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June
2007 |
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Round 2 of NHIN work to begin
A report detailing a summary of four prototype architectures
studied as the precursor for a nationwide health information
network was released last week. The report covers the first
year of work and lists common elements that will be used as
the nation takes its next step in developing the NHIN, which
is trial implementations. The Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology said last
Friday that the request for proposals (RFP) for the NHIN
trial implementations is now available on federal Web sites.
In the RFPs, the Department of Health and Human Services,
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information
Technology, is seeking proposals from state, regional and
non-geographic health information exchange organizations to
participate in Round 2 of the expansion of the Nationwide
Health Information Network. The government said it expects
this phase of NHIN development to take about a year, with an
option to expand the initiative to two additional option
years. Government officials said they developed the process
to take the best elements of the recently completed
prototype architectures and incorporate them into the trial
implementations. ONC is expected to grant 10 interested
parties individual one-year contracts. According to a recent
Web announcement, HHS said it is looking for qualified
applicants that form consortia to include organizational
governance and trust relationships; provider organizations
and healthcare markets; consumer applications; participating
consumers; and existing health exchange activities and
technical expertise.
(June 11, 2007)
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Not everyone benefits from IRS ruling
Not all electronic medical records vendors will benefit
equally from the recent Internal Revenue Service ruling
allowing not-for-profit hospitals to provide healthcare
information technology to physicians, according to a recent
report by analysts at Leerink Swann & Company. George Hill
and Bret Jones of Leerink Swann’s Health Care Equity
Research team wrote the report for investors in the wake of
the May 11 IRS memorandum. They believe that vendors that
currently have a high profile position in the national EMR
market are best positioned to capitalize on the “potential
influx of spending from not-for-profit hospitals,” but that
the ruling could actually harm smaller, regional vendors.
The recent IRS ruling was important because it declared that
a not-for-profit hospital’s purchase of an EMR system for a
physician would not be considered an “impermissible private
benefit,” according to the terms of the exemption to the
Stark Anti-trust laws provided by CMS, and would not put a
hospital’s tax-exempt status at risk. In their report, Hill
and Jones anticipate that the number of hospitals planning
to assist physicians with the purchase of an EMR system may
be greater than previously thought. The Leerink Swann
analysts contend that some regions, particularly urban
areas, could see a “heightening competitive environment” as
hospitals offer financial assistance to physicians for EMR
purchases in order to attract more referrals for surgeries
and other hospital-based procedures. While hospital spending
on EMRs for physicians is likely to increase, Hill and Jones
suggest that contract signings with vendors may not spike in
the immediate future. Hospital systems are generally
conservative, they say, and their longer cycle capital
budgeting process probably means that contract awards are
several quarters away.
(June 11, 2007)
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Brailer leaves AHIC, starts equity fund
The Department of Health and Human Services announced late
Friday the resignation of David Brailer, MD, as vice chair
of the American Health Information Community. Brailer,
former head of the Office of the National Coordinator for
Health Information Technology, has been a key part in
building the prestigious healthcare IT advisory panel known
as AHIC, according to a statement by HHS Secretary Michael
Leavitt. Brailer told Healthcare IT News that his
resignation was “something that [he] did not want to do, but
also something that [he] felt that [he] must do.” In his
June 7 resignation letter to Leavitt, Brailer said he
believes that his new venture announced last week, Health
Evolution Partners, to advise and manage investments in
healthcare “does not present any actual or potential
conflict” with his public service position at AHIC.
“However, because avoiding even the perception of conflict
is my utmost concern, I have decided to resign,” Brailer
said. “I applaud the courage and the perseverance that you
demonstrate by your efforts to lead change in our healthcare
system,” Brailer told Leavitt. Last week Brailer announced
he would be starting a $700 million private equity fund,
Health Evolution Partners, to help lower healthcare costs in
America with a focus on healthcare IT. According to a
statement by Health Evolutions Partners, its mission is to
realize value in health care by investing in innovative ways
for health care to be financed, organized and delivered.
“Health Evolution Partners will accelerate inevitable change
that is underway in health care,” Brailer said. “Our
investments will have a beneficial impact on the health care
system and will be seen as benchmarks for financial
performance for health care companies in the future.”
(June 11, 2007)
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Report: IT as centerpiece to healthcare reform
The Center for American
Progress proposes to improve the healthcare system through
information technology, according a report it released this
week. In Navigating American Health Care: How IT Can
Foster Health Care Improvement, author Karen Davenport
calls for policy changes to spur healthcare IT adoption.
“Health IT systems, properly implemented, could transform
how healthcare providers deliver care – resulting in a
quality-focused healthcare system that improves lives, lower
costs, and boosts healthcare productivity,” she contends.
The report outlines the steps needed to reform the
healthcare system into what Davenport calls a “result-based
industry.” To take advantage of the efficiency and quality
improvements promised by cutting-edge healthcare information
technology, the center proposed a new healthcare IT
infra-structure improvement fund to further the adoption of
standardized, compatible, and scalable IT solutions. The
fund would be complemented by new federal leadership in
advancing IT’s promise of administrative and clinical
efficiency through demonstration projects, such as changes
in Medicare reimbursement, designed to encourage the
implementation of new technologies.
(June 8, 2007)
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SA kick-starts e-health
South Australia's Department of Health has been given $11.5
million to kick start a long-awaited upgrade of its patient
management systems that is eventually expected to cost as
much as $70 million. Patient system funding comes after
extensive lobbying by SA's Department of Health
The funding was awarded in yesterday's 2007-2008 South
Australian state budget and comes after extensive lobbying
by the department over the past few years. According to a
South Australian Treasury capital statement issued as part
of the budget, the $11.5 million will be used to support the
replacement of several IT systems, including the ageing
patient administration platform.
(June 8, 2007)
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Utah system improves care with IT
Healthcare IT adoption may be painful, but the fruits are
well worth it, says Brent James, MD, vice president of
medical research and executive director of the Institute of
Health Care Delivery Research at Intermountain Healthcare in
Salt Lake City, Utah. At a June 5 Center for Health
Transformation meeting in Washington, DC, James showed how
Intermountain used healthcare IT to successfully lower costs
and improve care.
(June 7, 2007)
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New coalition vows to get healthcare IT law passed in 2007
A new coalition announced Tuesday on Capitol Hill promises
to lead patients, practitioners and employers to prompt
Congress to pass healthcare IT legislation. “The difference
between our organization and others is we want something
passed this year,” said Joel White, director of the
fledgling “Health IT Now!" The coalition brings together
former Sen. John Breaux and former Rep. Nancy Johnson as
co-sponsors along with 22 healthcare and business
organizations, including the National Association of
Manufacturers. The main purpose of the group is to raise
awareness of how healthcare IT can save money and lives,
Breaux said at a press conference June 5. “[Healthcare IT]
is an incredibly important subject and it’s not getting
enough attention from the public or from Congress. We want
to get people excited about something that is so important
and yet relatively simple to put together.” Funding
healthcare IT advancement will be difficult, especially in
the current federal “pay-as-you-go” environment, but
“Congress is going to have to find the money,” Breaux said.
The coalition wants to emphasize legislation that can
jumpstart the process of healthcare IT advancement through
grants for hospitals and doctors, he said.
(June 6, 2007)
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Visions: Preizler offers insurer's perspective on healthcare
IT
Editor's note: We've
heard about the merits of electronic medical records and
other healthcare information technology from health
providers and vendors, but what do insurer's make of the
industry's electronic push? Marty Preizler, president and
CEO of
Physicians Plus Insurance Corp., views the benefits in
much the same way and he explains why in Part I of a recent
interview with WTN.
(June 5, 2007)
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HHS to expand nationwide health IT network
The federal government is expected this week to expand its
efforts to create an interoperable healthcare IT network of
networks. The Department of Health and Human Services,
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information
Technology, will call for proposals this week from state,
regional and non-geographic health information exchange
organizations to participate in Round 2 of the expansion of
the Nationwide Health Information Network. ONC will grant 10
interested parties a 1-year contract each, with the option
for two 1-year extensions. The request for proposals was
expected to be published in the Federal Register as early as
today, according to a statement published by the Department
of Health and Human Services in a May 17 Web announcement
summarizing the project.
(June 5, 2007)
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New partnership expected to boost health data exchange
The new partnership between Wellogic and
PricewaterhouseCoopers promises to take health information
exchange to a new level - from early adoption to mainstream,
according to industry observers. Wellogic brings to the
table technology for connecting the healthcare community.
PricewaterhouseCoopers adds its professional services
expertise. “One of the biggest challenges for innovative
companies like ours is how do you scale innovation beyond
the early adopters,” said Sumit Nagpal, founder, chairman
and CEO of Wellogic, whose RHIO clients include the
Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative and MedVirginia.
“PricewaterhouseCoopers will help establish business
processes as mainstream and make it viable in the real
world.”
(June 4, 2007)
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Most presidential candidates mum on healthcare IT
Despite recent polls that show healthcare is second only to
the War in Iraq as a concern for voters, few presidential
candidates – in a field of 18 contenders so far – have yet
to come forward with a plan for healthcare reform. The
Democratic candidates who have proposed plans - Sens.
Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama, and former Sen. John
Edwards - have promoted IT as a key component.
(June 1, 2007)
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May
2007 |
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HealthBridge Partners With Axolotl for Clinical Results
Delivery to Twenty Three Community Electronic Medical
Records Systems - Physicians Receive Patient Data Directly
Into Their Practice EMRs
HealthBridge, the largest and most successful Regional
Health Information Organization (RHIO) in the United States
announced today that they are successfully delivering
clinical results to 23 unique EMR systems using Axolotl's
state-of-the art health information exchange (HIE) Elysium
solution. The HealthBridge community of approximately 4,500
physicians and 21 hospitals (5 health systems), in the
greater Cincinnati area have been electronically
communicating results since 2001. With ambulatory EMR
adoption on the rise, HealthBridge has been able to quickly
accommodate the choices made by its physicians and now has
more operational interfaces than any other community.
Physicians receive clinical data directly into their EMRs --
building a complete patient record. "HealthBridge is
thrilled to be able to provide significant value to
physicians that are using EMRs," said Bob Steffel, CEO,
HealthBridge. "Data from 21 hospitals, 2 national
laboratories, 2 imaging centers and other healthcare source
systems is pushed to those physicians' EMRs in a way that
the EMRs can immediately accept. Using Axolotl's Elysium
solution, we no longer have to update code or create
customized point-to-point interfaces for each of our 23
community EMRs." "Axolotl's Health Information Exchange
solutions make it easy for hospitals, health systems and
entire communities to share healthcare data, regardless of
the source system or EMR in place," said Ray Scott, CEO of
Axolotl. "HealthBridge has made this capability a reality 23
times, and growing! Their physicians and patient population
are reaping the benefits in workflow improvements, cost
savings and a higher quality of care."
(May 31, 2007)
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Vermont Governor Promotes Vermont’s E-State Initiative at
National Technology Conference
In the keynote address at a technology conference sponsored
by Governing Magazine today, Vermont Governor Jim Douglas is
highlighting the role of technology in reducing health care
costs and promoting Vermont’s initiative to become the first
state to offer residents universal access to quality data
and cellular voice coverage and high-speed broadband
technology—a goal Douglas says can be achieved by 2010.
Governor Douglas—who co-chairs the National Governors
Association State Alliance for e-Health—said the nation’s
governors recognize the critical role Health Information
Technology and the electronic exchange of health information
play in improving health care services and lowering costs.
(May 31, 2007)
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Community Provider Gets Mobile EMR
Closing the Gap Healthcare Group, an Ontario-based community
health care services organization, will implement mobile
electronic medical records and patient management software
from TELUS, Toronto. Terms of the contract were not
disclosed. Closing the Gap Healthcare Group will enable its
600 clinical staff members to use the vendor's Community
Care Management Solution, which can be accessed on smart
phones, PDAs or notebook PCs.
(May 31, 2007)
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Where the Dems Stand on I.T.
The three leading Democratic challengers for president all
support expanded use of health information technology. And
they all briefly explain in health care position papers
their I.T. strategy if elected president.
(May 31, 2007)
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Wyoming's First Telepharmacy Targets Rural Patients
The University of Wyoming TriCounty Clinic in Pine Bluffs,
Wyo., has opened the state's first telepharmacy to help
patients avoid traveling long distances to obtain their
prescription drugs.
(May 31, 2007)
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Pennsylvania Library System Lays Plans for Health Data
Network
The Library System of Lancaster County, Penn., is using a
$66,744 federal grant to launch the Health Information
Network, a Web site that is intended to provide residents
with unbiased, reliable medical information and resources.
(May 31, 2007)
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Federal Agency Shares Quality Report Card Examples Online
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on Wednesday
released a Web-based directory of more than 200 samples that
can be used to create quality report cards for hospitals,
health plans, medical groups, physician practices and
nursing homes.
