Decision Support – Coming From All Directions!

In the last few days I seem to have been deluged with all sorts of different decision support stories, each addressing different problems.

First we have:

Michigan docs use computerized reminders to boost colon cancer screening rates

By Richard Pizzi, Associate Editor 09/05/08

A computerized reminder system used in community-based primary care physicians' offices has increased colorectal cancer screening rates by an average of 9 percent, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Health System.

The reminder system, called ClinfoTracker, was developed by family medicine physicians at UMHS to help track and manage primary care.

The system encourages doctors and patients to follow guidelines for managing chronic diseases or for prevention screenings.

In the current study, published in the September issue of Medical Care, ClinfoTracker was integrated into 12 primary care practices participating in the Great Lakes Research into Practice Network, a statewide practice-based research network in Michigan.

More here

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9872

Second we have:

CapMed Adds Analysis App to PHR

September 5, 2008

Personal health records vendor CapMed will offer an optional gaps-in-care analysis module with its software.

…..

The engine will analyze information in a PHR, either entered by a consumer or automatically inputted by an insurer or employer. The consumer will receive personally relevant information on treatment options, support groups, clinical trials, medication recalls, treatment reminders, and vital signs out of their normal range.

More here

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/PHR26907-1.html?ET=healthdatamanagement:e589:100325a:&st=email&channel=consumer_health

More information is available at capmed.com.

Third we have:

Vitalog PSS™ HealthCoach™ Programs Launches Pilot in Europe

NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Brussels, Vlaams Brabant, Belgium, 09/09/2008

Vitalog is a global company based in Brussels working in the field of healthy Life Style and Wellness. We provide innovative state of the art Healthy Life Style coaching programs and solutions for primary and secondary diseases prevention.

After successfully delivering the Vitalog Pss™ HealthCoach™ platform in the USA, Vitalog will start 2 pilots in Europe in order to adopt European cultural diversity factors into its Internet and mobile platform. The first pilot service will be held in the UK starting November 2008 and the second pilot will be in Belgium and will start December 2008.

Vitalog PSS™ HealthCoach™ is a software as a service (SaaS) based on Vitalog’s Pss™ innovative platform that offers at the same time a set of tools to consumers, industry and health care professionals.

Vitalog PSS™ HealthCoach™ delivers primary and secondary prevention services and tools for programs dealing with weight loss and management, reducing blood cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, smoking cessation and many more, using its state-of-the-art Mobile and Internet technologies In order to deliver behavior change programs and interventions that drive its users to healthier lifestyle.

Vitalog PSS™ delivers to the consumer real time engaging personalized advice, feedback and programs using behavior change strategies that are being set by psychologists, physicians and nutritionists.

Primary and secondary prevention using structured behavior modification (aka: personal coaching for healthier lifestyle) are being recognized by World Health Organization and the healthcare industry as best practice.

Much more here:

http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/39507/

Fourth we have:

IT helps California hospital spot high-risk patients

By Bernie Monegain, Editor 09/11/08

Mercy Merced Medical Center, part of the Catholic Healthcare West system, is putting information technology to work in identifying high-risk patients.

Mercy Merced tapped Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Thomson Reuters for its Clinical Xpert CareFocus software, an extension of the Clinical Xpert Navigator product that gives clinicians access to clinical data on their mobile devices and smartphones.

CareFocus is designed to allow clinicians to build clinical profiles to identify high-risk patients from the hospital census based on their medications, lab results, vital signs, diagnoses, observations, active orders and demographics.

By identifying at-risk patients early, clinicians say, hospitals can significantly improve clinical outcomes - reducing mortality, length of stay and potential costs from treating complications.

More here:

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9963

All I can say is that I was amazed at the variety of efforts being initiated to try and help both consumers and professionals do a better job of looking after their health and the range of approaches being adopted. Just great.

David.

E-Health Really Works – What Good News!

The e-Health Initiaitve published a crucial report a few days ago. Here is the press release.

Fifth Annual Survey of HIEs Released at Capitol Hill Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics Briefing

The e-Health Initiative (eHI) released its 2008 Fifth Annual Survey of Health Information Exchange at the State and Local Levels during a September 11th Capitol Hill Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics briefing.

Washington, D.C. (Vocus/PRWEB ) September 12, 2008 -- The e-Health Initiative (eHI) released its 2008 Fifth Annual Survey of Health Information Exchange at the State and Local Levels during a September 11th Capitol Hill Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics briefing. The survey, which included responses from 130 community-based initiatives in 48 states, shows the significant impact fully operational initiatives are having on improving healthcare delivery and efficiency.

