affairs' electronic health record
(EHR) system developed by Document Storage Systems,
according to the vendor. The El Paso, Texas-based school is
the first medical school in the United States to fully
deploy the Veterans Health Information Systems and
Technology Architecture (VistA).
(March 27, 2007)
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Health providers slow to sign up for national IDs
Nearly one in five of the health care providers in the
United States have failed to obtain a new identification
number from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
although the deadline for using the so-called National
Provider Identifier (NPI) is less than two months away. Even
those who have obtained the new ID numbers are not always
giving their new numbers to their business associates and
ensuring that the numbers are entered into payment and
claims databases, according to experts who testified before
the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics
(NCVHS) earlier this year. The results could include doctors
going unpaid and prescriptions going unfilled, the NCVHS
chairman, Dr. Simon Cohn, said in a letter to Health and
Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.
(March 27, 2007)
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Physician flies solo - Innovative doctor creates a one-man
medical office
Encinitas physician James Ochi usually plays the role of
healer on trips to impoverished communities in developing
nations, but last November in Uganda, he traded his
stethoscope for a camera... Years before President Bush
started touting electronic medical records as a way to make
the nation's health care system less costly, more efficient
and better for patients, Ochi cut the cords to a big office
and a barely manageable patient list. “The way most doctors
run their practice, they employ a large number of people who
just push paper around,” he said. “That gets in the way of
the doctor-patient relationship. It didn't make any sense to
me.” Using a laptop computer and off-the-shelf software,
Ochi created what literally is a one-man medical practice.
(March 27, 2007)
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HHS Launches Personalized Health Care Initiative
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Friday detailed a personalized
health care initiative that will combine gene-based medical
care with health IT.
(March 26, 2007)
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Connor discusses latest HL7 balloting
A new batch of proposed healthcare information transmission
standards aimed at affording patients more privacy controls
over the flow of their healthcare information are up for
review, revision and possible approval by the healthcare
standards development organization Health Level Seven (HL7).
The 30-day balloting period opened last week under the HL7
ballot process on what Olympia, Wash.-based consultant
Kathleen Connor described as "e-consent standards."
(March 26, 2007)
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Northrop Grumman Wins Department of Defense Clinical
Information Systems Engineering Contract
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has been awarded a
follow-on contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to
provide systems engineering and integration support to
AHLTA, the nation's largest electronic health record system.
AHLTA is the clinical information system managing electronic
health records for the Department of Defense Military Health
System. AHLTA supports more than nine million active service
members, retirees and their families worldwide.
(March 26, 2007)
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Home Monitoring Device Reduces Hospitalizations
The Home Care Services at Saint Francis Hospital in
Poughkeepsie, N.Y., provides about 30 patients with home
medical monitoring systems to improve care and reduce
hospitalizations.
(March 23, 2007)
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New York County To Build Health Information Network
The Genesee Valley Health Partnership in Livingston County,
N.Y., has received a $100,000 grant from Excellus Blue Cross
Blue Shield to develop a countywide electronic health data
network.
(March 23, 2007)
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Telemedicine's Benefits Could Extend to Quality of Life
Health IT proponents
often tout the technology's ability to improve care and
reduce costs. But what about its ability to improve
patients' quality of life? A study in the current issue of
the Journal of the American Medical Informatics
Association suggests that telemedicine can have a
significant impact on the quality of life of patients with
head and neck cancers.
(March 23, 2007)
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Electronic records system assists
The Bush administration announced in 2004 that every
American citizen should have an electronic health record by
2014, yet only about 10 percent of hospitals currently
utilize such technology. Mercy Health Partners, a
seven-hospital health care system that serves Northwest Ohio
and Southeast Michigan, is among the small percentage of
health care providers that have implemented EHR systems.
(March 23, 2007)
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HIMSS issues how-to book on setting up a RHIO
“The Guide to Establishing a Regional Health Information
Organization,” a 144-page, step-by-step resource for anyone
exploring or actively involved in setting up a RHIO, is now
available for sale on the Healthcare Information and
Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Web site. The book
regularly sells for $78.00, but HIMSS members can get it at
a discounted price of $65.00. Written collaboratively by a
HIMSS task force of RHIO veterans and health IT experts, the
book provides practical “how to” advice on such issues as
financing; organizational structure; governance models;
master patient indexing; privacy and security; common models
for data exchange; and barriers to long-term financial
sustainability and survival. Readers will learn about
real-life case studies and ideas for potential uses for
RHIOs.
(March 23, 2007)
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Ga. telemedicine program takes off
About once every hour during the work week, someone in rural
Georgia visits a specialist physician without going far from
home, thanks to one of the largest integrated telemedicine
programs in the country. The program began 18 months ago
with an $11.5 million grant from WellPoint, owner of Blue
Cross Blue Shield of Georgia. Now in 39 rural counties,
patients and their doctors can visit a local presentation
center and meet remotely with one of 75 specialists in areas
such as dermatology, cardiology and pediatric medicine.
(March 23, 2007)
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Study affirms information technology-productivity link
With the U.S. economy
showing alternating signs of strength and weakness, a recent
study has given pause to business organizations that might
want to slow the pace of information technology investment
due to fears of a housing-induced recession. The
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's
recent report titled “Digital Prosperity: Understanding the
Economic Benefits of the Information Technology Revolution,”
focused on the role information technology plays in the
economy. Among its conclusions is that money spent on
computing technology delivers three to five times the gain
in worker productivity of other types of investments.
(March 22, 2007)
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California Hospital Converts to Digital Images
Children's Hospital Central California in Madera, Calif., in
December 2006 adopted a picture archiving communication
system that provides physicians with instant, and even
remote, access to digital images of patients.
(March 21, 2007)
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Survey Gauges National Provider Identifier Compliance
The National Provider
Identifier compliance deadline is May 23, but just two in
five health IT professionals say their billing software and
practice management systems are ready, according to a
survey by the Healthcare Information and Management
Systems Society.