(May 31, 2007)
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CMS Unveils NPI Data Dissemination
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has announced
how it will enable access to data from its National Plan and
Provider Enumeration System--a week after the original
deadline for the National Provider Identifier rule. CMS was
required in the original NPI rule to release a data
dissemination policy. The initial rule was published in
January 2004. According to guidance published in the May 30
edition of the Federal Register, CMS will offer
Web-based access to a downloadable file of select data
within its NPPES database in 30 days.
(May 30, 2007)
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Saint Joe's Mobilizes Clinical Data
Saint Joseph Medical Center, part of the Mokena, Ill.-based
Provena Health System, has purchased mobile clinical
software from Boston-based PatientKeeper Inc. Terms of the
contract were not disclosed. The 475-bed, Joliet, Ill.-based
hospital will implement the software to improve access to
clinical data stored in its hospital information system,
from Medical Information Technology Inc., Westwood, Mass.,
and other applications. The PatientKeeper system can be used
on smart phones, PDAs, Tablet PCs or notebook PCs.
(May 30, 2007)
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Medical Errors Drive Wave of New Patient Safety Web Sites
Patients and their family members who have experienced
medical errors are "becoming an increasingly powerful and
vocal force" by creating Web sites and online communities to
share strategies for preventing the errors and provide
support and advice.
(May 30, 2007)
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Kentucky Adopts Public Health Data Information System
The Kentucky Department for Public Health has created a
public health information communications system that will
enable real-time information sharing during public health
emergencies and connect local, state and federal officials.
(May 30, 2007)
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American Medical Association Joins Online Doctor Forum
The American Medical Association on Wednesday plans to
announce a two-year partnership with Sermo, a startup
company that lets physicians exchange ideas online and
charges investment firms to view posting that could give
them insight to drug side effects and other medical market
trends.
(May 30, 2007)
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Opinion: Open-Source EHR System a Viable Option for Wide Use
WorldVistA -- an
open-source, low-cost electronic health record system that
is easy to use and readily available -- "could be the key to
the health care system we ought to have already," according
to a
New York Times opinion piece by Thomas Goetz,
deputy editor of Wired magazine.
(May 30, 2007)
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Federal bill would set healthcare IT standards
Asserting that the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has failed
to advance President Bush's goal of widespread electronic
medical record adoption,
U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., has introduced a bill
that would require a federal technology agency to accelerate
the integration of healthcare information technology. If
enacted, the measure would require the
National Institute of Standards and Technology to
increase its efforts to support the integration of
healthcare IT in the United States. The legislation, known
as H.R. 2406, says NIST is “well equipped to address the
technical challenges posed by healthcare information
enterprise integration.”
(May 30, 2007)
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Q&A: Pamela Wirth Stresses Increasing Need for Workflow
Management
Pamela Wirth, vice president of Soarian Clinical Suite at
Siemens Medical Solutions and the past chair of The
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
(HIMSS), sees much opportunity for healthcare process
management. The goal of Business Process Management (BPM) is
linking business objectives with IT-enabled process
improvements. According to a recent report by the Gartner
Group, BPM is the No. 1 priority for chief information
officers (CIOs). Healthcare CIOs are demanding better access
to information, increase in the quality of care, and
reduction in medical errors. Digital HealthCare &
Productivity recently spoke with Wirth about how the areas
of workflow and healthcare process management are becoming
increasingly critical for healthcare organizations.
(May 29, 2007)
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Continuity of Care, Certification, and Communication Drive
the Conversations at TEPR
Reflecting a more focused
approach to health information
than the scattershots of past,
last week’s
Towards the Electronic Patient
Record (TEPR)
conference in Dallas placed a
heavy emphasis on real-world
examples of interoperability
rather than on simply making
standards. Attendees got several
first-person accounts of how the
Continuity of Care Record
(CCR) has been employed in
primary care, and at least two
other sessions were dedicated to
the user-friendly Health PDF
(see
“Health PDF to Link Healthcare
Providers”). “I think
we are wasting our time in
developing academic standards,”
said C. Peter Waegemann, chief
executive of the
Medical Records Institute,
the Boston-based organizer of
TEPR. “I think we will see in
the next couple of years
practical standards coming out
of industry, not coming out of
the standards world,” Waegemann
forecast, reflecting a change in
his own thinking from several
years ago.
(May 29, 2007)
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Vendor, Consultant Team for RHIOs
Web portal vendor Wellogic Inc. and consulting firm
PricewaterhouseCoopers have teamed to offer technology and
planning services to regional health information
organizations and other health data exchanges.
(May 29, 2007)
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Island Hospital Opts To Diagnose Strokes Via Telemedicine
Link
Martha's Vineyard Hospital is using a telemedicine program
offered by two Harvard University teaching hospitals to
remotely diagnose stroke patients, a move that has helped
speed treatment and save money.
(May 29, 2007)
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Cerner Teams Up With Medical School on Physician Technology
Cerner is partnering with the University of Missouri School
of Medicine to develop technology that will enhance patient
care and improve the training of physicians.
(May 29, 2007)
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Possible Pitfalls of Online Patient Data Worry Some Doctors
Some physicians worry that patient control of personal
health records will lead to problems related to security,
privacy and patients misunderstanding information in the
records.
(May 29, 2007)
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Pregnant Women in California Get Second Opinions Online
The University of California-San Francisco Fetal Treatment
Center has begun offering online consultations to pregnant
women who want a second opinion about their fetuses.
(May 29, 2007)
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Who Do Consumers Trust to Deliver Information About Health
Data Exchanges?
Sixty-seven percent of
consumers say they trust their physicians most in providing
them with information about secure electronic health
information exchange, compared with 8% who said they trust
hospitals the most, according to a
survey by the eHealth Initiative Foundation.
(May 29, 2007)
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Clinton proposes IT fix for healthcare
Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-New York)
said last week that upgrading healthcare from paper to
electronic records is among several key ways the U.S. could
cut runaway healthcare spending by one third... If elected
president, Clinton said her plan for recovery would include
establishing electronic health records, emphasis on paying
doctors for preventative medicine, streamlining care for the
chronically ill, providing universal healthcare coverage,
improving quality of care with an independent public-private
Best Practices Institute, reining in prescription drug costs
and establishing medical malpractice reform.
(May 29, 2007)
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Obama, like Clinton, proposes health IT investment
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has joined
rival Hillary Clinton by making health information
technology a cornerstone of his plan to improve the
availability of health insurance and the quality of care
Americans receive. Obama, a senator from Illinois, called
today for reducing “waste and inefficiency by moving from a
20th-century health care industry based on pen and paper to
a 21st-century industry based on the latest information
technology.”
(May 29, 2007)
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'When I'm 64. . .' Boomers expected to demand healthcare IT
A joint report from First Consulting Group and the American
Hospital Association, titled “When I'm 64: How Boomers Will
Change Health Care,” discusses the demands that Boomers will
place on healthcare, and how hospitals will respond. Top
among Boomer demands will be healthcare information
technology, says Erica Drazen, vice president of FCG and one
of the report’s authors.
(May 29, 2007)
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Diabetes patients benefit from Santa Cruz network
The health information exchange here makes it possible for
healthcare providers to treat people with diabetes more
quickly and accurately - all via an initiative that begun in
1995. It was then that the healthcare providers in Santa
Cruz decided to collaborate and connect electronically. The
community of two hospitals, labs, radiology, pathology and
transcription services today share information digitally
using Axolotl technology. A little more than a year ago, the
community began using a tool from Axolotl to develop a
diabetes disease registry. Providers can identify likely
candidates for diabetes more easily because clinical data is
accessible across the healthcare community. Once candidates
are identified, the tool triggers appropriate alerts to the
providers so important precursors to the disease, such as
blood sugar abnormality or hemoglobin, can be tested and
monitored.
(May 29, 2007)
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NextGen Releases Premier Data Capture Tools for Federal
Pay-For-Performance Efforts
NextGen Healthcare Information Systems Inc., a subsidiary of
Quality Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: QSII), today announced it has
released its data capture tools to help physician practices
prepare for federal Pay-For-Performance (P4P) efforts - the
Physicians Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and Medicare
Care Management Program (MCMP).
(May 29, 2007)
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AMA Wants Doctors to Swap Idea Online
The American Medical Association is working with a startup
company that encourages doctors to swap ideas online and
charges investment firms to view postings that could serve
as tip-offs to drug side effects and other market-moving
medical trends. The AMA on Wednesday plans to announce a
partnership with a company called Sermo Inc., which seeks to
use the Web to tap into the collective wisdom of the
service's growing network of 15,000 U.S. doctors. Some
doctors are skeptical the nine-month-old service can advance
medical safety, and a pharmaceutical industry group worries
the service could spread as much rumor as fact. But the
160-year-old AMA hopes its collaboration with Cambridge,
Mass.-based Sermo will open a new line of communication,
allowing members to quickly share everything from advice
about treating an individual patient's unique symptoms to
opinions on whether regulators should approve an
experimental drug.
(May 29, 2007)
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Doctors Debate Giving Patients' Online Access To Health Data
Should patients control their records online? The answer
isn't obvious to many in health care who fear problems with
security, privacy--and, perhaps secretly, the annoying
questions that inevitably come from patients combing their
records. Children's Hospital Boston this summer will roll
out Web access to personal health records populated with
patient data from the electronic medical records and other
clinical systems used by doctors and nurses, data such as
clinical notes, prescription information, and vaccination
records. The patient--or parent or guardian of a minor--will
decide which data sources feed into his or her personal
health record, giving that person more control and easing at
least some privacy concerns.
(May 26, 2007)
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More Work Prescribed for Medical Info Network
Federal health agencies
plan to reject proposed designs for the Nationwide Health
Information Network, an initiative that would allow medical
professionals, hospitals, laboratories and pharmacies to
share information in real time. After reviewing proposals
submitted in January by Accenture, Computer Science Corp.,
IBM and Northrop Grumman, the Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information and part of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services declared them
insufficient. The agencies decided to take portions from
each proposal and carry them into the final version, ONCHIT
officials said. New RFPs (requests for proposals) will be
issued in the next 14 days and the agency expects to award a
contract this summer. The original RFP, issued in November
of 2005, asked prospective contractors to develop a
prototype for the nationwide network.
(May 25, 2007)
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House Committee Approves I.T. Bill
The U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology has sent
to the full House legislation that would authorize federal
funds for research to improve health care information
systems. The bill also would provide grants to support
increasing the number of professionals entering the health
information technology field. Sponsored by Rep. David Wu
(D-Ore.), the bill, H.R. 1467 has the support of the
American Health Information Management Association in
Chicago, which has called on the House to approve the
legislation.
(May 25, 2007)
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Methodist Docs Get Integrated Systems
The Methodist Hospital Physician Organization has
implemented integrated practice management and ambulatory
electronic medical records software for nearly 200
physicians employed by Methodist Health System in Houston.
The physicians are using the Web-based practice management
software and outsourced billing/collections services of
Watertown, Mass.-based athenahealth Inc., along with the
Sunrise Ambulatory Care EMR of Eclipsys Corp., Boca Raton,
Fla. The systems are integrated with the delivery system’s
core Sunrise Clinical Manager software.
(May 25, 2007)
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Online Health Data Transform Doctor-Patient Relationships
The physician-patient relationship is changing as patients
increasingly are going online for health information and
take more responsibility for their care.
(May 25, 2007)
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Group Seeks Public Comment on Proposed IT Standards
"Standards are great -- there are so many to choose from!"
So goes a common joke in the health IT community that takes
a subtle jab at the abundance of standards available today
and the lack of standards accepted industry-wide. The
importance of standards for health IT is critical,
especially when it comes to interoperability. When different
electronic health record systems cannot communicate with
each other to transfer patient information or lab results,
the value of such technology is diminished -- especially in
emergency situations.
(May 25, 2007)
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Despite advances, most hospitals are years away from fully
computerized systems
Hospital records aren't what they used to be at Tri-City
Medical Center. Emergency room doctors record orders for lab
tests, medications and treatments on wireless tablet
computers. Nurses on the in-patient floors enter vital signs
into rolling laptop computers. And digital X-ray images are
available on computer screens throughout the Oceanside,
Calif., hospital moments after they are taken. This kind of
technology was a novelty just a few years ago, but now most
hospitals across the country use some sort of electronic
medical records system - a technological leap proven to
reduce medical errors and one that many think is key to
slowing runaway health care costs. Several RAND Corp.
researchers predicted that electronic health records could
save hospitals and doctors $513 billion over the next 15
years, savings that could be passed along to insurers and
patients, according to a 2005 article in the journal Health
Affairs.
(May 25, 2007)
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Quantum Foundation Funds Expansion of Shared Electronic
Health Record Exchange for Palm Beach County Community
Health Alliance
Quantum Foundation has announced its second major grant
toward funding of the Palm Beach County Community Health
Alliance's (PBCCHA) innovative electronic health information
exchange, called All-Care. All-Care is a model program that
is being implemented in collaboration with county hospitals,
clinics, and physicians to create shared electronic health
records for uninsured and insured patients throughout the
county. When fully implemented, experts anticipate that it
will save significant dollars, to improve continuity of care
for patients, and to reduce medical errors and waste in
health care settings. Quantum's $300,000 grant will add
thousands of additional patients to a system that already
houses records for over 60,000 patients, or over one quarter
of the 230,000 uninsured people in Palm Beach County.