"Health information exchange is extremely important in the transformation of healthcare," said Robert Kolodner, MD, Department of Health and Human Services National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. States understand the urgency and are acting in response to the needs of their communities.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) reiterated his commitment to continuing funding of national health IT initiatives. "A fully-interoperable, nationwide health information infrastructure could drastically improve patient care, by giving doctors on-the-spot information and data to support diagnoses and other decisions; preventing avoidable medical errors; connecting doctors, pharmacies, and hospitals to allow medical records to be transferred electronically; and allowing health care facilities to track inpatients' recovery progress."

Key findings from the 2008 survey are as follows:

• A majority (69%) of the fully operational exchange efforts (29/42) report reductions in health care costs. These respondents say health information exchange allows them to:
• Decrease dollars spent on redundant tests
• Reduce the number of patient admissions to hospitals for medication errors, allergies or interactions
• Decrease the cost of care for chronically ill patients
• Reduce staff time spent on administration

The briefing also included a reaction panel with the following stakeholders: Paul Cotton, senior legislative representative, AARP; William Fandrich, MD, informatics officer, CIGNA HealthCare; William Hazel, MD, practicing physician, and member of the Board of Trustees, American Medical Association; and Liesa Jenkins, executive director, CareSpark. The panel was moderated by Rachel Block, executive director of the New York eHealth Collaborative and president of the eHealth Initiative Foundation.

Since 1993, the Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics has convened more than 120 widely attended, publicly available educational lunch sessions and technology demonstrations on Capitol Hill. In June 2008, the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) announced that the series would continue through the managerial leadership of the new Institute for e-Health Policy within the HIMSS Foundation.

The mission of the Institute for e-Health Policy is to provide educational opportunities in the Washington, DC area that will help public and private sector stakeholders influence e-health policy decisions, which can have a tremendous impact on organizations they represent.

The Institute for e-Health Policy is led by Neal Neuberger, a former Capitol Hill professional staff member who more than 15 years ago founded the Capitol Hill Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics. While assuming responsibilities as the Executive Director of the Institute, Neal will continue to head the Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics.

Click here to view a web cast of the event.

The full release is found here:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/e-Health-Initiative/HIMSS/prweb1325204.htm

A summary of the key findings of the study and much more detail is available here:

http://www.ehealthinitiative.org/2007HIESurvey/2008KeyFindings.mspx

Commentary on the outcomes of the survey has been very positive. An example is here:

Leaders pleased with evidence of healthcare IT progress

By Diana Manos, Senior Editor 09/12/08

The nation's healthcare IT chief, Robert M. Kolodner, MD, says a new report released by eHealth Initiative shows tangible evidence of healthcare IT progress.

Kolodner and other leaders at a briefing Thursday commented on eHI's "Fifth Annual Survey of Health Information Exchange at the State and Local Levels," a survey of 130 community-based initiatives in 48 states, which revealed significant advances in healthcare information exchanges.

Kolodner said healthcare IT has "without question" changed and will continue to change over time. The use of electronic health records by providers has become more routine, he said, and personal health records are emerging.

Kolodner said the federal government needs to continue to drive healthcare IT adoption and interoperability. Healthcare IT needs to be combined with other aspects of reform, such as those promoted by the HHS value-driven healthcare initiative, he said.

Janet Marchibroda, CEO of the eHealth Initiative, said this year's survey shows a 30 percent increase in the number of operational HIEs over last year.

"We are making a lot of progress and I'm very excited," she said. "We're seeing some real impact and getting some results."

Many HIEs reported improvements in care and reduced costs, according to the report. Eighteen new HIEs were reported to have been started since last year.

More here:

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9969

Also here:

Survey: HIEs/RHIOs Reducing Costs

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/HIE_RHIO26933-1.html?ET=healthdatamanagement:e597:100325a:&st=email&channel=information_exchange&user_id=100325

The bottom line of all this is that Health Information Exchange – even when implemented at only a regional level can make a real difference for the better. Enough said! We just need to get on with it!

David.

Useful and Interesting Health IT Links from the Last Week – 14/09/2008

Again, in the last week, I have come across a few reports and news items which are worth passing on.

These include first:

AMA wants patient views on audit plan

Adam Cresswell, Health editor | September 13, 2008

THE peak doctors' group is considering surveying patients for their views of a Medicare Australia plan for a huge expansion of auditing activities, which could for the first time allow non-medically qualified officials to inspect material from patients' medical records.

The Australian Medical Association claims the proposals -- which it strongly opposes -- could make some patients reluctant to discuss sensitive issues with their doctor for fear the details might later be read without their consent by Medicare auditors.