(March 21, 2007)
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State leads pack in electronic health records
Arizona appears
to be in the forefront of a U.S. drive to
have all patients' records available in
electronic form. At a summit meeting Tuesday
for the newly created non-profit Arizona
Health-e Connection board, members were
talking about creating a secure Web portal
as well as developing a system that would
allow physicians to communicate more easily
with each other about patient care. The
first milestone could be reached in 2009,
when all of the state's 1 million Medicaid
patients are targeted to have electronic
records. Arizona is ahead of the curve in
bringing providers, employers and insurers
together to talk about electronic medical
records, said Janet Marchibroda, CEO of
eHealth Initiatives, a non-profit,
electronic health care information group.
Only 6 percent of the states surveyed by
eHealth are as far along as Arizona, she
said. President Bush has instructed federal
health officials to make electronic records
widely used by 2014. Gov. Janet Napolitano
told the 400 health care leaders meeting in
Phoenix that getting electronic records is
an achievable goal "for the whole state."
(March 21, 2007)
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HITSP work group provides panel with update
A federally funded committee seeking to harmonize healthcare
information technology standards received an update from its
new security and privacy work group Monday. In so doing, the
Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel took stock
of the chicken-or-egg situation now faced by the government
in its efforts to promote IT: Which comes first, the privacy
protection policy or the privacy protection IT standards?
(March 21, 2007)
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Colorado Foundation Steps Up Health IT Help
The Colorado Health Foundation will distribute $2.5 million
in grants this year to help safety-net providers in the
state adopt health IT.
(March 20, 2007)
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Canada Boosts Health IT Budget by $400M
The Canadian federal government on Monday announced an
additional $1.4 billion for health care, including $400
million for the Canadian health information network.
(March 20, 2007)
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E-Prescribing Takes Off in Florida
Transitioning to an electronic prescription system can be
expensive, but physician practices, insurers and pharmacies
in Florida are embracing the technology.
(March 20, 2007)
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CPOE Adoption Remains Low, Slowly Increasing
The first U.S. hospital to adopt a computerized
physician order entry system did so 34 years ago; however,
more than half of all health organizations still do not have
the technology, according to a survey.
(March 20, 2007)
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Lessons for Health Care Could Be Found Abroad
The U.S. health care system is among the best in the world.
It has achieved a 5-year breast cancer survival rate that is
at least a few percentage points higher than that in almost
all other industrialized countries, the highest rate of
screening for cervical cancer, better hypertension control,
and a sharply reduced smoking rate. Patients rarely have to
wait long for needed procedures and medicines. Physicians
receive intensive training and keep current with continuous
education. Hospitals are well-equipped and fully staffed to
meet health needs. This country also spends more on health
care than any other country in the world. But contrary to
popular belief, the health care here isn't always the best.
Many other industrialized countries provide health care that
is just as good and sometimes better.
(March 20, 2007)
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MO HealthNet gets a boost
Restructuring the state’s Medicaid program and getting an
oil change seem an unlikely fit. But for Gov. Matt Blunt,
the way a company keeps track of a car’s condition could
provide insight on how to gauge a person’s health. "You may
wonder why we’re at a Jiffy Lube to talk about health care.
Well, I think it makes some sense," Blunt said today at a
Jiffy Lube station on Sandman Lane in south Columbia. "You
know that you can get your oil changed at the Jiffy Lube or
a Jiffy Lube in Florida, and they know about your car."
Transferring that approach to the health-care arena, Blunt
said time, money and patient safety could be enhanced
through electronic records, something he said he’d like to
enhance through his MO HealthNet initiative. Blunt used the
example of a boy who steps on a nail while playing baseball.
With access to electronic health records, a doctor would be
able to know right away whether the boy has had a tetanus
shot - something Blunt said could prevent a second,
unnecessary dose. "Electronic health records can help
improve and save lives," Blunt said.
(March 20, 2007)
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In the Year 2024
Where will you be in the year 2024? As a health care
forecaster, my clients have been asking me to scale my
health forecasts back to three to five years, shortening the
long-term, 10-year strategic planning trajectories we used
to do. However, David Brailer's crystal ball envisions that
2024 is when the "full benefits" of health care IT will be
realized.
(March 19, 2007)
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Democrats gain the advantage on health IT issues
In the past year, lawmakers have struggled in their efforts
to pass health information technology legislation. The
Senate and House each passed a bill that they sent to a
conference committee by early fall, but the prospects for
creating a framework for a National Health Information
Network died without ever being presented for a full vote in
either chamber.
(March 19, 2007)
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Eclipsys Sunrise Clinical Manager(TM) Selected by SUNY
Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY
Eclipsys Corporation(R) (Nasdaq: ECLP), The Outcomes
Company(R), today announced that SUNY Downstate Medical
Center's University Hospital of Brooklyn (UHB) will
implement Sunrise Clinical Manager and its fully integrated
modules, including Sunrise Acute Care(TM), Sunrise
Ambulatory Care(TM), Sunrise Pharmacy(TM), and
Knowledge-Based Medication Administration(TM) as part of an
organizational initiative to improve care delivery through a
clinical information system. Using Sunrise Clinical
Manager's single integrated clinical platform,
SUNY Downstate Medical Center/UHB will connect its acute and
ambulatory care providers, enabling patient information to
flow seamlessly between the acute and ambulatory care
environments while integrating with the Pharmacy to improve
medication management. The medical center will also use
Sunrise Clinical Manager's Knowledge-Based CPOE(TM) system
to establish standard care processes throughout the medical
center to help improve patient-care outcomes.
(March 19, 2007)
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One Scan at a Time: Moving Paper to Electronic
For many provider organizations, using document imaging as a
bridge to an electronic medical record (EMR) offers the best
solution to achieving a more fully digitized record until
more effective, enterprisewide solutions to electronic
documentation capture can be implemented. Not a
plug-and-play component of an EMR system, document imaging
requires sound processes and practices for an organization
to achieve not only its document imaging goals but also its
larger EMR and health data goals. It’s no small task, to say
the least.
(March 19, 2007)
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EMR Selection: Checking out the Lineup
With electronic medical records (EMRs), selecting the right
system can often be as intimidating as the implementation
process. With so many systems touting the same functions and
features, it can be difficult to determine which most
closely meets a practice’s or facility’s needs. Nor do most
providers have the depth of understanding required to make
that determination.