(May 24, 2007)
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RFID: Punish Behavior, Not Technology
Imagine an unconscious patient requiring immediate medical
care being brought into an emergency room following a
natural disaster or some other emergency. The person has an
RFID card that would give medical professionals access to
critical health information and medical history. But they're
prohibited from reading it because it would violate the
individual's rights to privacy. Is this an unbelievable
scenario? Not really. This year, legislators are considering
a plethora of RFID legislation and, unless we're careful,
this scenario might well be played out in emergency rooms
across the country. RFID-enabled identification documents
can help protect the health and safety of citizens by
"speaking" when the individual can't or won't. In addition
to the emergency room scenario, RFID documents can provide
law enforcement personnel or first responders with a means
to identify individuals who are unconscious or otherwise
unresponsive if the printed information on the ID is
unreadable. And they can ensure the accurate identification
of an individual pursuant to serving a search warrant,
subpoena or court order. Yet these, and other, uses of
RFID-enabled documents might fall under "unauthorized
reading" clauses of broadly worded and ill-conceived
legislation. Instead of protecting people, such legislation
could imperil them.
(May 24, 2007)
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Physician Vendors Align
Two software vendors serving the physician practice market
have aligned to offer an integrated electronic medical
records/practice management system. West Des Moines,
Iowa-based MediNotes Corp. will integrate its e EMR software
with the Total Solution practice management application of
MDeverywhere Inc., Hauppauge, N.Y. The practice management
software operates on a Web-enabled desktop or Palm-based
mobile computing device. The software enables the capturing
of charges at the point of care and use of a coding rules
engine to maximize reimbursement.
(May 24, 2007)
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Clinton adds health IT plank to presidential platform
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) is putting health information
technology high on her list of ways to rein in the country’s
health care costs while improving the quality of care.
In a speech today outlining her presidential campaign
platform for health care, Clinton proposed spending $3
billion a year to help doctors and hospitals implement
health IT. In addition, she said she wanted to see a system
of incentives for doctors to use the technology. Clinton
offered seven proposals for improving health care and cited
research findings that estimate the total reduction in
health care costs would be at least $120 billion a year. She
said that money could be used to extend health coverage to
all Americans.
(May 24, 2007)
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Kansas Health System Goes Live With Remote ICU Monitoring
Mount Carmel Regional Medical Center in Pittsburg, Kan., on
Wednesday went live with a remote monitoring system for
intensive care unit patients.
(May 24, 2007)
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Pennsylvania Senate Committee OKs Bill for EHR Grants
The Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee passed a
bill that would fund the adoption of electronic health
record systems in hospitals.
(May 24, 2007)
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Web Portal To Help Consumers Manage Personal Health
Revolution Health Group has partnered with Medco Health
Solutions, a pharmacy benefit manager, to create a Web
portal that is designed to help Medco customers take more
control of their health care and better manage their health
spending.
(May 24, 2007)
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House Committee Approves Bill To Expand Health IT Training
The House Science and
Technology Committee on Wednesday approved by voice vote a
bipartisan bill (HR
1467) to expand electronic health recordkeeping,
CongressDaily reports. The legislation, sponsored by
Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.), would allocate $3.5 million in
fiscal year 2008 and a total of $14.6 million through FY
2011 for research, development and educational programs.
(May 24, 2007)
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RHIOs: Experts look beyond the money
What does it take to set up a regional health information
exchange? Answer: Flexibility. And, privacy and
sustainability should be at the top of the list of issues to
address. That’s what two top RHIO experts told at audience
at the 16th Annual Partnering for Electronic Delivery of
Information in Healthcare (WEDI) national conference here
last week.
(May 24, 2007)
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AHIMA Encouraged By House Committee Passage of Healthcare IT
Bill
The following statement was released today by Linda L.
Kloss, MA, RHIA, Chief Executive Officer, American Health
Information Management Association: "The American Health
Information Management Association congratulates Rep. David
Wu on his astute leadership and strong commitment to the
issue of improving every aspect of healthcare information
technology in America. In leading the overwhelming passage
of H.R. 1467 by the House Science and Technology Committee
on Wednesday, Rep. Wu has sent a clear signal that
healthcare information technology is absolutely central to
the overall quality of 21st century healthcare in America
and that in order for Americans to enjoy the very best
healthcare information technology, it is imperative that
Congress lead the way in making a serious investment along
the cutting edge of its future.
(May 24, 2007)
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Wonderling Leads Effort to Digitize Medical Records
The Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee passed a
measure sponsored by Sen. Rob Wonderling (R-Montgomery,
Bucks, Lehigh and Northampton) to fund the creation of
digitized medical record systems in hospitals. Wonderling,
chairman of the Senate Communications and Technology
Committee, says the bill will result in improved patient
care and reduced health care costs. "Why is digital health
care important? E-records, when balanced with the proper
protection of an individual's personal sensitive data,
improve health care quality, reduce medical errors, lower
the cost of medical care, and advance the delivery of
patient-centered health care," Wonderling said. The senator
cited one federal study estimating a nationwide electronic
health records network would result in $140 billion saved
annually. Some of the other benefits Wonderling cites
include the ability to send medical test results to patients
via the internet and the ability of patients to
electronically renew their prescriptions. Doctors, he said,
will also be able to send medical advice to patients
electronically and parents could print out their children's
immunization records.
(May 23, 2007)
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Legislation Introduced to Integrate U.S. Healthcare/Patient
Information Technologies
U.S. House
Committee on Science and Technology
Chairman Bart Gordon has introduced
legislation authorizing the National
Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) to establish guidelines and
mechanisms to promote the integration of
the healthcare information enterprise in
the United States. "The U.S. boasts the
finest healthcare system in the world,
yet doctors and patients still don't
have access to comprehensive health
information. Healthcare is the fastest
growing sector of the U.S. economy, but
it's also the only major sector that
hasn't fully integrated information
technology," said Gordon. Gordon's bill
--
H.R. 2406 -- is based upon comments
gathered from industry stake-holders,
patient advocates and
widely-acknowledged recommendations made
by both the President's Information
Technology Advisory Committee in their
report, Revolutionizing Healthcare
through Information Technology as well
as the National Academies report,
Building a Better Delivery System: A New
Engineering/Health Care Partnership.
(May 23, 2007)
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AMA Gives Docs Drug Decision Support
The American Medical Association has introduced a free
online tool that gives physicians evidence-based guidelines
on treating specific medical conditions and enables
physicians to compare their prescribing patterns to their
peers.
(May 23, 2007)
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Representative Takes Another Stab at Tax Incentive Bill
Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) on Monday reintroduced legislation
that would encourage the adoption of electronic health
records and electronic prescriptions by offering tax
incentives to health care providers who purchase IT.
(May 23, 2007)
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Privacy, Ownership Issues Make Patients Cautious About PHRs
Health consumers have not yet embraced personal health
records because they are being promoted by health plans and
employers, and patients are concerned that they may be used
against them.
(May 23, 2007)
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Federal Health IT Office Moves Forward With National Network
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is
planning its first trials of the Nationwide Health
Information Network, which will connect state and regional
health groups using electronic health records.
(May 23, 2007)
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Chip Makers Seek To Enter Personalized Health Care Market
Semiconductor companies are using the Internet, wireless
technology and chips to develop new products that could
"usher in an era of in-home, personalized health care.
(May 23, 2007)
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Hill Physicians Medical Group Taps IT Optimizers(R) to
Build EMR Deployment Team with FULCRUM Series Methodologies(R)
Hill Physicians Medical Group,
California's largest Independent Practice Association (IPA),
has selected IT Optimizers(R) as its recruiting partner.
Hill Physicians, long an information technology leader in
the physician IPA marketplace, is relying on IT Optimizers
to find and place over thirty qualified information
technology professionals for its electronic medical record
deployment and various other IT initiatives.
(May 23, 2007)
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Health-IT: An Affordable Proposition
If
the U.S. healthcare industry
found a way to recapture some of
the billions of dollars
essentially thrown away for
unnecessary procedures, unproven
treatments, overpriced
medications, and expensive new
devices that offer little
improvement over what they
replace, all of a sudden
health-IT could become an
affordable proposition. That was
the message author Maggie Mahar,
who penned the 2006 book,
Money-Driven Medicine,
delivered to the 23rd annual
Towards the Electronic Patient
Record (TEPR) meeting
here Monday. “Right now,
investments in bleeding-edge
medical technology could be
spent on information
technology,” Mahar said during
her keynote address to this
gathering of about 4,000
health-IT professionals,
vendors, and interested
healthcare practitioners. Mahar,
cited statistics suggesting that
up to one-third of the $2
trillion that goes to healthcare
in the U.S. each year is lost
not to administrative waste, but
to costly or redundant
treatments. By recovering some
of that unnecessary spending,
the $900 billion or so she said
is needed to create a system of
secure, interoperable electronic
health records over the next 20
years would become a bargain,
particularly because Mahar
believes IT delivers a proven
return on investment.
(May 22, 2007)
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Health PDF to Link Healthcare Providers
After a couple of years of
flying under the radar, a data
standard known as the
Continuity of Care Record
(CCR) is starting to prove its
worth to healthcare providers as
an easy-to-use interoperability
tool. And a modified version of
the ubiquitous PDF is poised to
do the same. “It could be that
the CCR is the only business
model that works for a RHIO,”
suggested St. Charles, Ill.,
family physician Stasia Kahn at
the 23rd annual
Towards the Electronic Patient
Record (TEPR) meeting
here this week. Kahn talked
about how she and other
physicians in the Chicago area
are building the foundation for
a regional health information
organization with the help of
the CCR — an XML data set of
essential information for when
patients move between care
settings — and encouraged other
practitioners to adopt the
standard. “There’s a lot of
providers still waiting, and my
message to you is there’s no
reason to wait any longer,” said
Kahn, who called the CCR the
only real way to send secure,
electronic clinical data from
provider to provider right now.
But that may soon change, as a
health-specific version of the
Portable Document Format, known
as PDF-H, is on its way, thanks
to a collaboration between PDF
inventor
Adobe Systems and
computer chip-maker
Intel, with support
from several medical specialty
societies.“Raise your hand if
you can open a PDF document on
your computer,” instructed
Steven Waldren, director of the
Center for Health Information
Technology of the
American Academy of Family
Physicians. After
pretty much everyone in the room
complied, Waldren said, “That’s
the use case.”
(May 22, 2007)
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Manhattan Survey Identifies Health-IT Tipping Point
The
phrase “tipping point” has been
bandied about in healthcare for
several years to signify an
irreversible shift toward
widespread acceptance of
health-IT — as recently as last
week in
Digital HealthCare &
Productivity. A new study
suggests that such a state
finally is at hand in the
oh-so-fickle physician market.
About 30 percent of 1,353 U.S.
physicians surveyed this year by
New York-based
Manhattan Research
say they are using electronic
medical records (EMR), and the
total includes not just those
physicians in large,
multi-specialty group practices.
“The trend remains, but the gap
is closing” among smaller
practices, says Manhattan
Research president Mark Bard.
“When you start to hit 30
percent of primary care
physicians or 40 percent of
primary care physicians, then
you’ll start to get something,”
Bard says.
(May 22, 2007)
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Breaking Down Research and Clinical Data Silos
Healthcare is infamous for its data silos. But increasingly
there is a need to combine numerous types of research data
with a variety of clinical data to improve patient
treatments and enable more robust clinical research.
(May 22, 2007)
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Health-IT Week Highlights Legislations and Roadblocks
One Congressman noted the blustery conditions on the outdoor
terrace attached to the House Cannon Office Building and
hoped it was a sign of the “winds of change” blowing through
Capitol Hill on the issue of health information technology.
But it was apparent from the remarks of Rep. Charles
Gonzalez (D-TX), chairman of the House Small Business
Regulations, Healthcare and Trade Subcommittee, and his
House and Senate colleagues gathered for the outdoor press
conference on May 16, that there are also still substantial
head winds impeding the forward movement of health-IT bills.
(May 22, 2007)
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Whitehouse’s first bills focus on health care
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse yesterday gave the first
glimpse of his legislative priorities as Rhode Island’s
newest senator, announcing that the first three bills he
plans to file will focus on health care. One bill would
provide grants to local agencies devoted to improving health
care. Another would establish a private not-for-profit
corporation to develop a nationwide network for electronic
health records. The third would empower states to define
“best practices” in health care and to require insurers to
reimburse for all care that follows those guidelines.
(May 22, 2007)
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Vendor Expands PHR Accessibility
MedeFile International Inc., a vendor of personal health
records software, has enhanced its product to enable
individuals to access their PHR via smart phones and
Web-enabled PDAs. The Cedar Knolls, N.J.-based company’s
software enables subscribers to enter their medical
information into a PHR housed on a secure Web repository.
The vendor also can import official patient records from
physicians into the PHR. The use of smart phones and PDAs
expands the ways that subscribers can access their PHR. The
vendor initially offered a proprietary USB flash drive
loaded with the PHR and viewing software that can be plugged
into any USB port on a Microsoft Windows-based computer.