The long-running compliance program, which is designed to sniff out instances of inadvertently incorrect Medicare claiming as well as outright fraud, is about to quadruple in size following a near $80 million cash injection by the federal Government.

Last week Medicare Australia embarked on a publicity campaign to build public support for the changes, which will see the number of health professionals subjected to compliance audits rise from 500 to 2500.

But there could be a tussle for public support. AMA president doctor Rosanna Capolingua says patients "would very much want to know" if there was a risk of their records being accessed by a third party, and a survey option would be considered.

More here:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24331476-23289,00.html

It is vital that we have proper compliance with Medicare rules, however proper regulation and control of indentified health records is absolutely vital. The AMA is right to demand that such safeguards for patient privacy are in place but wrong to try and weaken the Medicare compliance regime.

Second we have:

Security worries see GPs drop shared lab tests

4:00AM Tuesday September 09, 2008

By Martin Johnston

The aim of TestSafe is to make lab results instantly and widely available.

A health group with 150,000 patients has pulled out of a system that shares lab test results among doctors because of fears over inadequate informed consent.

The withdrawal of North Shore-based Harbour Health and most of its GPs is a blow to the Auckland region's TestSafe system of sharing lab results among district health board clinicians and participating GPs.

TestSafe was started without fanfare by the region's three boards in 2006 as a way to reduce duplication of lab tests done or funded by the DHBs and to improve patient safety by making the latest results instantly and widely available.

Patients can opt out test by test. In the first nine months, just 18 did so, out of more than 560,000 tested.

Yesterday, however, the Herald learned that all but three of the 147 GPs in the Harbour Health primary health organisation told TestSafe in July not to list their patients' results.

Chief executive Susan Turner said they had done so because of legal advice that it was impossible for GPs to obtain informed consent from patients to have their results put on to the TestSafe database.

More here:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=255&objectid=10531160

It interesting that what is obviously a useful system has operated for over two years is suddenly brought low by consent issues not being properly addressed. There are a number of data-bases of results in Australia that may have similar issues. One especially wonders about the pathology database underlying OACIS in South Australia.

The SA privacy policy of their systems is clearly purely an “opt-out” approach which is recognised around the world as being a good deal less than best practice.

See here:

http://www.careconnect.sa.gov.au/Default.aspx?tabid=189

Third we have:

E-prescribing project delayed

Michael Woodhead

A pharmacy-driven electronic prescribing project announced with much fanfare earlier this year has hit a setback with one partner, prescribing software company Medical Director, going cold on the project.

In March the Pharmacy Guild announced a ScriptX project to start in October which would allow GPs to create electronic prescriptions on a central encrypted hub that any participating pharmacy could access and dispense.

More here:

http://www.6minutes.com.au/dirplus/images/6minutes/newsletter/8_09_2008.pdf

Looks like all the fanfare about this was a trifle overdone. My view is that provision of hubing services for e-prescribing is, recognising the way our health system operates, is something that should be delivered and controlled by the federal government and not any private entity.

Fourth we have:

All eyes on case against Medicare

Monday, 08 September 2008

The Australian Financial Review|

Julian Bajkowski

The Federal Court has ordered Medicare Australia to file its defence to a landmark legal action, opening the door for a determination on the extent government can participate in the private transactions market.

The action was brought against Medicare by Thelma, a subsidiary of the listed health technology company ICSGlobal.

Thelma has alleged Medicare illegally used its market power by offering free electronic private health transaction services that copied the company's own, in an effort to eliminate or substantially damage competition in its market.

More here:

http://www.misaustralia.com/viewer.aspx?EDP://20080908000030283725&magsection=news-headlines-home&portal=_misnews&section=news&title=All+eyes+on+case+against+Medicare

This is an interesting development and should be watched closely by all those who hope we might have fully interoperable secure messaging in the health sector some time soon. It can be argued that such services should be a Government monopoly to ensure full interoperation but can be equally be argued that only competition will optimise the quality of service provided and the cost of that service.

Fifth we have:

Collider probes universe's mysteries at the speed of light

Worldwide computer grid helps scientists make sense of data coming from collider experiments

Sharon Gaudin 10/09/2008 08:56:00

With the world's biggest physics experiment ready to fire up today, scientists from around the world are hoping to find answers to a question that has haunted mankind for centuries -- how was the universe created?

