Interesting Newly Found e-Health Related Sites

A colleague has provided the following suggested site for all those interested in the use of Systems Methodologies to come to grips with the complexities of Health Service Delivery in the real world.

National Institutes for Health: Systems Methodologies for Solving Real-World Problems: Applications in Public Health Presented by: Patty Mabry, Ph.D., Bobby Milstein, Ph.D., M.P.H., John Sterman, Ph.D. and Ken McLeroy, Ph.D., Washington, March 2007

The Videocast is Described as follows:

“The first in a series of four educational seminars featuring leaders in various areas of systems science. The purposes are to raise awareness of particularly promising methodologies; and improve our collective understanding about how and when they may be used effectively by behavioural and social scientists (including researchers, policy analysts, planners/evaluators, grant reviewers, journal editors and government officials).

This first symposium provides an introduction to, and overview of, the rest of the series. The core principles of system-oriented inquiry will be described, while briefly surveying a variety of methodological traditions and emerging directions in the field. John Sterman (Director, System Dynamics Group at MIT) will share his view of the field followed by Ken McLeroy (Associate Dean at Texas A&M and Department Editor for AJPH), who will explore further implications and assess the prospects for incorporating systems methodologies more fully into routine public health work.

This is important material from some of the global experts in the field!

It is a large download – some 780 Megabytes – so be warned!

If interested in the area go to:

http://videocast.nih.gov/Summary.asp?file=13712

The following also seems to be very useful.

Learning from Mistakes

No news is said to be good news. For Scot Silverstein, M.D., however, lack of information is a symptom of a major industry problem. In 1998, Silverstein launched a Web site devoted to shining light on healthcare IT failures. Hospital leaders, IT vendors and the media have swept the topic under the rug, he says. “IT failure is a serious problem, but people are reluctant to study it,” says Silverstein, the director of the Philadelphia-based Institute for Healthcare Informatics at Drexel University College of Information Science and Technology. “We like to talk about success, not failure.”

According to Silverstein, the healthcare industry is plagued by projects that do not live up their potential—or in some cases, are scrapped altogether. His observations are drawn from several years of experience working at large health systems, where clinical documentation projects involving IT stalled due to mismanagement. In 1998, Silverstein launched the site, hoping to gather case studies from others in the field.

………

The site is: www.ischool.Drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/medinfo.htm

—Gary Baldwin

The full article can be found at:

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/magazine/view_magazine_feature.cfm?content_id=87842&category_id=155

Additionally – also important is this:

Proof of Impact: New Study Sheds Light on Economics of Health IT Investment

by Colleen Egan, iHealthBeat Editor

March 30, 2007

While many in the health care industry say that investment in IT leads to better quality and performance, there is a dearth of solid evidence to support that claim. A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers aims to "retire the question of whether IT has a positive impact on hospital business performance."

The report, titled "The Economics of IT and Hospital Performance," used "econometric" techniques to study the relationship between IT adoption and organizational performance at nearly 2,000 U.S. hospitals over a five-year period. Researchers -- who used sources such as the Solucient ProviderView database and the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey Database -- collected three types of data:

• Hospital services and facilities utilization;
• Health IT investment; and
• Hospital operating costs.

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The full article can be found at:

http://www.ihealthbeat.org/index.cfm?Action=dspItem&itemid=132349

Lastly:

Six tips for surefire EHR implementation success

Electronic Health Records Briefing, Mar. 27, 2007

Joel N. Diamond, MD, implemented an inpatient EHR, including 100 percent adoption of computerized physician order entry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center St. Margaret Memorial Hospital. This was one of the first successful community hospital installations in the United States.

Before launching CPOE in September 2004, Diamond went on a one-year campaign among St. Margaret’s 300 private physicians to promote acceptance of CPOE and identify those who resisted it. Because of this, the hospital launched the system two weeks ahead of schedule and now enjoys full participation by the medical staff. During the January 24 HealthLeaders Media (a division of HCPro, Inc.) Webcast “Bringing the Digital Hospital to Life: Expert advice and real-world lessons,” Diamond offered the following six tips for successful implementation:

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Again the full article can be found at:

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/view_content.cfm?content_id=88249

Enjoy!

David.