(May 22, 2007)
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TEPR Awards Announced
The Medical Records Institute Inc., a Boston-based company
that is holding the Towards the Electronic Patient Record
conference this week in Dallas, has announced winners of the
2007 TEPR Awards. The award winners, selected by a panel of
15 consultants, vendors, physicians and others, were honored
for excellence in health care software.
(May 22, 2007)
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Automating Medication Reconciliation
Medication reconciliation, the difficult process of keeping
track of all prescribed and over-the-counter medications a
patient takes before, during and after hospitalization, can
have a profound impact on patient outcomes. “If we fail to
give patients the proper list of medications for use after
discharge, we can’t guarantee they will be taking the right
medications at home, and they could easily wind up back in
the hospital,” says Pam Mattio, a registered nurse at East
Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, La. The Joint
Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations,
Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., requires that hospitals “accurately
and completely reconcile medications across the continuum of
care,” according to its National Patient Safety Goals. So
hospitals are scrambling to build processes to track
medications every step of the way.
(May 22, 2007)
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Health Officials Urge African Countries To Boost IT Adoption
African health officials last week at an annual pan-African
government ministerial IT summit said that Africa's health
systems must adopt health IT to enhance efficiency and care.
(May 22, 2007)
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Some Physicians Worry PHRs Will Add Work, Cause More
Problems
Physicians are concerned that personal health records will
be filled with unimportant patient data and that relevant
information will be overlooked.
(May 22, 2007)
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Rhode Island Senator To Introduce Health Care IT Legislation
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Monday announced that he
will introduce a bill aimed at developing a national
electronic health record network.
(May 22, 2007)
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TEPR 2007 kicks off in Dallas
The 23rd annual Towards the Electronic Patient Record (TEPR)
conference moved into full gear Monday with an opening
session that discussed the need to integrate behavioral
healthcare with primary care, one doctor’s success in
adopting an electronic medical records for his solo
practice, and an impassioned plea from a nationally known
author to spend more money on healthcare IT. The conference,
on target to attract some 2,500 attendees from at least 21
countries, began Saturday at the Dallas Convention Center
with a full slate of tutorials and workshops.
(May 22, 2007)
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Patients wary of employer, plan-sponsored PHRs
Part two of a
two-part series (Access part one
here)
Consumers, or individuals formerly known as "patients," are
being encouraged to "take control" of their own healthcare,
and electronic personal healthcare records are being touted
as the tool they can use to do this. So far, the public has
yet to embrace PHRs, in part because the main push to
promote them appears to be from health plans and employers.
The problem with this approach was illustrated by a 2005
California HealthCare Foundation
survey, which found that 52% of the respondents
were worried about employers using medical information to
limit job opportunities (up from 36% in the 1999 survey).
According to Edward Fotsch, chief executive officer of PHR
provider Medem, the key is to have a PHR provided by a
trusted third party: a patient's physician. Physicians,
however, have been wary of PHRs because of uncertainty over
their effect on workflow and legal liability.
(May 22, 2007)
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PHR data overload, legal liability concern docs
Part one of a two-part series
Like a recurring dream about having to take a test they
didn't study for, some physicians view the idea of patients
with electronic personal-health records as their own
personal nightmare. Visions of patients handing over a
computer disk containing years' worth of blood-pressure
readings taken every four hours along with random
recollections of rashes and muscle strains that physicians
are required to somehow make sense of and memorize are
followed by thoughts of being sued because there was a
kernel of important information missed in the deluge.
"That's why folks like me are terrified of personal health
records and what patients will bring to us," internist
Michael Zaroukian said earlier this year during a panel
discussion at the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise
Connectathon, an event that brings electronic medical-record
vendors together to solve interoperability problems (and
sponsored by the Healthcare Information and Management
Systems Society, the Radiological Society of North America
and the American College of Cardiology).
(May 21, 2007)
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Patient Portal Gets Medical History
Columbia, S.C.-based Primetime Medical Software will embed
its Instant Medical History system into the Patient Portal
application from eClinicalWorks, Westborough, Mass. The
integration will be available in a new version of the
application expected to be released this summer. The Instant
Medical History system is designed to enable patients to
electronically complete a symptom-specific questionnaire
about their health. The integration will enable patients to
use the Patient Portal application to complete the
questionnaire. It also will upload the information into the
patient history bar within the eClinicalWorks electronic
medical records system.
(May 21, 2007)
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Electronic Systems Could End Errors From Hospital Faxes
Health care facilities
frequently send faxes with patients' names and other
personal information to the wrong recipient because a phone
number is misdialed or an automated system experiences
malfunctions, according to experts, the
Miami Herald reports. Laurence Gardner, executive
dean of education at the University of Miami's medical
school, said faxing mistakes occur at University of
Miami/Jackson Memorial and many other facilities. "We don't
like to think it does, but it happens everywhere with a
level of frequency we don't like to admit," he said. Gardner
said hospitals rely on faxes as "a default methodology
because of the lack of electronic [health] records." He
added that the health care industry has been slow to
computerize records because the U.S. doesn't "have a
coherently organized health care system" in which there is
one accepted standard for electronic documents. However,
some Miami facilities are making progress, the Herald
reports. The University of Miami/Jackson Memorial is
adopting an EHR system that can prevent faxes from being
sent to the wrong place by creating a transmission system
that automatically verifies records are going to a
recognized health care provider before they are sent,
Gardner said.
(May 21, 2007)
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IT Executives Offer Advice for Adopting Electronic Records
Health IT executives at the Healthcare Information and
Management Systems Society's Virtual Conference and Expo
last week gave recommendations on how to institute
electronic health record systems most effectively.
(May 21, 2007)
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San Diego Hospitals Still Years Away From Complete EHRs
Most hospitals in San Diego County, Calif., have adopted
some form of an electronic health record system, but they
still remain years away from full-scale EHR adoption.
(May 21, 2007)
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Physicians wary of new national database that makes
liability data public
While physicians encourage patients to do their homework
before choosing a doctor, they warn that HealthGrades Inc.'s
new public national database of medical liability records
might not tell the whole story.
(May 21, 2007)
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Florida e-prescribing initiative on right track
A coordinated effort is under way in Florida to get more
physicians to use electronic prescribing. The initiative,
called ePrescribe Florida, followed a new tack in first
gaining support from large health plans and influential
provider organizations. Now, with some physician
organizations also voicing support, ePrescribe Florida hopes
to recruit a significant number of physicians in the state
who will commit to using electronic prescribing. The
organization hopes to use incentives from the health plans
and the state to help cover physicians’ financial outlays.
Broad health plan and professional association support also
makes the Florida program unique, and it could become a
potential model for other states, said Walt Culbertson, its
executive director.
(May 21, 2007)
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Healthcare IT gains traction in Congress
After a period of seeming inactivity on healthcare IT
legislation in the 110th Congress, the introduction of two
bills last week has helped to blaze the way for further
action, supporters said. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Georgia)
introduced May 16 the Assisting Doctors to Obtain Proficient
and Transmissible Health Information Technology Act – or
ADOPT HIT Act – which would change the federal tax code to
allow physicians to write off $250,000 a year on the
purchase of healthcare IT systems rather than the currently
allowable $100,000. The bill is a stand-alone version of
H.R. 1952 introduced by Gingrey and Charles Gonzalez (D-Tex.
) in April. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich. ), also on May 16,
introduced the Health Information Technology Act of 2007,
which allows a tax incentive for the purchase of healthcare
IT, along with measures to provide grants and privacy
protection. The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Olympia Snowe
(R-Maine) and is a reintroduction of a similar bill
presented last year.
(May 21, 2007)
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Federal Efforts To Jumpstart Health IT Headed in Right
Direction
Anyone who keeps up with
iHealthbeat knows by now that our friends at
the IRS recently took a stab at removing another of the
seemingly endless barriers to getting doctors to use
electronic health records. The IRS document, a short memo
whose subject is "Hospitals Providing Financial Assistance
to Staff Physicians Involving Electronic Health Records," is
intended as an internal policy guide. If you haven't read it
yet, take a moment to do so. It's a curious document.
Clearly, the IRS is trying to be helpful. It seems that its
objective is to allow not-for-profit hospitals to provide
financial support to doctors who have staff privileges and
are seeking to acquire interoperable EHRs.
(May 21, 2007)
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ACS Healthcare Expert Will Saunders Appointed to Electronic
Health Information Exchange Taskforce
Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. today announced that Will
Saunders, ACS' Senior Vice President of Strategy and Product
Development, has been appointed to the Health Information
Communication and Data Exchange Taskforce of the State
Alliance for e-Health. The State Alliance for e-Health is an
executive-level body of state elected officials, including
governors, state legislators, insurance commissioners, and
attorneys general, working to facilitate quality improvement
and efficiency in healthcare through electronic health
information exchange (HIE). The taskforce supports the State
Alliance on issues regarding the roles for publicly funded
health programs in interoperable, electronic HIE.
(May 21, 2007)
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Netsmart Technologies Introduces Connected Care
Architecture(TM) - Enables Users of Netsmart's Enterprise
Software Product Lines to Share Clinical Data for Continuity
of Care and Provides Consumer Access Through Web Portal
Netsmart Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of
enterprise-wide software and services for health and human
services organizations, today introduced the Netsmart
Connected Care Architecture(TM) (CCA), a consumer-centric
framework for interoperability and electronic exchange of
clinical information between behavioral and public
healthcare organizations using Netsmart's enterprise
software solutions and through the newly-introduced Consumer
Access Portal.
(May 18, 2007)
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Mass. Blues Ready for NPI
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has implemented
software from Portico Systems Inc. to map legacy identifiers
to the national provider identifier. The Portico NPI
Solution from the Conshohocken, Pa.-based vendor enables
development of crosswalks that map NPIs to legacy
identifiers. Inbound transactions with NPIs pick up legacy
identifier information from the crosswalk database before
being moved to the adjudication system. Outbound
transactions, in turn, are sent to the crosswalk database to
pick up NPIs.
(May 18, 2007)
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HITSP Seeks Comments on Standards
A standards panel is seeking public comment on new proposals
for interoperability guidelines for electronic health
records. The Healthcare Information Technology Standards
Panel, an industry group working under a federal government
contract, is "harmonizing" data standards--getting them to
work together to promote interoperability. It is seeking
comment on two documents that will form the basis for the
panel’s second set of interoperability specifications. These
specifications will focus on privacy/security and electronic
health records for emergency responders.
(May 18, 2007)
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Qualcomm To Market Cell Phones as Health Monitors
Qualcomm, a wireless technology company, in the second half
of 2008 plans to launch a wireless mobile network that would
allow people to use their cell phones to manage and monitor
health issues, such as diabetes or dieting.
(May 18, 2007)
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Current PHRs Might Not Appeal to Underserved, Study Finds
A recent study of 21
software-based personal health record programs and their
effect on medically underserved areas and ethnic groups
found that it is unlikely that underserved populations will
demand PHRs anytime soon, according to Mathematica
Policy Research. The study also found that PHR
developers might be reluctant to adapt their products to
specific populations until technical, privacy and security
standards are established and a business model is
successful.
(May 18, 2007)
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Government, Employers, Consumers Driving Health IT Market
Mounting pressure from the government, employers and
consumers might encourage hospitals and insurers to adopt
electronic health records to cut costs and improve care.
(May 18, 2007)
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Planning, Early Support Keys to EMR Success, Execs Say
When a major IT project is implemented at The Ohio State
University Medical Center, the IT shop sends out several
“Red Coats” — designated helpers for users who are
struggling with the new system. The medical center’s IT
services team members, who wear coats in the university’s
scarlet color to make them easily identifiable, are credited
with playing a key role in the successful rollout several
years ago of an electronic medical records (EMR) system. At
last week’s Healthcare Information and Management Systems
Society’s Virtual Conference & Expo, IT executives who have
overseen successful EMR and other health IT projects offered
tips for health care firms looking to implement such
systems. “[The EMR] is a whole new application” for health
care firms, said Detlev "Herb" Smaltz, CIO at the
Columbus-based medical center. “They have been doing things
with paper charts forever.” Smaltz stressed the need for
support teams like the medical center's Red Coats to ease
the transition. “You can do as much training as you want
upfront, but invariably there will be a number of folks who
will need some help," he said. Smaltz suggested that user
response to a major new applications in the three weeks
after going live can “make or break” a project.
(May 18, 2007)
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Kolodner says improved care is main focus
The nation’s federal healthcare IT czar, Robert Kolodner,
MD, said Thursday that the government’s entire focus for
healthcare IT advancement is to improve care. Kolodner,
promoted just two weeks ago from interim to permanent
National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, said
the U.S. has a number of motivations for healthcare IT
advancement, from preventing runaway costs from toppling the
economy to an aging population that will face increasing
healthcare needs as time goes on. “Remember, this isn’t
about technology, it’s about transforming the health of the
nation,” Kolodner told attendees at the 16th Annual
Partnering for Electronic Delivery of Information in
Healthcare (WEDI) conference in Baltimore.