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which has been under construction for 20 years, will shoot its first beam of protons around a 17-mile, vacuum-sealed loop at a facility that sits astride the Franco-Swiss border. The test run of what is the largest, most powerful particle accelerator in the world, is a forebear to the coming time when scientists will accelerate two particle beams toward each other at 99.9 percent of the speed of light.

Smashing the beams together will create showers of new particles that should recreate conditions in the universe just moments after its conception.

Wednesday's test run is a critical milestone in getting to that ultimate test. And a worldwide grid of servers and desktops will help the scientific team make sense of the information that they expect will come pouring in.

More here:

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=977114375&eid=-6787

The mother of all physics experiments with the potential to transform our view of the way the Universe works. I for one delight that in this troubled world such things can still be made to happen. We need value what this signals about what a co-operative world can achieve

More also here:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/atomsmasher-may-prove-god-particle/2008/09/08/1220857456604.html

Atom-smasher may prove 'God particle'

Last we have the slightly more technical article for the week:

Opening Search to Semantic Upstarts

Yahoo's new open-search platform is giving semantic search a helping hand.

By Kate Greene

Even if you have a great idea for a new search engine, it's far from easy to get it off the ground. For one thing, the best engineering talent resides at big-name companies. Even more significantly, according to some estimates, it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to buy and maintain the servers needed to index the Web in its entirety.

However, Yahoo recently released a resource that may offer hope to search innovators and entrepreneurs. Called Build Your Own Search Service (BOSS), it allows programmers to make use of Yahoo's index of the Web--billions of pages that are continually updated--thereby removing perhaps the biggest barrier to search innovation. By opening its index to thousands of independent programmers and entrepreneurs, Yahoo hopes that BOSS will kick-start projects that it lacks the time, money, and resources to invent itself. Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Research and a consulting professor at Stanford University, says this might include better ways of searching videos or images, tools that use social networks to rank search results, or a semantic search engine that tries to understand the contents of Web pages, rather than just a collection of keywords and links.

"We're trying to break down the barriers to innovation," says Raghavan, although he admits that BOSS is far from an altruistic venture. If a new search-engine tool built using Yahoo's index becomes popular and potentially profitable, Yahoo reserves the right to place ads next to its results.

More here:

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/21342/?nlid=1322&a=f

This is an interesting approach to fostering innovation in an area where the barriers to entry are very high – and as ‘cloud computing’ evolves seem likely to go higher. For an excellent take on the cloud and where it is heading the ABC’s Background Briefing has just broadcast an excellent program. Available for download free for the next month.

See here:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2008/2359128.htm

Great set of links as well for further information.

More next week.

David.

Mt Sinai Medical Center Clinical Smart Card Initiative – Can it Work?

The following article appeared a few days ago.

Mt. Sinai Medical Center looks to open standards for patient smartcards

Hospital smartcard stores identity and health records

By Ellen Messmer , Network World , 08/27/2008

Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City, which five years ago pioneered the practice of giving out a smartcard to patients to store identity and healthcare records, is realigning its focus to support open standards that could get other hospital systems supporting smartcards, too.

"Patients have wanted the cards and consider them an important credential," says Paul Contino, vice president of information system at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, which has issued about 14,000 of the smartcards to patients through the pilot program that started at the Elmhurst Hospital Center affiliated with Mt. Sinai's School of Medicine. Mt. Sinai Medical Center now plans a redesign of its patient smartcard to adhere to an open standard known as the "Continuity of Care Record" (CCR) with the anticipation that other medical institutions in the New York area and elsewhere might support patient smartcards, too.

The Mt. Sinai-issued smartcard, which stores the patient's personal information, lab results and other medical records, is updated every time the smartcard is placed in a card reader with access to the specialized database of the hospital information system which acts as the smartcard data repository.

…..

The immediate effort, though, entails Mt. Sinai switching to an XML-based standard called CCR that was jointly developed by several organizations, including ASTM International, Massachusetts Medical Society and HIMSS.

…..

Contino says Mt. Sinai will be steering its patient smartcard project toward using CCR, with the goal of also encouraging other hospital systems to adopt it in order to establish a multi-hospital system where different healthcare providers one day will be able to accept each other's issued patient smartcards for purposes of sharing patient-related data.

…..

Full article is here:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/082708-mt-sinai-open-standards-smartcards.html?hpg1=bn

This article follows up a much longer in depth article from late last year.

Hospital puts medical records snapshot on smart cards

By Laurianne Mclaughlin , CIO , 10/18/2007

Several years ago, Paul Contino and the IT team at New York's Mount Sinai Medical Center spent about $1.5 million on a project to clean up duplicate medical records. Duplicate records can lead to problems with quality and continuity of patient care, plus billing snafus. For a major hospital like Mount Sinai, delayed or lost billing revenue resulting from claims denials can add up to $1 million per week. And patient registration errors, leading to inaccurate records, account for 70% of those claims denials, says Contino, a VP of IT at Mount Sinai.