(March 19, 2007)
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Hospital EMR use not yet widespread
Only 11% of community hospitals have fully implemented EMR
systems, while 57% have "partially" implemented systems and
32% have not started. About 16% of hospitals said they had
most or all functions of an EMR in place in 2006, up from
10% in 2005. The rate of EMR use in physician practices is
estimated at 20%. Cost is the main barrier to EMR
implementation, as cited by 86% of the hospitals responding.
(March 19, 2007)
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Initial investment high, but move to electronics records
improving efficiency and care
Meg Warren sat on an exam table at the Westchester Medical
Group and her doctor peppered her with questions. Heart
palpitations? Dizziness? Medications? As she answered, a
discordant sound filled the air - the clicking of computer
keys. Dr. Steven Meixler made notes in Warren's chart as
doctors have done for generations, but there was not a
manila folder in sight. The information was entered in the
computer and when Warren, a 41-year-old nurse who lives in
Washingtonville, asked for some test results, Meixler pulled
them up in seconds. In the old days he'd be as likely to be
rifling through papers for a report that may nor may not be
there.
(March 18, 2007)
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JRMC Honored for ECLIPSYS Use
Jefferson Regional Medical Center has been honored for its
use of an electronic documentation program, and personnel
from other hospitals are traveling to Pine Bluff to observe
the system. The Eclipsys program creates electronic medical
records for patients at the hospital and will eventually
eliminate paper processes. The system has improved
efficiency in accessing information, according to Michelle
Powell, clinical nurse manager. Hospital personnel are just
a “click away” from access to the records of patients.
(March 18, 2007)
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Lack of Competition Hinders Technology Innovation, Increases
Costs
It seems employers and government leaders constantly are
complaining about the lack of transparency and the soaring
costs of our health care system, but could they actually be
to blame? "A lot of people estimate that one out of every
three health care dollars is wasted," John Goodman,
president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, said,
adding, "This is the kind of waste that doesn't exist in a
normal competitive market."
(March 16, 2007)
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EHR still top health IT priority: survey
Moving toward an
electronic health record remained the top healthcare
information technology systems priority, although other
applications gained ground, according to respondents to this
year's annual Modern Healthcare Survey of Executive
Opinions on Key Information Technology Issues.
(March 16, 2007)
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EHR vendor links with Google for free service
Start-up electronic health record vendor Practice Fusion has
struck a deal with Web search giant Google to provide a
full-featured EHR for free, the first time such a product
has been available to physicians at no cost as an on-demand
Web service.
(March 16, 2007)
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Does Santa Barbara RHIO shutdown affect California HIE
efforts?
The Santa Barbara Co. Care Data Exchange (SBCCDE) was the
oldest regional health information organization (RHIO) in
the country until it ended its efforts last week. Depending
upon whom you talk to, the shutdown is either major news or
a mere blip on the health information exchange (HIE) radar
screen. Karen Hunt, director of communications for CalRHIO,
sees no impact from SBCCDE’s closure. “CalRHIO and local and
regional efforts have been moving forward during all the
time that Santa Barbara was stalled and finally closed,” she
said. “California healthcare organizations and payers in the
state recognize the importance and benefits of HIE.” She
pointed out that Governor Schwarzenegger issued an executive
order supporting healthcare information technology and HIEs
earlier this week. Furthermore, CalRHIO announced a few days
later that it had selected its technology partners to
connect communities and the entire state with a suite of
affordable, secure, privacy-protected services.
(March 16, 2007)
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Analysts see healthcare IT as good investment choice
Electronic health record systems and other healthcare
information technology are safe bets for investors as they
look to the stock market, say analysts at William Blair &
Company, a Chicago-based investment firm. In a conference
call last week, the analysts said the change to a
Democratic-controlled Congress in the last election worried
many investors in the healthcare sector.
(March 16, 2007)
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CCHIT approves 2007 ambulatory EHR testing criteria
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information
Technology (CCHIT) announced Wednesday that it unanimously
approved its new 2007 criteria for ambulatory electronic
health records to be published March 19. The criteria will
take effect May 1 when CCHIT will begin taking applications
for certification, according to a statement released by
CCHIT. The Commissioners also approved test scripts for
inpatient hospital-based EHRs and are seeking public comment
online through April 13, according to CCHIT. Among a number
of new requirements this year in the ambulatory EHR
certification is that systems must be able to send
prescriptions and refills to pharmacies electronically and
demonstrate their product’s ability to electronically
receive standards-based lab result messages, CCHIT
representatives said.
(March 16, 2007)
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EHRs: The Feds get something right
Last summer, FP David S. Zalut of Voorhees, NJ, installed an
electronic health record in his practice. What gave him the
courage to write the check and take the plunge was a
little-known CMS program called Doctor's Office
Quality-Information Technology (DOQ-IT). Under this
three-year program, which ends in 2008, Medicare's Quality
Improvement Organizations (QIOs) in every state are required
to help primary care physicians adopt EHRs. "It's the first
government program I've ever been involved with that worked
perfectly," says Zalut. "The QIO consultant came out and
interviewed me, saw what I needed in my practice, saw the
problems I was having, and quickly identified nine systems
that she thought would be sufficient for the size of my
practice." The consultant from Healthcare Quality Strategies
didn't stop there, says Zalut. She gave him in-depth
information that the QIO had gathered on all of these
products, along with feedback she'd picked up from small
practices that used them. She also helped him analyze his
office workflow and make changes that would aid EHR
implementation. The "go-live" phase still had rough spots,
he says; but four months later, he's documenting visits
during patient encounters without slowing his workflow.
(March 16, 2007)
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AMIA and AHIMA Announce Support for 10,000 Trained by 2010
Act (H.R. 1467)
The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and the
American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA)
announced joint support yesterday for legislation that calls
for a trained work force capable of innovating,
implementing, and using health communications and
information technology (IT). Introduced by Congressman David
Wu (D-OR), HR 1467 or the ‘‘10,000 Trained by 2010 Act,’’
would authorize the National Science Foundation to award
grants to institutions of higher education that would
develop and offer educational and training programs for
healthcare workers and professionals in applied health and
medical informatics.