(May 17, 2007)
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Standards Panel Announces Open Comment Period on Healthcare
IT Documents
The
Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel
(HITSP), a multi-stakeholder group facilitating the
development of interoperable healthcare data standards for
the United States, has announced the opening of a four week
comment period for two Requirements, Design and Standards
Selection (RDSS) documents. Once reviewed, these documents
will form the basis of the panel's second set of
Interoperability Specifications to be delivered to the
American Health Information Community (AHIC) later this
year. The RDSS documents define the requirements and design
for the Interoperability Specifications and candidate
standards for the AHIC-identified “use cases” relating to
emergency responder electronic health records as well as
security and privacy capabilities. Comments received will be
used to inform the HITSP Technical Committee's ongoing
process of standards selection and Interoperability
Specification development in these areas.
(May 17, 2007)
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Aetna To Pay Pennsylvania Hospital Pay-For-Performance
Bonuses
Doylestown Hospital in Bucks County, Pa., and Aetna this
week announced a pay-for-performance program under which the
hospital will receive bonuses for using best-practice
recommendations from groups like CMS and the National
Quality Forum.
(May 17, 2007)
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Try, Try Again: Lawmakers Plan To Reintroduce Health IT
Bills
A group of lawmakers and health care industry leaders on
Wednesday convened on Capitol Hill to voice their support
health IT adoption. Senators and representatives from both
sides of the aisle touted health IT's potential to lower
costs and improve care and many noted their plans to
introduce legislation that would promote the purchase and
use of health IT.
(May 17, 2007)
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Florida plans, providers add to RHIO building blocks
BlueCross BlueShield of Florida and Humana have begun
expansion of their multi-payer electronic health records
statewide. The work is slated for completion by the end of
2007. Jacksonville and Miami providers will soon join those
in Tampa Bay in having the ability to provide EHRs to their
patients. Gainesville and Tallahassee will soon follow.
Since its introduction in the second quarter of 2006, 383
provider sites have been established for the Availity Care
Profile, with 1,200 physicians enrolled and 217 sites up and
running, according to Catherine Peper, BCBSFL’s vice
president of healthcare IT. By the end of May, 1.5 million
Floridians were slated to be eligible for profiles generated
by authorized providers. When all four areas are added,
approximately 4.3 million commercial health plan members in
Florida will be eligible, said Janna Meek, Humana’s director
of integrated provider solutions.
(May 17, 2007)
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Docs cut costs with new technology
Most Oakland County hospitals are either installing or
already have implemented a system for keeping electronic
medical records. Now clinics are beefing up their
technological capabilities as well. At a time when doctors
are buried in paperwork, deleting a step or two of
administrative work can free up time to care for more
patients - and cut down on costs.
(May 17, 2007)
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Linking Patients to Docs at a Distance
The UCSD School of Medicine recently received a $1-million
grant to support the formation of an on-campus telemedicine
learning center. Telemedicine, the diagnosis and treatment
of patients in remote areas using real-time video
conferencing or satellite technology, has become an
increasingly prevalent medical practice. The California
Telemedicine and eHealth Center, which awarded the grant and
also funded the development of a learning center at UC Davis
in 1999, has 'focused its strategic efforts for the next
five years on building telemedicine and e-health competency
among providers and É improving access to quality care,'
according to its Web site. The main purpose of the new
Southern California Telemedicine Learning Center will be to
train UCSD-based doctors to use telemedicine technology that
will bolster communication with physicians in rural
communities. The leadership of the center will be shared by
two co-directors: Maria Savoia, vice dean of medical
education and professor of medicine at UCSD, and Lawrence
Friedman, professor and director of ambulatory care at UCSD
Medical Center.
(May 17, 2007)
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IBM targets
health care market with grid computing
Hospitals have unique and
challenging storage needs, as they are required to store
every X-ray and medical record they create, and IBM is
reaching out to that market with a system being unveiled
Wednesday at a health care industry event. IBM is using the
concept of grid computing -- many computers linked together
to share processing power -- to store and retrieve medical
images and other records within a group of hospitals.
(May 16, 2007)
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Kansas to Test Remote Home Monitoring
Windsor Place At-Home Care, a Coffeyville, Kan.-based home
health agency, will place remote patient monitoring devices
in the homes of 50 patients. The agency is participating in
a 12-month test of remote monitoring with the Kansas
Department of Aging and the University of Kansas Medical
Center Telemedicine Program. The patients will use the
RemoteNurse monitors from WebVMC LLC, Conyers, Ga. Contract
terms were not disclosed. The test will start this summer.
Patients will use the monitor and peripheral measurement
devices to answer daily questions about their health status
and to collect and electronically transmit vital signs,
images of wounds and other health status data. Authorized
clinicians will access the data via a secure Web site and
receive alerts if data submitted by a patient is outside
established parameters.
(May 16, 2007)
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Flurry of health IT bills expected on Capitol Hill
Several health information technology bills will be
introduced in the House and Senate in the coming weeks and
months, health IT advocates said today at a Capitol Hill
press conference marking Health IT Week. Many of the bills
will seem familiar to those watching Congress. For example,
Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)
will again introduce a bill calling for tax incentives,
subsidies to certain doctors and clinics serving low-income
patients, and Medicare payment changes to favor users of
clinical IT systems. Two Kansans, Republican Sen. Sam
Brownback and Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore, will introduce
bills calling for the creation of nonprofit health records
trusts that would maintain banks of the records. “Our
proposal will produce immediate benefits” upon passage,
Moore said.
(May 16, 2007)
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Technological Advances Could Help Elderly Stay Independent,
Healthy
Neil Resnick, chief of University of Pittsburgh's Division
of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology and director of its
Institute on Aging, said technology could help seniors
maintain their independence and curb the need for nursing
homes.
(May 16, 2007)
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Senators Set To Introduce Bill To Facilitate Health IT
Adoption
Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)
on Wednesday are expected to introduce a bill that would
give more than $4 billion over five years in grants to
health care providers for adopting IT.
(May 16, 2007)
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Massachusetts Health Center Adopts EHR System To Provide
Seamless Care
Outer Cape Health
Services, a not-for-profit community health center in
Wellfleet, Mass., on May 7 completed its transition to an
electronic health record and practice-management system, the
Cape Cod Times reports. The $500,000
eClinicalWorks system aims to connect the front and back
offices of the health center. Outer Cape physicians will
enter patient information -- such as heart rate, blood
pressure and prescriptions -- directly into a computer.
(May 16, 2007)
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Employer PHR Initiatives Still in Early Stages, Lack Data To
Assess Progress
Major employers, including Wal-Mart and Verizon
Communications, have launched personal health record
initiatives for their employees, although the companies have
not yet said whether PHRs will reduce health costs or
increase productivity.
(May 16, 2007)
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Observers detect a pause in the drive for health IT
Some leaders of the health information technology movement
are describing the current period as a timeout in the push
for electronic health records and other elements of a
paperless health care system. “We are at a point where we
have run out of adrenaline,” said Scott Wallace, president
and chief executive officer of the National Alliance for
Health IT. Speaking at the organization’s annual meeting in
Washington, Wallace called for health IT advocates to focus
their energy on a few areas in which policy and operational
changes can make a difference. “People are exhausted,” he
said, and progress has stalled to some extent. For example,
Wallace said, anyone looking for models of successful health
IT systems is limited to a few pioneering networks. “As long
as the only reference sites are big academic medical
centers, we won’t get much farther,” he said. However, he
added, “the reality is that hospitals and doctors are
adopting health IT.” Efforts of the past few years, such as
initiatives to establish standards and certify software, are
now bearing fruit, he said.
(May 16, 2007)
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HIMSS Launches First-Ever Virtual Conference
A new health IT conference is eschewing the podium and
nametags for an Internet connection and a mouse. The Health
Information Management and Systems Society this Wednesday
and Thursday is holding its first-ever virtual conference.
HIMSS hopes the online educational program will reach a
broader audience of people, many of whom are unable to
attend HIMSS' annual conference because of budget or time
constraints, according to HIMSS President and CEO Steve
Lieber. The HIMSS Virtual Conference and Expo aims to
provide "a convenient, affordable forum for education and
exhibition," Lieber said.
(May 16, 2007)
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WOHC Purchases Entire Picis Software Suite
Picis, Inc., an established provider of high-acuity care
information systems, today announced that William Osler
Health Centre (WOHC), one of the largest healthcare
organizations in Ontario, has purchased the complete Picis
CareSuite software suite, providing a comprehensive,
end-to-end clinical information system to automate all of
WOHC's high-acuity areas, including all their emergency
departments, operating rooms and intensive care units.
Serving nearly one million area residents, WOHC is comprised
of three separate hospitals in the Toronto-metro region.
(May 16, 2007)
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Healthcare must step up IT adoption
Electronic medical records (EMR) may be a reality in
some parts of the world today, but the healthcare sector
would do well to adopt more information technologies so as
to provide quality patient care.
Speaking at the opening of the first
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
(HIMSS) AsiaPac 2007 conference here Wednesday,
Singapore's Minister for Health Khaw Boon Wan drove home the
message that IT holds the key to containing rising
healthcare costs and, at the same time, ensuing quality
healthcare. "We all say that healthcare providers should
treat patients holistically as a team, share information
about the patients and partner one another to bring care to
the patients, without duplicating efforts or replicating
tests.
(May 16, 2007)
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U.S. last in study of six nations' health systems
Things aren't looking any better for the United States
healthcare system since the last time it was compared with
those of other industrialized nations. An update to an
ongoing study of nations' performances in several areas of
healthcare - including implementations of information
technology - again has ranked the United States dead last
among Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the United Kingdom
and Canada. Research for the Commonwealth Fund report,
entitled, “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International
Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health
Care,” previously was conducted in 2006 and 2004. The new
version of the study, released Tuesday, looked at nations'
healthcare quality, access, efficiency, equity, outcomes,
healthy lifestyles, and IT implementation. The United States
is lagging in adoption of IT systems and national policies
that promote quality improvement, the report found.
Meanwhile, IT systems in countries such as Germany, the
United Kingdom, and New Zealand "enhance the ability of
physicians to monitor chronic conditions and medication
use."
(May 16, 2007)
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California EHR System Targets Diabetes Management
Darin M. Camarena Health Centers, a three-site clinic in
Madera County, Calif., is installing an electronic health
record system specifically designed to help manage chronic
diseases and enhance treatment compliance for patients with
diabetes, according to Kenneth Bernstein, medical director
and chief medical officer of Camarena Health Centers.
(May 15, 2007)
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Officials say state must curb health cost
To sustain the landmark Massachusetts health insurance
initiative, the state must find ways to control the climbing
costs of healthcare, policy-makers said yesterday at a forum
on the first year of healthcare reform. Senate President
Therese Murray said the state could save hundreds of
millions of dollars by adopting several proposals being
developed in the Senate. Perhaps the most controversial is
to mandate that doctors and hospitals switch to electronic
medical records within five years. She said this and other
investments in technology would save money by "cutting
through the mountain of bureaucratic paperwork and improving
worker productivity."
(May 15, 2007)
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CHIP employs technology to improve care for the uninsured
It was the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe that further
affirmed the wisdom of Community Health Integrated
Partnership’s electronic patient record initiative. “Those
records were lost,” Salliann Alborn, chief executive officer
of CHIP and the companion Maryland Community Health System,
a managed care organization, said of disaster-area patient
medical records destroyed in the 2005 hurricane. “That
really brought to mind to us another of the virtues of a
system like this.” Alborn runs the $800,000, seven-employee,
nonprofit administrative and information systems service for
eight independent area community health centers. She also
oversees the group’s pioneering, $2.9 million effort to
computerize unwieldy paper medical records and integrate
them into its existing automated registration, scheduling
and billing system. She predicts the effort, which will also
bolster CHIP’s quality control functions for the 65-facility
network across 13 counties and Baltimore City, will be up
and running in 18 months. The network offers a range of
sliding scale services to the underserved, including primary
care, obstetrics, dental, psychiatric, prescription drug and
medical outreach to the state’s migrant-worker populations.
Cumulatively, it conducts about 86,000 consultations a year.
(May 15, 2007)
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Senators to Introduce I.T. Bill
Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Olympia Snowe
(R-Maine) expect on May 16 to introduce legislation to
authorize more than $4 billion in grants to providers over
five years to adopt interoperable information technology.
The Health Information Technology Act of 2007 is very
similar to S.B. 1227, which the senators originally
introduced two years ago during the last Congress. The new
legislation comes during National Health IT Week, during
which industry insiders are lobbying lawmakers and the Bush
administration. Under a draft version of the new
legislation, providers could apply for grants not to exceed
$1 million for a hospital; $200,000 for a skilled nursing
facility; $150,000 for a federally qualified health center;
$75,000 for a community mental health center; $15,000 per
physician for a group practice; and $15,000 for an
individual physician.
(May 15, 2007)
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GE CEO says betting big on health care as growth area
General Electric Co. is "betting big" on health care,
through its $17 billion GE Healthcare division, as
increasing penetration of IT and technology in the market
should drive future growth of the business.