The records clean-up went well, Contino says. But three years later, the problem was back. The IT team became convinced of the need for a better system to register patients, and began exploring an idea that has now turned into a pioneering smart card system.

Today, Mount Sinai patients participating in the pilot test can choose to carry a "personal health card." This encrypted smart card with 64K of memory holds not only the patient's name, photo, and insurance information, but also a medical history snapshot, including notes on allergies, medications, recent treatment data, and even in some cases, a compressed EKG test result. The goal is to distribute 100,000 cards in the initial pilot project, Contino says.

Mount Sinai's registration staffers can use the cards to check in patients quickly and accurately; emergency room triage nurses can use the cards for quick access to relevant patient data.

Mount Sinai, one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious teaching hospitals in the U.S., with 1,171 beds and some 1,800 medical staff, has ambitious goals for the smart card system: It aims to reduce fraud, improve revenue cycles through the reduction of registration errors, and boost quality of patient care.

A smart card bearing a medical snapshot is portable, encrypted for privacy and security, and requires little IT infrastructure to connect facilities ranging from mega-hospitals like Mt. Sinai to community clinics. This is not a replacement system: Today, these hospitals have no efficient way of sharing registration data or urgent care clinical data. For patients, the card has the ability to speed check-in and supply some peace of mind. After all, what patient, arriving at an emergency room such as Mount Sinai's, doesn't want hospital staff to have immediate access to the correct, key medical facts -- even if the patient is not able to speak, or speaking a foreign language, or presenting an ID with a name that hundreds of other New Yorkers share.

Giving patients more control over their own medical records is a complicated problem that various companies and governmental groups have been trying to crack for years. President Bush backs the idea of a Nationwide Health Information Network to reduce costs and improve care, through making records electronic and more easily shared among institutions. As part of that NHIN effort, various RHIOs (regional health information organizations) are working on ways to connect records and make systems interoperable between institutions.

Much more here (well worth a read for the thinking behind the project):

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/101807-hospital-puts-medical-records-snapshot.html

Two of the major issues are addressed in these later paragraphs

“What about privacy? Because the cards have tough Triple-DES-level encryption, plus require a PIN code, they're "useless" if lost, Contino says. While Mount Sinai's privacy officer was initially concerned about the smart card project, that changed when everyone involved agreed that a patient entering a PIN code while using the smart card met HIPAA requirements quite well, Contino says.

Mount Sinai offers patients the cards upon registration at the hospital, and at check-in time for follow-up visits.

For the hospital, the card system has the ability to reduce fraud, improve revenue cycles through the reduction of registration errors, and boost quality of patient care. For patients, the card has the ability to speed check-in and supply some peace of mind.”

From what is described here it seems this project has been progressively refining its approach and as it learns what is working and what is not is making appropriate mid-course corrections. This is the way any really successful evolving e-health project should be progressed in my view. Start very simple, prove concept, value and usefulness and then incrementally evolve.

I look forward to the next instalment of the story and the establishment of interoperability between hospitals..that would be a real success indeed!

David.

The Impact of Web 2.0 and Big Data on Health Care.

The Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) Vol 10 Issue 3.0 is publishing an interesting issue on the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on Healthcare.

The abstract of the introductory editorial is below.

Medicine 2.0: Social Networking, Collaboration, Participation, Apomediation, and Openness

Gunther Eysenbach, MD, MPH

Corresponding Author:

Gunther Eysenbach, MD, MPH

Centre for Global eHealth Innovation

University of Toronto and University Health Network

90 Elizabeth Street

Toronto ON M5G 2C4

Canada

Phone: +1 416 340 4800 ext 6427

Fax: +1 416 340 3595

Email: geysenba [at] uhnres.utoronto.ca

ABSTRACT

In a very significant development for eHealth, a broad adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and approaches coincides with the more recent emergence of Personal Health Application Platforms and Personally Controlled Health Records such as Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault, and Dossia. “Medicine 2.0” applications, services, and tools are defined as Web-based services for health care consumers, caregivers, patients, health professionals, and biomedical researchers, that use Web 2.0 technologies and/or semantic web and virtual reality approaches to enable and facilitate specifically 1) social networking, 2) participation, 3) apomediation, 4) openness, and 5) collaboration, within and between these user groups. The Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) publishes a Medicine 2.0 theme issue and sponsors a conference on “How Social Networking and Web 2.0 changes Health, Health Care, Medicine, and Biomedical Research”, to stimulate and encourage research in these five areas.