(March 16, 2007)
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Facing the Future: New Report Looks at the Next Generation
of Health IT
While most hospitals to date have taken a "wait-and-see"
approach to adopting health IT, the challenges and pressures
the health care system faces in 2007 demand the use and
adoption of IT, according to a new report by First
Consulting Group. Health care organizations must achieve and
maintain a minimum level of IT, including computerized
physician order entry and clinical decision support, to
counter increasing costs, sicker patients and clinical staff
shortages, the report asserts. To be successful, health IT
efforts need to be seen as quality projects as opposed to
simply IT initiatives and must be usable and provide
improvements in the future. For years, health IT has been
more in a state of imagination and contemplation than real
progress and action. However, now that the business,
provider and legislative stars are beginning to align, it's
time to take a glimpse at what's to come for health IT.
(March 15, 2007)
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Federal Advisory Committee Recommends PHR Certification
The American Health Information Community, an HHS advisory
committee, on Tuesday voted unanimously in favor of
recommending personal health record certification despite
minority opposition from its Consumer Empowerment Workgroup.
(March 15, 2007)
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New Jersey To Develop Patient Identifier Despite Failure
Nationally
New Jersey plans to develop a patient identifier that will
match patients to their health records through state and
regional patient indexes, a state insurance regulator on
Tuesday told the American Health Information Community...
William O'Byrne -- manager of the enforcement unit, division
of consumer protection services at the New Jersey Department
of Banking and Insurance -- said New Jersey's unique ID
would be "cross walked" with other identifiers and could be
assigned at birth, a hospital, an emergency department or a
patient's request. Patients also will be able to opt out of
the program. "The goal will be to reliably link a patient to
their health information," O'Byrne said. "We are also
looking at bar coding on health care identification cards,"
he added.
(March 15, 2007)
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West Virginia Likely To Pass E-Prescription Bill
West Virginia lawmakers in a special session on the state
budget this week could vote on legislation to allow
providers to send electronic prescriptions, according to
Gov. John Manchin (D).
(March 15, 2007)
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Certification Group OKs New Ambulatory EHR Criteria
The Certification Commission for Healthcare IT has approved
final 2007 criteria for the certification of ambulatory
electronic health records.
(March 15, 2007)
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Schwarzenegger Signs Health IT Mandate
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) on Wednesday
signed an executive order mandating health IT adoption,
increased transparency of health care cost and quality
information and improved accountability of public and
private health systems.
(March 15, 2007)
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Capital BlueCross initiative promotes e-prescribing
Dauphin County-based Capital BlueCross is teaming up
with a Maryland firm to help doctors adopt electronic
prescribing. Up to 1,500 doctors in the local health
insurer’s provider network will receive free handheld
wireless devices and free access to Prematics’ e-prescribing
service. The equipment and service will allow doctors
instant access to information about such things as the
formulary used by the patient’s insurer, the patient’s
medication history and lower-cost alternatives to brand-name
drugs. A doctor also will be able to send a prescription to
a pharmacy electronically.
(March 15, 2007)
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Not-for-profits still skittish on impact of IT subsidies
When David Brailer first stepped onto the national stage in
the spring of 2004, he laid out an ambitious program for
promoting healthcare information technology that included
leveraging hospitals' investments in IT systems to benefit
their affiliated physicians.
(March 15, 2007)
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Are your medical records safe?
In light of the multiple breaches of personal information
held by state agencies in recent months, should Vermonters
be concerned about the privacy and security of their medical
records as the state moves forward with pilot programs in
electronic medical records (EMRs) and health care
information exchange?
(March 15, 2007)
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EHR Certification Levels Playing Field, Survey Finds
The cost of certifying electronic health records has not
been an obstacle for smaller EHR vendors, Certification
Commission for Healthcare IT Chair Mark Leavitt said Tuesday
at an American Health Information Community HHS advisory
panel meeting.
(March 14, 2007)
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California, Pennsylvania Join Federal Health Care
Transparency Efforts
A unit of the Pacific Business Group on Health will compile
information on physician performance from Medicare and three
California health plans as part of a federal pilot project
intended to help people make informed health care decisions.
(March 14, 2007)
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Outlook Dim for Passing Health IT Bill, Rep. Says
Health IT remains a top priority in Washington, D.C., but
few lawmakers expect legislation to pass in the near future,
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), chair of the House Energy and
Commerce Health Subcommittee, said on Tuesday.
(March 14, 2007)
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Survey: Staff Support Biggest Challenge for Health Care CIOs
The biggest challenge cited by health care CIOs and other IT
leaders is getting clinical and administrative staff to
regularly use installed IT.
(March 14, 2007)
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Governor signs order on health information
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order
Wednesday to stiffen state mandates to adopt health
information technology, make information on prices and care
quality more available and increase accountability for
public and private healthcare systems. The order is
consistent with a federal initiative promoted by the Bush
administration and a reform plan released by the California
governor in January. Schwarzenegger met with U.S. Health and
Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt in San Diego
Wednesday and signed the executive order there. The goal is
to reduce medical errors, improve patient care and keep
medical costs in check by providing accurate, updated
information to patients where they are treated.
(March 14, 2007)
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Dispute surfaces over certification for personal health
records
In a rare instance of public dissent, an American Health
Information Community AHIC) workgroup has split over whether
to recommend that product certification be available for
personal health record software. AHIC, a high-level advisory
committee to the Department of Health and Human Services,
sided with the majority on its Consumer Empowerment
Workgroup and voted unanimously in favor of the
certification recommendation. A minority -- five members of
the 23-person workgroup -- took the position that
certification would be premature and the top priority should
be privacy and security policies for PHRs. “The risks [of
certification now] outweigh any potential benefits,” the
dissenters said in a letter to AHIC.