(May 15, 2007)
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Survey: Ad-Sponsored Free Online EHRs Will Have Limited
Impact on Adoption
A health care IT vendor in March announced that it will use
Google's AdSense program to help fund no-cost electronic
health records for physicians, but 63% of health IT
professionals said ad-sponsored EHRs would have minimal or
no impact on EHR adoption.
(May 15, 2007)
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BC launches province-wide EHR
In a move touted by Ministry of Health officials as the
beginning of a new era for Canadian e-healthcare, on April
17 British Columbia introduced legislation to launch a
province-wide, comprehensive electronic health records (EHR)
system. The plan — known collectively as eHealth — includes
a $148 million deal with software giant Sun Microsystems to
design and set up the tailor-made network.
(May 15, 2007)
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First Online Integrated Cancer Research Database Launches in
Canada
InspireHealth, formerly called the Centre for Integrated
Healing, has launched in Vancouver, British Columbia, the
world's first central database of integrated cancer
research.
(May 15, 2007)
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Broadband Telemedicine Project at the Center of California's
Health IT Agenda
In an iHealthBeat
special report, Michael Liang -- California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's (R) deputy secretary for IT -- discussed
California's proposal for a statewide telemedicine network.
The $39 million California Telehealth Network proposal is
the largest request submitted under the Federal
Communication Commission's Rural Health Care Pilot Program,
which awards grants for projects that help patients in rural
area access providers. California's plan would use a
broadband network to link 319 health care sites over three
years, with plans to eventually expand access to all
providers in the state.
(May 15, 2007)
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Perspective: connecting from multiple points
Blue Cross and Blue
Shield of Florida (BCBSFL) and Humana have an
ambitious plan of expanding their multi-payer electronic
health record statewide by the end of 2007. Jacksonville and
Miami providers will soon join those in Tampa Bay in having
the ability to provide EHRs to their patients. Gainesville
and Tallahassee will soon follow.
(May 15, 2007)
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Microsoft’s Bill Crounse Says the U.S. Needs to Catch Up
Bill Crounse, worldwide health director for Microsoft, sees
himself as an evangelist, promoting the use of information
technology as a way to improve patient quality and safety.
He combines his medical field expertise as former vice
president and chief medical officer for Overlake Hospital
Medical Center in Bellevue, Wash., with his knowledge of
technology, gained while working with Microsoft industry
partners and healthcare organizations... Digital Healthcare
& Productivity recently spoke with Crounse about the growing
consumer movement in healthcare and the application of
information technology in medicine and e-health initiatives.
(May 15, 2007)
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IRS clears way for hospitals to donate EHR software to docs
A long-awaited Internal Revenue Service memo has made it
clear that nonprofit hospitals can give e-health records
software and support services to their staff doctors without
jeopardizing their tax-exempt status. The May 11 memo was
welcomed by health IT advocates, who had expressed concern
that uncertainty about how the IRS might rule was inhibiting
hospitals from including the doctors’ offices in their
medical records networks. The IRS memo cites Department of
Health and Human Services regulations that created
exemptions from anti-kickback and physician self-referral
laws. Those regulations, which became final in August 2006,
were intended to encourage hospitals to share their systems
with doctors who practice at the hospitals.
(May 14, 2007)
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AHA: IRS Ruling Good for I.T.
The Internal Revenue Service’s new guidance that enables
not-for-profit hospitals to donate information technology
and services to physicians without jeopardizing their tax
status is good news, says Lawrence Hughes, regulatory
counsel for the American Hospital Association in Chicago.
“The guidance is a real clear signal to hospitals that they
can move ahead with their health I.T. arrangements with
physicians.”
(May 14, 2007)
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Bronx RHIO to Get Med Histories
The Bronx Regional Health Information Organization will use
electronic prescription networking services from RxHub LLC,
St. Paul, Minn. RxHub is a subcontractor to Emerging Health
Information Technology, the Yonkers, N.Y.-based developer of
the health information exchange the RHIO is using.
(May 14, 2007)
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Illinois Medical School Takes on EHRs, E-Prescriptions
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine is in the
first year of a two-year conversion to electronic health
records and electronic prescriptions to reduce medical
errors and provide more efficient patient care.
(May 14, 2007)
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Health Centers To Get IT Boost Under Missouri Budget Bill
Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt
(R) on Friday praised the state General Assembly's recent
approval of a budget bill (HB
11) that would enhance IT systems at Federally Qualified
Health Centers by building an electronic health record
system and reforming the state's health care safety net
system.
(May 14, 2007)
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SIU sees benefits from switch to electronic records
Criss Christaldi quickly described her 5-year-old daughter’s
sleep problems. “She doesn’t sleep much through the night,”
said Christaldi, 41, a Roodhouse resident. “Before, she
could take a nap, but now she can’t.” And lately,
Christaldi’s daughter, Alliah, has had to deal with
congestion in her chest. The girl isn’t taking any medicine
to help her sleep. Her insomnia bothers her sister and
worries her mother. Instead of madly scribbling all of this
information on a piece of paper for Alliah’s medical file,
Dr. Anna Richie quietly tapped on a keyboard connected to a
computer work station inside a Springfield family-medicine
clinic operated by Southern Illinois University School of
Medicine. For Richie, the ability to type notes immediately
into a record that is instantly available to any other
doctor in the SIU system makes the record more accurate and
saves her the trouble of hand-writing or dictating
observations after each patient visit. Richie doesn’t think
the computer gets in the way of communicating with families.
“My big thing is eye contact with the patient,” she said. A
few months into SIU’s conversion to all-electronic medical
records, officials from the medical school’s 206-member
physician practice group are enthusiastic about the
prospects for providing more efficient and safer care.
(May 14, 2007)
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Hospitals' move to e-files spurs a labor shortage
Massachusetts is among the leaders nationally in the use of
electronic patient records and computerized drug
prescribing. But its workforce is not keeping pace: The
state lacks enough people who know how computers work and
who understand how doctors diagnose and treat diseases. It
is a unique blend of skills that is increasingly in demand
as the health system gets wired. "Most of the hospitals we
work with are having a hard time finding people," said Micky
Tripathi, chief executive of the Massachusetts eHealth
Collaborative, a nonprofit corporation funded by Blue Cross
and Blue Shield of Massachusetts that is computerizing the
entire healthcare systems of North Adams, Newburyport, and
Brockton. The eHealth Collaborative is a national model, and
Boston's high concentration of teaching hospitals is heavily
computerized. But shortages of qualified personnel in
healthcare information technology, Tripathi said, "are acute
at almost every level." John Glaser , vice president and
chief information officer for Partners HealthCare , the
largest hospital network in the state and the parent
corporation for big Harvard Medical School teaching
institutions, said the lack of skilled people is slowing
projects and forcing Partners to turn to expensive outside
consultants. The explosion of computerization in patient
record-keeping means hospitals are not only competing with
each other for talent, but with start-up companies that sell
the computer systems off the shelf to physicians. "We're all
collectively really going hard at this stuff," Glaser said.
"The demand for those folks has grown remarkably in the last
couple of years."
(May 14, 2007)
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DHC 2007: Barriers to electronic data exchange include the
law
The state's mental
health statues will have to be updated to accommodate
electronic patient data exchange, according to Madison area
health technologists. Patient data exchange was addressed in
two sessions at
Digital Healthcare Conference 2007, including one that
posed the question of whether the electronic exchange of
patient data between different health systems would open a
Pandora's Box of liability and risk.
(May 14, 2007)
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The Calgary Health Region Selects CGI to Advance e-health
Services
The Calgary Health Region has awarded a five year contract
to CGI Group Inc. valued at approximately $9 million. This
agreement assigns CGI as the primary IT services provider to
design, build, implement and operate the Alberta's
Provincial Health Information Exchange (pHIE), an initiative
sponsored and coordinated by Alberta Health and Wellness and
led by the Calgary Health Region.
(May 14, 2007)
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Blues plan offers EMR access to members, doctors
Health Care Service Corp., a BlueCross BlueShield plan
operator, said it is integrating the medical information of
more than 11 million members of its plans in Illinois, New
Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas into a single electronic health
record that will be available, free of charge, to plan
members and their physicians. Chicago-based HCSC will allow
physicians access to online records, given that many
practices have been unable to acquire them due to cost or
other reasons. The company is calling the system an EHR,
though it is essentially the same thing as a more common
term, the electronic medical record, or EMR. However, the
system is limited in that physicians are only able to view
the records. They are unable to contribute to them.
(May 14, 2007)
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Old physician ID numbers are still OK for now, Medicare says
The government will allow physicians who are not yet able to
use their National Provider Identifiers on Medicare claims
to use their old ID numbers for part of the next 12 months,
but officials could pull the plug on this extension at any
time.
(May 14, 2007)
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New York City offers doctors discounted EMRs
New York City is offering 1,000 physicians discounted
electronic medical records software and support in an
attempt to improve the health outcomes of the city's most
vulnerable. Doctors qualify for the Primary Care Information
Project if at least 30% of their patients are enrolled in
state-funded insurance programs, such as Medicaid.
Physicians also qualify if their practices are in one of
three low-income neighborhoods. The initiative is funded
with $27 million from the city and $3 million from the
state. It's designed to bring EMRs to patients who might not
otherwise benefit from them.
(May 14, 2007)
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Healthcare Costs and U.S. Competitiveness
Factoring in costs borne by government, the private sector,
and individuals, the United States spends over $1.9 trillion
annually on healthcare expenses, more than any other
industrialized country. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical
School estimate the United States spends 44 percent more per
capita than Switzerland, the country with the second highest
expenditures, and 134 percent more than the median for
member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD). These costs prompt fears that an
increasing number of U.S. businesses will outsource jobs
overseas or offshore business operations completely.
(May 14, 2007)
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Americans get least bang for buck on health care: report
Americans get the poorest health care and yet pay the most
compared to five other rich countries, according to a report
released on Tuesday. Germany, Britain, Australia and Canada
all provide better care for less money, the Commonwealth
Fund report found. "The U.S. health care system ranks last
compared with five other nations on measures of quality,
access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes," the non-profit
group which studies health care issues said in a statement.
Canada rates second worst out of the five overall. Germany
scored highest, followed by Britain, Australia and New
Zealand. "The United States is not getting value for the
money that is spent on health care," Commonwealth Fund
president Karen Davis said in a telephone interview.
(May 14, 2007)
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Cardinal Health acquires VIASYS for $1.5B
Looking to expand its reach in Europe and Asia and bolster
its respiratory care offerings, Cardinal Health, a provider
of healthcare IT products like MedMined data mining software
and the CareFusion patient identification system, has
announced an agreement to acquire the medical technology
company VIASYS Healthcare Inc. for about $1.5 billion.
VIASYS, based in Conshohocken, Pa. , is a research-based
medical technology focusing on respiratory, neurology,
medical disposable and orthopedic products. It has more than
7,000 hospital customers in 100 countries and generates 40
percent of its revenue from outside the United States.
Cardinal Health officials say adding VIASYS technology to
the company’s patient bedside strategy will enable hospitals
to better manage all forms of medication delivered, as well
as collect data on use and outcomes to improve patient
safety.
(May 14, 2007)
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Problems slow use of computerized medical records
Computerized medical records may be gaining steam around the
nation, but there are still plenty of complications,
panelists agreed at a conference in Madison on Thursday. If
you live in Madison, for example, and break your leg while
you're on vacation in Florida, will the emergency room there
be able to access online records that show you're allergic
to certain types of medication? Maybe -- or maybe not. For
one thing, the hospital in Florida may not even have
computerized patient records. An October 2006 report by
Harvard researchers showed that fewer than one in 10 doctors
were making full use of electronic health records and as few
as 5 percent of hospitals were using them.
(May 12, 2007)
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IRS ruling allows hospitals to provide healthcare IT to
physicians
A short, two-page memorandum from the Internal Revenue
Service issued Friday is expected to offer encouragement to
not-for-profit hospitals that have considered providing
healthcare information technology to medical staff
physicians. The IRS issued a memorandum indicating that it
would not consider such donations of IT and supporting
services as kickbacks that would jeopardize healthcare
providers’ not-for-profit status. Many in the industry say
providers have been waiting for IRS clarification before
proceeding with programs to provide IT to staff physicians.
The IRS memorandum defines medical staff as those who have
staff privileges at a hospital. The ruling answers questions
about the tax status of a facility that provides “financial
assistance to acquire and implement software that is used
primarily for creating, maintaining, transmitting or
receiving electronic health records for their patients.”
(May 11, 2007)
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Mobile, M.D.: Wired Doctors Bringing Technology to Treatment
There's a lot of talk lately about how health care isn't as
plugged in, hooked up and wired as other industries. Not so
fast -- not everyone involved in medicine is a Luddite.
According to a new report by Manhattan Research, physicians'
use of the Internet and mobile technology is exceeding
expectations.
(May 11, 2007)
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Syracuse Hospital Automates Patient Flow, Bed Management
St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, N.Y.,
two weeks ago adopted a computerized program to monitor
patient flow and bed availability.