(J Med Internet Res 2008;10(3):e22)
doi:10.2196/jmir.1030

KEYWORDS

Cooperative Behavior; Education; Information Storage and Retrieval; Interpersonal Relations; Organizational Innovation; Social Behavior; User-Computer Interface; Online Systems; Patient Education as Topic; Terminology as Topic; Medical Record Linkage; Self Care; Internet; Health Communication; Collaboration; Research

The full editorial is found here:

http://www.jmir.org/2008/3/e22/

The table of contents for the whole issue is found here:

http://www.jmir.org/2008/

The full editorial and the associated articles are well worth a browse.

On a similar Nature has published a series of articles on what is termed ‘Big Data’. The following is part of the introductory editorial

Editorial

Community cleverness required

Abstract

Researchers need to adapt their institutions and practices in response to torrents of new data — and need to complement smart science with smart searching.

The Internet search firm Google was incorporated just 10 years ago this week. Going from a collection of donated servers housed under a desk to a global network of dedicated data centres processing information by the petabyte, Google's growth mirrors that of the production and exploration of data in research. All of which makes this an apt moment for this special issue of Nature, which examines what big data sets mean for contemporary science.

'Big', of course, is a moving target. The portability of the tens of gigabytes we carry around on USB sticks would have seemed like fantasy a few years ago. But beyond a certain point, as an increasing number of research disciplines are discovering, the vast amounts of data are presenting fresh challenges that urgently need to be addressed.

The issue is partly a matter of the sheer scale of today's data sets. Managing this torrent of bits has forced more and more fields to move to industrial-scale data centres and cutting-edge networking technology (see page 16). But the data sets are also becoming increasingly complex. As researchers study the inner workings of the cell, for example, they now gather data on genomic sequences, protein sequences, protein structure and function, bimolecular interactions, signalling and metabolic pathways, regulatory motifs — on and on. No wonder even the smartest scientists turn with relief to advanced data-mining tools, online community collaborations (see page 22) and sophisticated visualization techniques (see page 30).

Sudden influxes of data have transformed researchers' understanding of nature before — even back in the days when 'computer' was still a job description (see page 36). Unfortunately, the institutions and culture of science remain rooted in that pre-electronic era. Taking full advantage of electronic data will require a great deal of additional infrastructure, both technical and cultural (see pages 8, 28 and 47).

The full paper and associated material is found here:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7209/full/455001a.html

Nature 455, 1 (4 September 2008) | doi:10.1038/455001a; Published online 3 September 2008

While not specifically health related it is clear there is great relevance for the health sector.

Both sets of article deserve a close review.

David.

Health Portal Technologies - Evolving at High Speed.

Two very interesting and exciting examples of Health Information Technology Portals came to my attention this week. I found both very interesting and encouraging.

The first I came upon as a result of this press release announcing a portal to support a Health Information Exchange (HIE).

Park Ridge Hospital “Go Live” Completes Phase I of Western North Carolina HIE Powered by MEDSEEK Physician Portal

HIE Will Connect Ambulatory EMRs to MEDSEEK’s Enterprise Portal During Phase II

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MEDSEEK, a leading provider of enterprise portal connectivity solutions, today announced that Western North Carolina Health Information Exchange (HIE) implemented MEDSEEK’s physician portal at Park Ridge Hospital. This “go live” completes the first phase of its e-health initiative by enabling all 16 participating facilities to exchange patient data electronically. During phase II, MEDSEEK’s physician portal will connect physician office EMRs to the HIE network.

“With the completion of Phase I, we plan to pilot data exchange between community physicians and inpatient facilities this fall, which will further advance clinical decision-making and patient care across our region,” said Gary Bowers, Executive Director of the Western North Carolina Health Network. “MEDSEEK excelled when faced with the challenge of connecting five different information systems across 16 hospitals to deliver the right data from the right systems in real-time. The MEDSEEK physician portal allows our doctors to pull up a new patient’s history, recent medications, lab results, emergency contact and primary care physician within seconds. The portal has generated significant overall productivity gains by streamlining clinical workflow, eliminating repeat tests and reducing the potential for medical errors.”