(March 14, 2007)
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CalRHIO selects team to build health info exchange
The California Regional Health Information Organization
(CalRHIO) has selected the team of Medicity and Perot
Systems to build a statewide health information exchange
service. The nonprofit organization’s leaders announced that
the contractor team’s first step will be to help CalRHIO
find $300 million in private financing for the start-up of
the exchange, including a backbone network, marketing and
CalRHIO's operations. The exchange will operate as a
utility, offering services to health care providers,
patients, government agencies and RHIOs in California. The
network can be used for local data exchanges or to link
existing exchanges with one another. User fees will support
the exchange.
(March 14, 2007)
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HHS panel recommends certification of PHRs despite dissent
The American Health Information Community (AHIC), an
advisory panel to the Department of Health and Human
Services, yesterday voted unanimously in favor of
recommending certification for personal health records,
against the dissenting opinion of some of its workgroup
members. At an AHIC meeting simultaneously webcast from
Washington, D.C. and California, five AHIC Consumer
Empowerment Workgroup members said it is too early for
government involvement in PHRs. According to David Lansky,
senior director of health programs and executive director of
the Personal Health Technology Initiative at the Markle
Foundation, the workgroup’s recommendation for HHS to
“encourage the certification process” for PHRs outweighs any
potential benefits.
(March 14, 2007)
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Clinic Combines Oncology, EMR Apps
Great Falls (Mont.) Clinic has implemented electronic
medical records software embedded with a chemotherapy
management application. The clinic, with more than 100
physicians, is using the IC-Chart electronic records
software of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based InteGreat Concepts Inc.
with IntelliDose from IntrinsiQ Research Inc., Waltham,
Mass.
(March 13, 2007)
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Linking EHRs to Practice Management S/W
Electronic health records (EHRs) are gaining ground in the
health-IT community, yet many of these programs are still
young and the funding waters still murky. While healthcare
providers can and do take their time transitioning to an
EHR, they can’t afford to miss a beat in the billing and
administration and have been relying on practice management
software for years.
(March 13, 2007)
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Fulfilling the PHR Vision: Analytical Interactivity
Empowering Doctors and Patients
COMMENTARY: In today’s fragmented healthcare system, patient
data is scattered among physicians, hospitals, lab
companies, and pharmacies. This can lead to medical errors,
adverse patient outcomes, costly hospitalizations and
disabilities. Efforts are now underway by leading health
plans and employers to aggregate patient information into
personal health records (PHRs). This aggregation of data
into a patient-centered and patient-controlled record can
empower consumers of healthcare and enhance care
optimization among physicians, other caregivers and
patients.
(March 13, 2007)
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California Health Plans Tout Success of Pay-for-Performance
Program
The Integrated Healthcare Association says it is
demonstrating a business case for its pay-for-performance
program, as participating physician groups are reporting
more IT capabilities.
(March 13, 2007)
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EHR Privacy Report Author Says U.S. Trailing Other Countries
Canada, the Netherlands
and the United Kingdom are far ahead of the United States in
creating and adopting privacy policies that allow patients
to have more control over their health information,
according to
a new report commissioned by the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration.
(March 13, 2007)
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Gingrey: Tech upgrade needed for military medical records
U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Marietta, a physician and member
of the House Armed Services Committee, made the following
comments regarding Walter Reed Medical Center after touring
the facility last week and participating in congressional
oversight hearings: “Walter Reed is an impressive medical
facility, but it is failing some of our wounded soldiers.
After touring the seven rooms in Building 18 that have
fallen into disrepair, I agree they are unacceptable for a
military health facility. “But mice and mold are not the
root of Walter Reed’s problems. I am very concerned that
overcrowding at the facility has forced the military to use
Building 18 at all. This overflow unit is only operational
because it takes the military too long to process soldiers
stationed at Walter Reed - and this needs to change. “Simply
put, the military healthcare system is in need of a
technology upgrade.
(March 13, 2007)
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Opinion: Privacy Could Trump IT Standards Development
If the federal
government does not react to the recent fury over medical
privacy, "all of their mysterious work to create a national
electronic [health] record system will [flounder] on the
shoals of public and congressional opposition," according to
an opinion piece by Health IT Strategist staff
writer Todd Sloane.
(March 12, 2007)
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Pennsylvania Health Systems Look To Reduce Errors, Improve
Safety With IT
Health care systems in Pennsylvania have invested
millions of dollars on electronic systems to improve patient
safety and reduce medical errors.
(March 12, 2007)
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Massachusetts Health System First in State With Electronic
Disease Reporting
The Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts last week
announced that it is the first hospital system in
Massachusetts to electronically report communicable diseases
to the state public health department.
(March 12, 2007)
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Rhode Island Links All Medical Facilities for Disaster
Preparedness
The Rhode Island Department of Health and the state's
hospital association on Wednesday launched a Web-based
program that can track hospitals' patient capacity and
inform officials if they need to transfer patients.
(March 12, 2007)
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UC-Davis EHR Project Behind Schedule, Over Budget
The University of California-Davis has spent more and taken
longer than expected to set up its electronic health record
system, according to an audit of the program released last
month.
(March 12, 2007)
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What Killed the Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange?
The Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange is no more.
There was hardly an obituary to note its passing. A fitting
tribute might have included phrases like: "ahead of its
time" or "potential never realized" or "it was harder than
it looked." What might be more valuable than an obit is a
post mortem. The challenges that SBCCDE confronted -- many
of which were overcome and some of which led to its demise
-- are challenges that every care data exchange and regional
health information organization should study and address
directly. There are many lessons to be learned from SBCCDE's
fate.
(March 12, 2007)
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California docs bullish on performance
The seven health plan members of the Integrated Healthcare
Association together awarded $55 million in 2006 to
California physician groups participating in the
association’s pay-for-performance program. With physician
groups reporting greater IT capabilities, IHA said it is
demonstrating a business case for its program.
(March 12, 2007)
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California looks into Kaiser's EMR troubles
A California regulator is investigating purported
problems with the installation of Kaiser Permanente's $4
billion electronic medical record system. But a leader of
the HealthConnect project says progress is "spectacular."
Kaiser Permanente has been publicly vouching for its EMR
ever since last fall, when a mass e-mail sent by a Southern
California Permanente Medical Group employee claimed tests
showed the system suffered frequent outages, claims backed
up by an internal Kaiser document leaked to the media.