(May 11, 2007)
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Verizon Unveils PHR System for Employees, Retirees
Verizon Communications on Wednesday announced that it has
adopted a personal health record system for its more than
900,000 active employees, retirees and their families.
(May 11, 2007)
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Making medical data accessible
On Sept. 11, 2001, Dr. Gary Klein was at the World Trade
Center site helping victims of the attack. His lack of
victims' medical history information was not only
frustrating, but prevented him from providing appropriate
care. "We had no information at all, yet you can could take
your ATM card, go to Turkey, stick it in and get your
money," he said. Klein, now Chief Information Officer for
the Department of Homeland Security, said the banking
industry began using a system in the 1970s that health care
desperately needs - a fast, electronic way to access patient
information and history. The answer to that growing need are
Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIO), a growing
movement to establish collaboration between insurance
companies, hospitals, doctors and patients.
(May 10, 2007)
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DHC 2007: Without fuller IT adoption, health costs might
drain America's wealth
If the pace of
healthcare information technology adoption doesn't pick up
soon, the United States could reach an unsustainable
situation regarding healthcare costs, according to John
Wade, who delivered the keynote address Wednesday at
Digital Healthcare Conference 2007.
(May 10, 2007)
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FDA Gives Guidance on Trials Data
The Food and Drug Administration has published a new
guidance document on the use of computerized systems in
clinical trials. The guidance is designed to assist in
ensuring confidence in the reliability, quality and
integrity of data and documentation collected and stored in
electronic health records systems in the course of
conducting a clinical trial.
(May 10, 2007)
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Docs, Business Endorse 'Medical Home'
Medical societies representing 330,000 physicians, and a
range of corporations and business associations, have
endorsed a model of care called the patient-centered medical
home conceived by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
The model, among other factors, advocates extensive use of
information technologies to document and coordinate care
across all providers and settings, support evidence-based
medicine through clinical decision support tools and conduct
performance measurements.
(May 10, 2007)
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Home telemonitoring works, study claims
Home telemonitoring of chronic diseases appears to be a
promising approach to patient management, says a team of
Canadian scholars who reviewed more than 65 telemonitoring
studies in the United States and Europe. The study, entitled
“Systematic Review of Home Telemonitoring for Chronic
Diseases: The Evidence Base,” appeared in the May/June 2007
issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics
Association. Researchers at the University of Montreal in
Quebec, Canada, searched the Medline and Cochrane Library
databases for research studies on telemonitoring published
between 1990 and 2006. The 65 papers they examined included
studies on the home-based management of chronic pulmonary
conditions, cardiac diseases, diabetes, and hypertension.
Each of the studies employed various information
technologies that were used to monitor patients at a
distance.
(May 10, 2007)
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Regional Health Data Network on Wish List for Northern
Virginia Group
A group of Northern Virginia residents and physicians are
trying to introduce a regional health information
organization that would offer physicians and health
providers complete access to patients' health information.
(May 10, 2007)
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Survey: More Physicians E-mailing With Patients
Thirty-one percent of physicians in 2007 said that they
communicate with their patients via e-mail, up from 24% in
2005, according to a survey by Manhattan Research. However,
the remaining 69% of physicians said that concerns -- such
as liability, lack of reimbursement and technology
integration -- still remain barriers to adopting the
technology. The survey also found that most physicians
approve of patients bringing information that they found
online to an office visit. Sixty-five percent of physicians
said it is a good thing when patients bring in information
they found on the Internet, while 34% of physicians said it
was a bad thing, according to the survey.
(May 10, 2007)
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Sharing Medical Information
What if a Web site, a card in the wallet or a thumbprint
could tell all about the person’s medical history? At a
touch of a button, a swipe of a card or a read of a
fingerprint, doctors worldwide could know all there is to
know about their patients’ medical past, including their
allergies, medications they are using and radiology reports.
A group of local residents is leading an effort to introduce
a Northern Virginia Regional Health Information Organization
(RHIO), a system that would allow doctors and other care
givers to access a person’s health information from
anywhere. The group met in Reston on Saturday afternoon to
present some ideas at its first community meeting, entitled
‘Better Communication, Better Care.’
(May 9, 2007)
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Grant Program Catalyst for New York Hospital's EHR System
Arnot Ogden Medical Center in Elmira, N.Y., has received
$250,000 worth of electronic health record software as part
of a grant program by the Misys Center for Community Health
Leadership to eliminate duplicate tests, help manage costs,
coordinate care and expand involvement in treatment
decisions.
(May 9, 2007)
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Ohio Hospitals Take Billing Online, Plan Additional Services
Mount Carmel Health System in Columbus, Ohio, in January
began offering patients an online system to pay for
hospital, outpatient and ambulatory surgical bills and to
request appointments for health services.
(May 9, 2007)
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Joint Pentagon, VA EHR System Could Take Years
Officials from the departments of Defense and Veterans
Affairs at a House VA subcommittee hearing on Tuesday said
that it could take years to develop and install a joint
electronic health record system to reduce treatment delays
for injured soldiers.
(May 9, 2007)
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Project melds health-care, banking info
Imagine going to your bank's Web site and being able to pick
a doctor, schedule an office visit, check lab results or pay
a bill from your last appointment. That's one of the
initiatives of the Medical Banking Project, a Franklin-based
think tank that advocates using back-office systems
perfected by banks to slash health-care costs. Later this
year, the project plans to launch a computer-based platform
called BoardTrust that would let banks share information,
including medical records, and provide standards to govern
that process.
(May 9, 2007)
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Sisu takes rural hospital IT to new level
An initiative that began at Miller-Dwan Medical Center in
the mid-1980s to provide information technology support to
the region’s rural hospitals is growing well beyond
Northeastern Minnesota. After the medical center’s 2001
merger with the St. Mary’s/Duluth Clinic Health System, that
information technology (IT) support program was spun off as
Sisu Medical Systems, a nonprofit owned by its seven
member-hospitals, including Miller-Dwan. That nonprofit IT
network has expanded dramatically and in early May, Sisu
will add its 16th hospital member, Swift County/Benson
Hospital in central Minnesota, said Daniel Svendsen, Sisu’s
chief executive... In 2004, Sisu Medical Solutions guided
founding member Riverwood Healthcare Center in Aitkin to
develop the first electronic medical records system in rural
Minnesota.
(May 9, 2007)
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CMS says healthcare IT essential to P4P
Pay for performance is not a trial – it’s permanent, said a
federal healthcare official on Tuesday. P4P is here to stay
and healthcare IT is essential to making it happen, said
Thomas Valuck, MD, director of the Special Program Office
for Value-Based Purchasing for the Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services at the Third Annual World Congress
Leadership Summit held May 7-8 in Arlington, VA. Healthcare
IT will help to make performance results transparent,
empower consumers and encourage improvement in quality of
care, Valuck said. Valuck urged physicians to strongly
consider making an investment in their practice now by using
healthcare IT to collect and report their data to CMS. Under
the CMS Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, physicians
can use 74 clinical measures for reporting performance from
July 1 through December 31 this year.
(May 9, 2007)
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Bush's value-driven healthcare agenda surges forward
The number of companies participating in President
Bush’s plan for value-driven healthcare has jumped from 175
in January to more than 775... Supporters of the plan
promise to provide what the president calls the “four
cornerstones” of value-driven healthcare, including the use
of healthcare IT, measuring and publishing quality and price
information and creating positive incentives for high
quality, efficient care.
(May 9, 2007)
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Allscripts CEO Provides Progress Report on NESPI and HIT
Allscripts
CEO Glen Tullman, recently back from the Fourth Annual World
Health Care Congress (WHCC), spoke with Digital Healthcare
and Productivity about why he thinks we’re at a tipping
point for HIT adoption, the National ePrescribing Patient
Safety Initiative (NEPSI), and revenue cycle management for
physician practices.
(May 8, 2007)
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Electronic Data Capture Investments To Increase, Report
Finds
Investments in electronic data capture software technology
to help collect and manage clinical trials data are expected
to increase to more than $3.1 billion by 2011, according to
a report from Health Industry Insights, an IDC subsidiary.
(May 8, 2007)
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Lawmakers Weigh Value, Risks of Monitoring Technology
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) on Monday said that radio
frequency identification technology could be vital for
emergency services during disasters and other health
applications, however, most members of Congress do not know
much about the technology.
(May 8, 2007)
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Expanding the Network: Acquisition To Streamline
E-Prescribing
In the health IT world, there's a lot of talk about the
importance of creating connections through building networks
and ensuring interoperability. Unfortunately, if different
networks cannot communicate with each other, a new problem
is born. SureScripts -- operator of the Pharmacy Health
Information Exchange, the nation's largest electronic
prescribing network -- took a step toward remedying that
problem last week when it acquired its main competitor,
MedAvant Healthcare Solutions, for $500,000. According to
SureScripts CEO Kevin Hutchinson, the main reason for
acquiring MedAvant was to streamline connectivity.
(May 8, 2007)
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ONC's Loonsk: National health net RFP on track
Efforts to get the next phase of the National Health
Information Network (NHIN) underway are falling into place,
and regional health information organizations (RHIOs) and
statewide health information exchanges (HIEs) will be
central players in that process, said John Loonsk, director
of the Office of Interoperability and Standards at the
Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for health
information technology.
(May 7, 2007)
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California Health System Remotely Monitors ICU Patients
Sutter Health has installed in 26 health facilities in
Sacramento, Calif., and San Francisco an electronic
intensive care unit to remotely monitor patients' vital
signs -- such as heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen
saturation, respiration and temperature -- through live
video and audio feeds.
(May 7, 2007)
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Report: HHS, CMS Need Plan for Collecting Data With IT
HHS and CMS do not have adequate ways to measure their
progress in promoting the use of IT as a means for
collecting hospital quality-of-care data, according to a
report released on Friday by the Government Accountability
Office.
(May 7, 2007)
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Insurance companies to deploy statewide system
Florida's two largest health insurance companies announced
plans this morning to create the nation's first statewide
multiple-payer electronic health record system. Blue Cross
and Blue Shield of Florida and Humana Inc. said they had
successfully tested the system -- the Availity Care Profile
-- with 400 health-care providers in the Tampa Bay area, and
would begin deploying it statewide. The electronic system
promises to improve patient safety, eliminate duplicative
medical procedures and cut down on fraud, according to
company representatives. "It improves the physician-patient
experience by allowing members and physicians to make better
informed health-care decisions," said Catherine Peper, vice
president of health information technology for Blue Cross.
(May 7, 2007)
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IT boosts WHO's patient safety solutions
Healthcare information
technology is likely to play a critical role in implementing
the patient safety solutions the World Health Organization
released last week, said Agnès Leotsakos, MD, a member of
WHO’s World Alliance for Patient Safety. Leotsakos and
others emphasized, however, that the focus of improving
patient safety should be on process first.
“The key message of the solutions for patient safety is to
focus on the importance of designing and implementing safer
systems and processes of care delivery which reduce risks to
patients,” Leotsakos said, “Information technology can play
an important role in supporting this.”
(May 7, 2007)
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Roadmap for health IT
If Congress wants to
encourage greater electronic medical record adoption, it
needs to address two major concerns. One is providing the
right incentives so that physicians in any size practice can
make a business case for information technology. The other
is making privacy and security a top priority to allay
patients' concerns about who is seeing their information,
and how it is being used. That way, health IT can fulfill
the promise to serve both doctor and patient. Physicians'
use of EMRs, especially in smaller practices, is low, in
part because of the high expense and small return in
investment and system upkeep. As the AMA pointed out in a
March 28 statement to the House Committee on Small Business
Subcommittee on Regulations, Healthcare and Trade, the
Congressional Research Service estimates that the
per-physician startup cost for an EMR can range from $16,000
to $36,000. Then, a practice has to spend around $8,500 per
year, per doctor, and on ongoing costs, such as software
licensing and software and hardware upgrades, according to a
study published in the September-October 2005 edition of
Health Affairs.
(May 7, 2007)
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Free electronic medical record system comes with strings
attached
Realizing that many
practices are unable to install an electronic medical record
system due to their cost, Practice Fusion, a San
Francisco-based company, is offering a Web-based system at a
price it would seem no one can refuse -- free. But free
comes with a price. The system would put advertising on the
medical record. And nonidentified data from the patient
records would be packaged and sold for marketing purposes.
Critics say Practice Fusion's business model is taking
advantage of patient-doctor trust by commercializing patient
information. But others say this model might be a way to get
EMRs into physicians' offices.
(May 7, 2007)
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Doctors push law on clinics in stores
The Illinois State Medical Society, which represents more
than 13,000 doctors, is pushing a proposed law to more
closely monitor hundreds of in-store clinics being opened by
retail giants Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Walgreen Co. and
CVS/Caremark Corp. The doctors claim the clinics, staffed by
advanced-degree nurses and physicians' assistants, are
largely unregulated and therefore put patients' health at
risk.
(May 6, 2007)
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Consumers Support Secure Electronic Health Data Exchanges
Health care consumers, who understand the details and
benefits of electronically exchanging health information,
strongly support the practice, according to research
released this week by the eHealth Initiative Foundation.