The WNC Data Link HIE was the first regional health information organization in North Carolina and remains one of the largest in North America. The MEDSEEK physician portal is deployed at all 16 hospitals within the HIE: Angel Medical Center, CarePartners, Cherokee Indian Hospital, Harris Regional Medical Center, Haywood Regional Medical Center, Highlands-Cashiers Hospital, The McDowell Hospital, Mission Hospitals, Murphy Medical Center, Pardee Memorial Hospital, Park Ridge Hospital, Rutherford Hospital, Blue Ridge Regional Hospital, St. Luke’s Hospital, Swain County Hospital and Transylvania Community Hospital.

"MEDSEEK's physician portal has improved emergency care for patients across western North Carolina by enabling physicians to access most patient records — from any of the 16 hospitals in our network — within minutes instead of hours or days," said David M. Poorbaugh, MD, medical director and practicing emergency physician at 730-bed Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C., which is part of Mission Health System.

"Before the MEDSEEK portal, we had to get a release from the patient, fax it to medical records and wait an interminable amount of time for somebody to be available to find and fax the records to you. It was unreliable and a very, very slow process," said Dr. Poorbaugh. "The portal has made a fundamental difference in how we treat patients in the emergency department. Anytime you have better integration of patient health records, it improves patient care. I wouldn't want to be without the portal and all the emergency physicians using it share my opinion."

Added Bowers, “In the past, a rural patient would see a specialist at a tertiary hospital, undergo treatment and return to their primary care physician without the vital details needed for continuing care. Now, the rural physician can pull up the specialist's notes, test results, prescribed medications and discharge summaries at a click of the mouse. This makes our physicians very happy – and our patients safer, and healthier.”

MEDSEEK enables clinicians to view patient data across all of the disparate systems in an enterprise with a single sign-on. The intuitive interface encourages clinicians to quickly adopt the secure, easy-to-use system. The portal also provides patient-physician interaction via secure eConsults to further enhance communications.

“To achieve a true, longitudinal patient record, hospitals must start with real-time access to complete patient data from anywhere in the HIE,” explains Peter Kuhn, president of MEDSEEK. “Our physician portal supplies the Western North Carolina HIE with the flexibility, personalization, and functionality required to realize their e-Health vision of providing a centralized access point for viewing all patient data, securely, quickly and easily.”

More here:

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080903005630&newsLang=en

I then noticed the following.

MEDSEEK Leads in KLAS ® Rankings for Clinical Portal Solution

MEDSEEK Leads KLAS ® Portals Segment as of August 22, 2008.

Birmingham, AL (PRWEB) September 4, 2008 -- MEDSEEK , a leading provider of enterprise portal management solutions, announced today it leads in KLAS® rankings for its Clinical Web Portal software solution.

KLAS ® is an independent healthcare market research firm that gathers data about clinical portal solutions from CIO's, Directors, and other healthcare providers about software functionality, solution performance, technical support and service. According to the August 26, 2008 Platinum KLAS ® database, MEDSEEK has the highest current performance ratings, outscoring all other clinical portal solutions.

Peter Kuhn, President of MEDSEEK commented, "MEDSEEK's superior ranking in the KLAS ® report highlights our effort to provide comprehensive eHealth solutions." Kuhn added, "We frequently receive high praise from our clients on our ability to deliver complex installations on time and on budget. The KLAS rating validates our reputation as an organization that consistently delivers on our commitments."

More here:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/09/prweb1279174.htm

It seems that at present MEDSEEK is the market leader. Having gone to their site (www.medseek.com) and explored for a while I can see why. There is a lot of useful functionality brought together here.

A day or so later I noted the following.

Wolters Kluwer to Buy UpToDate

September 4, 2008

Medical reference publisher Wolters Kluwer Health has announced it will acquire UpToDate Inc., a vendor of electronic, point-of-care clinical decision support software.

…..

More information is available at wkhealth.com and uptodate.com.

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/acquisition26898-1.html?ET=healthdatamanagement:e586:100325a:&st=email&channel=decision_support

A quick visit here shows why WK Health were prepared to pay the required millions for the company. This was clearly a well thought portal providing clinical decision support for both health professionals and consumers.

All in all two very interesting portals that provide some useful ideas as to how Australia should be looking at architecting its national e-Health efforts.

David.

HIMSS Analyses The Global EHR Situation – Important Report.

The following press release appeared a day or say ago.

Healthcare IT - "It's A Sleeping Giant"

HIMSS Global Enterprise Task Force (GEFT) investigates implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) in 15 countries around the world

CHICAGO (Sept. 5, 2008) – Recognizing common threads that affect all EHR implementations in 15 countries, the Global Enterprise Task Force of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has released “Electronic Health Records: A Global Perspective.” The extensive study reviewed healthcare IT progress in Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North America.