(March 12, 2007)
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Baton Rouge hospital begins $15M rollout
Baton Rouge General Medical Center has launched a $15
million IT upgrade that includes the implementation of
clinical systems and the automation of its pharmacy. The new
technologies will support the hospital in developing an
electronic health record for both inpatient and outpatient
settings.
(March 12, 2007)
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Innovative Solution at The Scarborough Hospital Facilitates
Triage of ER Patients
The Scarborough Hospital (TSH) and Canada Health Infoway
(Infoway) today announced a new initiative to improve
emergency room service. Through kiosks in the emergency
waiting room at both hospital campuses, patients will be
able to enter information in seven different languages,
helping to facilitate more effective triage. Called
"Enhancing Emergency Services: A Patient-Centred Approach"
(EES), the initiative aims to better support nurses and
physicians with smart tools so they can work more
efficiently and effectively to enhance patient flow and
improve patient care.
(March 12, 2007)
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Using technology to cure paperwork
The days of bulky patient files are numbered. And in the
not-too-distant future, patients may be able to access their
medical records by logging onto their home computer. Arnett
HealthSystem and Greater Lafayette Health Systems have
joined the crowd of medical facilities across the country
implementing comprehensive electronic medical records and an
internal messaging system -- which are designed to
streamline patient care while providing better oversight.
"It's a huge change for the health care industry, but
banking went through this years ago. We're way behind," said
Dr. James P. Bien, chief medical officer at Arnett Clinic.
"It's a big cost for groups to do this, but the return is in
the ease of communication, patient safety and quality and
decision support. (You) have information available literally
at your fingertips that you might not have had before."
(March 12, 2007)
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Physician groups say IT is critical to new care model
Information technology should play a central role in the
coordination and integration of patient care across all
elements of the healthcare system, according to a statement
released last week by four major physician membership
organizations. The statement defined the essential
principles that would characterize a practice-based care
model for providing comprehensive primary care for patients
in the United States. Called a “patient-centered medical
home,” the proposed model would require changes at multiple
levels in the healthcare system but would ultimately lead to
improved outcomes, representatives from the physician groups
said. “We’re talking about significant change at the
practice level, a real transformation of primary care
practice,” said Michael Barr, MD, vice president of practice
advocacy and improvement at the American College of
Physicians. “We think that information technology will
introduce a new structure of – and process for – care to
physician practices.”
(March 12, 2007)
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HHS to launch e-health networks
Two new initiatives by the Department of Health and Human
Services will give people a first opportunity to gain
electronic access to their health records. HHS has announced
it will launch a nationwide network of local and regional
collaboratives. At the same time, the department will
release a request for proposals for a new version of a
health care network of networks that would be able to give
consumers unprecedented control over the dissemination of
their personal health care information. The department’s
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality will administer
the network of health care collaboratives that will offer
people information about the quality and cost of health care
where they live. Concerning that program, HHS Secretary Mike
Leavitt said information is best gathered locally where
“providers and purchasers can meet eye to eye.”
(March 12, 2007)
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Local hospitals make upgrades to reduce errors
Area hospitals have spent millions of dollars expanding
patient safety initiatives to reduce the likelihood of
medical errors. Since January 2005, Wyoming Valley Health
Care System has invested about $5 million in electronic
systems to improve patient safety, said spokesman Kevin
McDonald. More than 70 percent of Wilkes-Barre General
Hospital’s beds are covered by a computerized medication
administration system, which ensures that the right
medication in the right dose is delivered to the right
patients at the right time. By the end of 2007, all hospital
beds will be covered by this system, which automates bedside
medication administration using bar code technology.
(March 11, 2007)
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Report Assesses Hospital-Doctor Links
Recent changes in the Stark Act and anti-kickback laws are
increasing incentives for hospitals to electronically
connect with community physicians, according to a new report
from First Consulting Group Inc. The earlier hospitals move
to connect with physicians, the easier it will be to achieve
true community interoperability, according to the Long
Beach, Calif.-based firm.
(March 9, 2007)
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CCHIT to provide certification across settings, populations
and specialties
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information
Technology is developing a concept that will allow
certification across settings, populations and specialties
over and above basic EHR certification. CCHIT Chair Mark
Leavitt, MD, made the announcement at a session of the
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society annual
conference in New Orleans last week.
(March 9, 2007)
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Statewide health data system is group's goal
On Monday, Mississippi will move one step closer to possibly
creating a statewide health-information system that would
improve health care and perhaps make it more affordable.
Gov. Haley Barbour issued an executive order, based on
President Bush's recommendation, creating the Mississippi
Health Information Task Force. According to the order, the
health-care goals of the task force are to increase
transparency in pricing and quality, to find potential
health-care information-technology standards and to promote
quality and efficiency in health care.
(March 9, 2007)
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'Malaria TV' Enables Remote, Collaborative Diagnoses
Three researchers at the University of Toronto have
developed Malaria TV, a low-cost technology system that can
be used to remotely identify malaria parasites in digital
images of blood tests.
(March 9, 2007)
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Report: Fragmentation Exacerbates Drug Error Risks
Fragmented systems and a lack of oversight raises the risk
of medication errors, according to a report released this
week by the U.S. Pharmacopeia Center for the Advancement of
Patient Safety.
(March 9, 2007)
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Cleveland Clinic To Monitor Chronically Ill Patients
Remotely
The Cleveland Clinic is building a system physicians could
use to remotely monitor chronically ill patients.
(March 9, 2007)
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AMIA Receives Grant from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to
Foster the Development of Applied Clinical Informatics as a
Medical Specialty
The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) has been
awarded a $300,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation (RWJF) to establish the foundation for a system
that will certify competency of physicians as a subspecialty
of applied clinical informatics.
(March 8, 2007)
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Policy group focuses on health care
In the end, there will be a report lined with
recommendations: This is what can be done to improve access
to health care in Marion County.
(March 8, 2007)
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VA Two Years Ago Shelved Plan for Sharing Service Members'
EHRs
A Department of Veterans Affairs task force in 2004
recommended the creation of a "computerized contingency
tracking system" that would allow the VA to download EHRs
from the Department of Defense, ABC's "World News" reports.