(May 4, 2007)
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Going Public With Health IT
A discussion of health IT's potential benefits often
includes the promise of improving patient care and reducing
costs. Or, to paraphrase a legendary ad, "Great care, less
money." However, this discussion usually focuses on health
IT adoption by hospitals or physician practices -- not
public health agencies -- that are looking to improve
quality while boosting their bottom line. On Wednesday at
"Health IT: Unlocking the Potential," a Kaiser
Permanente-hosted event in Washington, D.C., a panel focused
on how hospitals and physician offices can tap IT to
conserve resources and streamline processes, such as issuing
alerts about potential disease outbreaks.
(May 4, 2007)
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HP joins medical data effort - Digital records to be linked
across the state
Hewlett-Packard Co. has agreed to help develop a statewide
health information exchange to give physicians, hospitals
and patients access to secure electronic medical
information, giving the ambitious project an important
boost. The Palo Alto computer company will join other
vendors selected by the California Regional Health
Information Organization, a statewide collaborative project
funded largely by health care organizations, the group said
Thursday. The goal is to create systems that will allow as
many as 78,000 physicians and 400 hospitals to share data,
the largest such effort in the country.
(May 4, 2007)
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PACS a core technology in Europe, North America
Picture archiving and
communications systems have moved mainstream in North
America and Europe. The imaging systems – once thought to be
too pricey and cumbersome for clinicians – are now
considered a core technology by healthcare professionals,
contends a recent report by the London-based technology
research firm Datamonitor. However, PACS are still expensive
for smaller facilities, and restraining the systems’ costs
will be crucial to drive widespread adoption, the report
suggests. The size of the PACS market for North America
should reach $8.6 billion by 2011, up 75.5 percent from an
estimated market of $4.9 billion this year.
(May 4, 2007)
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Health IT as 'a Means, Not an End,' to Health Care Reform
"Health IT holds so much potential" to improve the U.S.
health care system, but it is "a means, not an end," Carolyn
Clancy, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality, said Wednesday at a summit in Washington, D.C.
Kaiser Permanente Chair and CEO George Halvorson -- also
speaking at a Kaiser Permanente-hosted event, called "Health
IT: Unlocking the Potential" -- echoed Clancy's message,
noting the potential of electronic health records in reform
efforts. Clancy touted health IT's potential to reduce
medical errors, costs and administrative inefficiencies,
while expanding access to care. The expectation early on
that health IT can effortlessly solve all of the industry's
problems is giving way to a more realistic outlook, Clancy
said. There still are "substantial legal, financial and
technical boundaries that need to be resolved," including
interoperability challenges, before there is widespread
adoption, she said. Clancy said that while health IT will
play a key role in national efforts to transform the health
care system, adoption of the technology will be a "massive
undertaking."
(May 3, 2007)
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Bush nominates new CMS administrator
President Bush announced his nominees for two high-profile
political appointments at the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) on Thursday, including the person who would
oversee the Medicare and Medicaid programs... The
president also plans to nominate Tevi Troy to be deputy
secretary of HHS. Troy, who currently is a member of the
White House domestic policy staff, would replace Alex Azar,
who left the department in February.
(May 3, 2007)
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Paper Systems More Secure, Less Beneficial Than EHRs,
Consumers Say
According to a Kaiser Permanente survey released on
Wednesday, many U.S. residents believe that paper-based
health record systems are more secure than electronic health
record systems.
(May 3, 2007)
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Healthcare IT adoption by physicians lacking in P4P programs
Despite self-reported claims that they promote physician IT
adoption for their pay-for-performance (P4P) initiatives,
many payers don’t actively invest in or sponsor physician IT
adoption and many more don’t incorporate it as a P4P
incentive, according to a recently released survey. Despite
industry standard that physician IT adoption is critical to
better outcomes, payers ranked it fifth in a list of seven
factors required for successful P4P programs, revealed “Pay
for Performance and Provider Technology Investment: The
Looming Disconnect,” a report from Health Industry Insights,
an IDC company. Other IT adoption-related issues include the
lack of information exchange among providers who are caring
for the same patient, the lack of tools to determine whether
providers are giving the best care, and the realization that
real-time efficiency results are not currently being used to
determine performance.
(May 3, 2007)
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Pennsylvania eHealth recommendations released
An
organization that has spent two years
figuring out how electronic medical
records can be created and shared in
Pennsylvania has released a plan and
recommendations.
The
document is called "Connecting
Pennsylvanians for Better Health:
Recommendations from the Pennsylvania
eHealth Initiative." It can be viewed on
the Pennsylvania eHealth Initiative's
Web site at
www.paehi.org.
(May 3, 2007)
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Official: Health system should be like ATM
Maybe the nation's health-care system could learn
something from the banking industry. Dr. John O. Agwunobi,
assistant secretary for health from the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, wondered aloud Wednesday if there
isn't a lesson to be learned when it comes to ease for the
public. "Why can't health-care information be managed as
smoothly as my ATM cards work at banks around the world?" he
asked.
(May 3, 2007)
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Survey: Physician Incentives Lacking
Most managed care companies aren’t offering physicians
financial incentives to deploy the information technologies
needed to track quality data for pay-for-performance
initiatives, according to a survey by Health Industry
Insights, an IDC company, Framingham, Mass. Pay for
performance compensates doctors based on the quality of
care. Information technology, such as electronic health
records and electronic access to clinical guidelines, are
needed to most efficiently collect and track the data.
(May 2, 2007)
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Michigan Physicians’ Offices Receive Governor’s Award of
Excellence
182 Michigan physicians’ offices today received the 2006
Governor’s Award of Excellence for Improving Care in the
Ambulatory Care Setting. The Governor presents this award in
partnership with MPRO, Michigan’s Quality Improvement
Organization (QIO). The award acknowledges excellence in
health care quality and safety. This marks the sixth year
that the Governor and MPRO have honored physicians’ offices
statewide.
(May 2, 2007)
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Americans prefer digital medical records, survey shows
A new national survey shows U.S. adults believe in the
benefits of an electronic medical record and would prefer to
deal with physicians and insurance companies that use
digital records rather than those who do not. The survey was
released here today at the Health IT: Unlocking the
Potential summit. Healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente
commissioned the telephone survey, which was conducted by
StrategyOne, an independent research firm. StrategyOne
gathered information form 1,000 consumers, 18 or older,
using random dialing. American adults favor providers (51%
over 17%) and insurance carriers (68% over 16%) who use
electronic medical records over those who do not.
(May 2, 2007)
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California pay-for-performance consortium reports progress
More than half of the California physicians involved in a
year-old pay-for-performance consortium have reported using
new healthcare information technology to schedule patient
visits and appointment reminders. That’s just one of several
conclusions reached from data culled during the first year
of the Silicon Valley Pay-for-Performance Consortium, a
collaboration started by technology giants Cisco, Intel and
Oracle and seven San Francisco Bay area physician
organizations. The consortium, which aims to “accelerate the
use of technology for quality health care,” released its
year-end results on Wednesday. Aside from the 57 percent of
physicians who created patient scheduling and appointment
reminder systems, 43 percent of those physicians
participating in the consortium began allowing same-day
appointments and using data-mining technologies to improve
patient information management. Also, 28 percent reported
establishing electronic health records, disease registries,
clinician reminder systems and guaranteed post-hospital
follow-up systems. Seven physician organizations (POs),
representing 25 practice sites and more than 1,800
physicians, are participating in the consortium. They
received National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)
Physician Practice Connections recognition and have
qualified to earn $584,000 so far for using nationally
recognized quality of care standards.
(May 2, 2007)
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City of Hope Selects Eclipsys Sunrise Clinical Manager™ to
Better Manage Complex, High-Acuity Care Environment
Eclipsys Corporation® (NASDAQ: ECLP), The Outcomes Company®,
today announced that City of Hope, an NCI-designated
Comprehensive Cancer Center based in Duarte, CA, has
selected Eclipsys clinical information solutions to drive
organizational initiatives focused on using technology to
help improve both patient safety and operational
efficiencies. To accomplish this in its high-acuity care
setting, City of Hope will implement Sunrise Clinical
Manager and its integrated modules, including Sunrise Acute
Care™, Sunrise Ambulatory Care™, Sunrise Critical Care™,
Sunrise Pharmacy™, Knowledge-Based Medication
Administration™, Sunrise Radiology™, and Knowledge-Based
Charting™.
(May 2, 2007)
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Survey: Clinicians Say IT Can Boost Rural Health Care
Eighty-two percent of surveyed clinicians practicing at
Indian Health Service centers that adopted an electronic
health record system between 2003 and 2005 said they
strongly agree or agree that health IT can boost the quality
of care provided in rural and underserved settings.
(May 2, 2007)
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EHR Pioneers Try to Stay Out Front
Like the pioneers who headed West, blazing trails for
millions of others to follow, a handful of hospitals and
clinics in the final decades of the 20th century were
electronic health records pioneers. They took the risk of
automating clinical information at a time when many
organizations were just taking the first steps toward
automating financial records. Many of these same
trailblazers are leading the way toward a new generation of
clinical automation decades after they began their original
quests. And their efforts continue to yield many important
lessons for others following in their paths. The new goal of
these trailblazers: James Holly, M.D., sums it up as
electronic patient management. "Electronic patient records
are not the goal," says Holly, CEO at Southeast Texas
Medical Associates, a 28-physician practice in Beaumont.
Rather, the goal is to use clinical data to improve
communication with patients while achieving better treatment
results.
(May 1, 2007)
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Physicians’ View of Health IT Grows More Positive
Barriers to physician acceptance
and adoption of health-IT are
starting to fall, thanks to some
innovative approaches to
introducing the technology to
rank-and-file doctors, some
practice leaders report.
Physician executives from widely
varying settings explained some
of their successes during last
week’s
World Health Care Congress
in Washington, D.C.
(May 1, 2007)
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Cost, disruption not only EHR concerns for docs
The American Health Information Community does not recognize
that most physicians choose not to use electronic
health-records systems because privacy violations are built
into these systems and security risks are exponentially
greater than in paper systems. Costs and the disruption of
changing work patterns are not the only reasons the majority
of American doctors don’t use EHRs. Even though "smart"
technology exists that can obtain patients' electronic
consents instantly, share only selected data, and then
create complete audit trails of every data field or page
disclosed, these electronic authorization and consent
technologies are not widely used. Authorization or consent
technologies can really put consumers back in control of
access to their records and stop providers and data banks
from deciding who can access and use EHRs.
(May 1, 2007)
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Certification Commission OKs 30 More EHR Systems
The Certification Commission for Healthcare IT on Monday
announced that it has certified 30 additional electronic
health record systems for ambulatory care under the 2006
criteria.
(May 1, 2007)
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DoD among new EHR certifications
The Department of
Defense AHLTA system was among the 30 electronic health
records products newly certified Monday by the Certification
Commission for Healthcare Information Technology. The CCHIT
announcement brings the total number of certifications to 81
since the program’s inception a year ago, according to CCHIT
spokesperson Sue Reber. Reber said the commission inspected
a total of 98 ambulatory EHR products, and found that
criteria were met in 83 percent of the inspections. The
commission also estimated that more than 40 percent of
companies with ambulatory EHR products have been certified,
Reber said.
(May 1, 2007)
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SureScripts' MedAvant acquisition billed as boost to
e-prescribing
SureScripts’ half-million-dollar acquisition of MedAvant’s
pharmacy processing business announced today means
5,000-10,000 more physicians will have electronic access to
10,000-15,000 more pharmacies across the country, according
to SureScripts chief officer. “It will allow much broader
access to pharmacies such as Wal-Mart, Longs Drugs, Kroger
and Albertsons,” Surescripts CEO Kevin Hutchinson said.
(May 1, 2007)
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Online Physician Visits Catching On
An increasing number of physicians are using online
medical consultations to address patients' symptoms without
office visits, Rick Kellerman, president of the American
Academy of Family Physicians, said on Monday in an
appearance on CBS' "The Early Show."
(May 1, 2007)
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South Carolina Could Be Country's First Wireless State
Soon, the entire state of South Carolina could go wireless.
Many spots in the state still don't have access to high
speed Internet. But a new bill in the Senate could change
that. The bill would create the Wireless Technology and
Communication Commission. That group would gather the
information and technology needed to make it happen. State
Rep. Dwight Loftis co-authored the bill. He said that
statewide wireless access would allow South Carolina to
connect with the world. "It will provide the virtual
infrastructure that rural communities don't have. It will
add to a benefit to healthcare..."
(May 1, 2007)
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Electronic records vital to patient safety
Changes have been made to software that is used by 75% of
New Zealand’s GPs so that patients’ records carry
identification on all pages sent electronically or by fax to
other health providers. The response follows the death of an
elderly man at Auckland City Hospital in 2004. Vino Ramayah,
executive chairman of New Zealand’s leading medical record
software systems provider MedTech Global, says it is
regrettable any death had to occur and he extends his
sympathy to the family and friends of the patient. A report
by Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson reveals a
mix up in the way doctors’ referral letters and medication
records received by fax were then collated at the hospital.
(May 1, 2007)
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