(March 8, 2007)
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Ontario Health Network Links Region's Hospitals
A health network in Eastern Ontario, Canada, recently has
begun sharing electronic health records among 18 of the
region's 20 hospitals, according to Wilmer Matthews, chair
of the health network.
(March 8, 2007)
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Leavitt Praises Wisconsin's Efforts While Stumping Federal
Health Plan
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Wednesday said that Wisconsin
is "literally without peer" in following through on the Bush
administration's health care goals.
(March 8, 2007)
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Virginia City's Ambulances Go Wireless
The Richmond, Va., Ambulance Authority several months ago
installed a wireless communications system that paramedics
can use to access and transmit patient information while
picking up a patient or en route to the hospital.
(March 8, 2007)
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Texas Health Center's Biosurveillance System Gets Tech Boost
The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston is
using Semantic Web technology to improve its biosurveillance
efforts, data sharing and domain-specific search engine
capabilities.
(March 8, 2007)
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New York Telemedicine Project Looks To Extend its Reach
State-funded telemedicine projects can help alleviate
shortages of medical professionals and ensure that patients
living in remote areas can access specialty care. However,
once state funds are spent on the initial costs, these
telemedicine projects face a new challenge: survival. "A lot
of the [state] grants are typically startup[s] ... that have
been up until now projects demonstrating value, technical
feasibility and medical benefits. What has been a drawback
is a lack of sustainment," Richard Bakalar, president of the
American Telemedicine Association, said. Bassett Healthcare
in Cooperstown, N.Y., is just one example of telemedicine
initiatives that must consider how to sustain themselves
once start-up funding runs out.
(March 8, 2007)
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Privacy, funding doubts shutter Calif. RHIO
The Santa Barbara County (Calif.) Care Data Exchange, the
longest-running effort to launch a major U.S. regional
health information organization, recently folded because of
privacy concerns and doubts about ongoing costs, exchange
officials confirmed. Those issues had dogged the project
since it began in 1998, during the first dot-com bubble, as
an attempt to establish a medical data-sharing initiative
linking competing health care organizations. Technological
problems with how to share information securely while
allowing organizations to retain local control of their data
had largely been solved, however.
(March 8, 2007)
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E-reporting from labs gets under way in Massachusetts
A Boston-area hospital system announced today it is the
first in Massachusetts to implement electronic reporting of
communicable diseases to the state public health department.
The Cambridge Health Alliance, which operates three
hospitals and 20 physicians’ offices on the north side of
Boston, is using the Internet for secure transmissions of
reports drawn from the laboratory information system. The
new system delivers the information to state epidemiologists
within a day. The automated reporting system also improves
the completeness of required reports while reducing the
labor required to prepare the reports and send them to state
officials.
(March 8, 2007)
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AMIA Receives Grant from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to
Foster the Development of Applied Clinical Informatics as a
Medical Specialty
The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) has been
awarded a $300,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation (RWJF) to establish the foundation for a system
that will certify competency of physicians as a subspecialty
of applied clinical informatics. The growing role of
information technology within health care delivery
organizations has created the need to deepen the pool of
physician informaticians who are able to help organizations
maximize the effectiveness of their investment in
information technology and in so doing maximize impact on
safety, quality, effectiveness and efficiency of care.
(March 8, 2007)
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EMR Vendor Adds Education Content
Physician software vendor e-MDs Inc., Austin, Texas, will
integrate into its electronic medical records application
the patient education materials of Krames, Yardley, Pa.
(March 7, 2007)
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Comments from the HIMSS Show Floor
Given the variety and apparent robustness and sheer number
of health-IT products being displayed at HIMSS last week,
it’s hard to believe the healthcare industry isn’t further
along the adoption curve. Here are snapshots from a few
conversations with vendors on the HIMSS floor.
(March 7, 2007)
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Next Round of HHS Contracts Will Go to Users
The
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
will solicit bids starting in April for trial state,
regional, and local user consortia to demonstrate health
information exchange, the next round of contracts toward
building a proposed National Health Information Network
(NHIN), top health-IT officials say.
(March 7, 2007)
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Critics, Advocates Question Patient-Controlled EHR Data
Robert Kolodner, interim national coordinator for health IT,
recently said that trials of the Nationwide Health
Information Network should give patients control of their
own electronic health records, although HHS has received a
variety of responses to the decision.
(March 7, 2007)
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Report Recommends Ways To Curb Medication Errors in
California
A California panel on
Tuesday
released a report calling for physicians to use
electronic prescribing technology and for legislators to
adopt other strategies to reduce medication errors.
(March 7, 2007)
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Kennedy bill aims to give PHRs a boost
Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I. ) plans to jumpstart the use of
personal health records through a trust fund that pays
doctors, in a new version of his bill introduced March 1.
The Personalized Health Information Act would require the
Department of Health and Human Services to create a
public-private PHR incentive program and trust fund to pay
physicians up to three years at least $3 per eligible
patient enrolled to use a PHR. Private partners would donate
funds to the Incentive Trust Fund. According to Kennedy,
PHRs can give patients control over their personal health
data while ensuring that providers have all the information
they need at the point of care, if the patient consents.
(March 7, 2007)
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Telemedicine Project To Link Rwanda Hospitals
Rwanda's Ministry of Health has launched a telemedicine
project that is intended to expand access to medical
services to areas with limited health resources.
(March 6, 2007)
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Prescriptions in Australia Set To Go Electronic
The Australian federal government last week introduced
changes to legislation that would allow all physicians in
the country to have access to an electronic prescription
system to reduce medication errors.
(March 6, 2007)
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Six Washington State Health Facilities Pool Resources To
Adopt EHRs
Kittitas Valley Community Hospital and five other health
facilities in Ellensburg, Wash., have partnered to adopt a
uniform electronic health record system in an effort to
improve the tracking of patients' histories, symptoms and
treatments.
(March 6, 2007)
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Personal Health Web Sites Pose Privacy Risks for Patients
Companies that offer consumers no-cost or low-cost Web sites
for storing personal health records could compromise patient
privacy by allowing marketers to access users' personal
information.
(March 6, 2007)
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California Investigates Kaiser EHR Project
Despite alleged problems associated with the implementation
of Kaiser Permanente's $4 billion electronic health record
system, a leader of the project said the progress is
"spectacular".
(March 6, 2007)
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Indiana Hospital Errors To Be Aired on Public Database
Representatives from five northwest Indiana hospitals on
Monday discussed their 2006 procedural mistakes, one day
before the state's online Medical Errors Reporting System
goes live.
(March 6, 2007)
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Consumers Can Click for Quality on California Web Site
CalHospitalCompare, which launched on Tuesday, is designed
to serve as a tool for consumers to compare the quality
ratings of more than 200 hospitals in the state. The
no-cost, voluntary service rates hospitals on more than 50
performance indicators from the participating hospitals,
which represent about 70% of hospital admissions in the
state. The site is the result of a two-year collaboration
between the California Hospital Assessment and Reporting
Taskforce and the California HealthCare Foundation, and it
was developed with input from consumer focus groups to
ensure that individuals would be able to easily navigate the
site and understand the data.
(March 6, 2007)
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Survey: Physicians wary of pay-for-performance risks
More than three in four
primary care physicians favor pay-for-performance programs
if quality measures are accurate, according to a survey by
researchers at the University of Chicago. But most
physicians believe that neither health payers nor the
government would “try hard to make such measures accurate”
and there is little confidence this will change, researchers
found. Researchers also found that only 32 percent of
physicians support public reporting of the individual
physician's quality scores, while only 45 percent support
public reporting of quality scores on the medical group
level, even if the measures involved are accurate.
(March 6, 2007)
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Patient control of EHR data on network gets mixed reaction
The Health and Human Services Department has received mixed
reviews for its decision to insist that the next iteration
of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) allow
patients to control who sees their electronic health records
on the network. Dr. Robert Kolodner, interim national
coordinator of health information technology, said March 1
that trial networks funded by his office should give “people
the capability to decide how they view, store and control
access to their own information. A person could say how that
information flows to specific entities or completely block
the flow of information.”
(March 6, 2007)
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EHR disconnect exacerbates Walter Reed woes
Despite more than five years of work, the Defense and the
Veterans Affairs departments still have problems sharing
electronic health records (EHRs), said Cynthia Bascetta,
director for health care at the Government Accountability
Office, testifying last week to the House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee. The committee, chaired by Henry
Waxman (D-Calif.), focused its hearings on the unsanitary
living conditions and poor treatment of patients at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. But Waxman also
asked GAO to report on a number of challenges service
members wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq face during their
recovery process.
(March 6, 2007)
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Perspective: Toward the larger vision
Mid-Rogue IPA of Grants Pass, Oregon, comprises 80
physicians and serves a rural, older population of 85,000.
Health Choice is a managed care contracting entity for
the MetroCare Physicians and Methodist Healthcare serving
Memphis and the Mid-south region. It has a network of 1,350
physicians and six hospitals and one children’s medical
center.
(March 5, 2007)
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Massachusetts Trial To Track Blood Pressure Wirelessly
Partners HealthCare in Massachusetts next month will begin
electronically monitoring the blood pressure of employees
from EMC, an information management company and one of the
state's largest employers, to test if increased monitoring
and online feedback improve blood pressure levels.
(March 5, 2007)
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Many Washington, D.C., Hospitals Slow to Adopt Technology
Most hospitals in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area
are not integrating electronic health records because of the
high costs and "an unwillingness to adapt to" the new
technology.
(March 5, 2007)
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Washable Handheld Device Enables EHR Access
A new wireless handheld device developed by health IT
startup Emano Tec enables full, mobile access to electronic
health records, and it can be disinfected thousands of
times.
(March 5, 2007)
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SPECIAL AUDIO REPORT FROM HIMSS: At Close of Conference,
Health IT Leaders Poised To Turn Strategy into Action
Leavitt said the next step is connecting the current
momentum at the state and federal level with key local-level
players "to make it real." "Now the strategy is rolling, and
the main question is, 'How does this link up to what's
happening here in my hospital, in my doctor's office?'" he
said. Donovan, who attended an extensive symposium on RHIOs,
said the focus of that session "was really an urgency to
move forward into data exchange, get off the dime about
planning, get off the dime about applying for grants.
(March 5, 2007)
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FDA Panel Rejects Wireless Heart-Monitoring Device
An FDA panel comprised of outside medical advisers rejected
a first-of-its-kind wireless device for monitoring
heart-failure patients, arguing that the possible benefits
of the device did not outweigh the risk of surgery to
implant it.
(March 2, 2007)
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HHS Secretary, National Health IT Leader Tout Progress
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt and interim National Coordinator
for Health IT Robert Kolodner on Thursday discussed health
IT progress, President Bush's commitment to interoperable
electronic health records and the importance of privacy
protections at the Healthcare Information and Management
Systems Society's annual conference.
(March 2, 2007)
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Nurse Informaticists Work on a Variety of Applications
Nurse informaticists are
most likely to be involved in the development and adoption
of nursing clinical documentation and clinical information
systems, with 77% reporting participating in each, according
to a new
survey by the Healthcare Information and Management
Systems Society.
(March 2, 2007)
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Telehealth myths are commonplace, speaker contends
Using a David Letterman-style Top 10 list, seminar presenter
Joe Tracy counted down some of the most common myths
surrounding the telehealth concept for HIMSS07 attendees
Wednesday. From number 10 through number one, the vice
president of telehealth services for Lehigh Valley (Pa. )
Hospital and Health Network rattled off the most popular
misperceptions and misquotes about telehealth as follows: 1)
“Build it and they will come”; 2) All practitioners like it;
3) Training one person is all you need to do; 4) Broadband
is everywhere; 5) One size fits all and it’s plug and play;
6) If something goes wrong with a group of physicians, you
will get another chance; 7) The government is here to help;
8) New equipment is always backward compatible; 9) Networks
never fail; 10) “It’s just wires and doctors”. In addressing
each item, Tracy said telehealth can’t exist in a vacuum –
it takes a dedicated team to run it.
(March 2, 2007)
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