The 16-member task force looked at various EHR components within each country, including, security, quality, financing sources and barriers to adoption. Amid many variations, four common factors emerged that affect implementation of the electronic health record throughout the world. They are:

• Funding
• Governance
• Standardization and interoperability
• Communication

“This comprehensive report provides actionable lessons learned from each of the countries we reviewed. Despite the local differences in the logistics of EHR implementation, we found that all of the countries believed in the benefits of health IT and introduced this technology into their respective health systems,” said Steve Arnold, MD, MS, MBA, CPE, chair of the task force and president/CEO, Healthcare Consultants International, Lagrangeville, NY. Walter W. Wieners, FHIMSS, co-chaired the task force and is managing principal, Walter W. Wieners Consulting, Sausalito, Calif.

The 119-page report presents findings on EHR implementation by country in five categories. Each chapter features an overview of the country’s electronic health record status followed by a review of achievements, barriers and recommendations in the different areas.

National EHR Program introduces the electronic health record approach by each country by reviewing two vital areas of implementation. National IT/ICT Status & Strategy describes existing IT/ICT status and strategy for the future implementation of a national EHR system. The section on the National/Regional EHR Approach looks at how the country approached acceptance, adoption, deployment, operation and support of a national EHR and health information exchange (HIE) system.

EHR Governance reviews the legal and/or regulatory mechanisms, and policies and procedures in place, that either enable or hinder the implementation and deployment of EHRs and HIE.

The Technology section provides a wide perspective on the architecture and applications of the EHR system with topics of the personal health record, non-health communities and EHR integration beyond the country’s borders also covered. An update on the progress of technology Adoption provides an overview of EHR, PHR and HIE services with implementation success stories from the countries with more mature EHR systems.

Available metrics of successful EHR/PHR/HIE Outcomes, and financial ROI Benefits and Implementation Experiences, are described in this section. With health IT recognized as an evolving technology, Next Steps summarizes each country’s plans.

“It’s imperative to view healthcare IT solutions in the global context,” said Patricia Wise, RN, MSN, MA, FHIMSS, vice president, Health Information Systems, HIMSS. “By documenting what worked and what didn’t, the white paper offers an expanded perspective on the progress, and challenges, of EHR implementation throughout the world.”

The HIMSS Global Enterprise Task Force, formed in 2006 under the HIMSS Enterprise Information Steering Committee, includes industry leaders from around the world who provide expert analyses from a local perspective.

The work group plans to update and expand the report in future editions and calls on interested health IT experts throughout the world to contribute. Contact the HIMSS Europe office at europe@himss.org for more information on participation.

The white paper, “Electronic Health Records: A Global Perspective,” is available on the HIMSS Web site.

The release is found here:

http://www.himss.org/ASP/ContentRedirector.asp?ContentId=68380&type=HIMSSNewsItem

The report is directly downloadable here:

http://www.himss.org/content/files/200808_EHRGlobalPerspective_whitepaper.pdf

Thanks to Joanne Lessard (one of the Canadian contributors) for bringing this to my attention.

Pity Australia is just not on the real radar – except in the Executive Summary .

David.

NEHTA and Openness – Just What is the Problem?

In the last week there has been a lot of press commentary about the appointment of the new NEHTA CEO. All well and good but equally there have been some worrying comments from the old acting CEO as well.

The four that struck me were the following in discussion about the Stakeholder Reference Forums that have recently been conducted and the conflation of that with the planned IEHR.

From ZDNet we have:

“The Forum was set up in part as a response to a review by the Boston Consulting Group published last year.

Members of the forum signed a non-disclosure agreement which bound them from talking about specific topics, however some information was released.

The major priorities agreed upon at the first meeting were the development of an e-health business case for consideration by the Council of Australian Governments meeting in October this year, as well as devising a five-year plan.

The first major e-health implementations the group wanted NEHTA to focus on were developing systems for electronic discharge summaries, pathology reports, specialist referrals and medication management.”

Full article here (Suzanne Tindal):

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/NEHTA-appoints-new-CEO-/0,130061733,339291719,00.htm

Next again from ZDNET we have:

“Howard said that the gag order was so that NEHTA could share more information, not less, and was in line with normal corporate standards. "NEHTA is a company that has responsibilities and the directors of it have liabilities that any company has," he said.

"It's about being able to engage with members and share budget figures, issues and taking feedback from that forum. There could be a point where we could discuss the inner workings of the company, which means they need to be covered by confidentiality arrangements."

A major challenge for Australia's e-health plans has been achieving consensus amongst state health agencies and medical providers on how to transition away from paper-based systems.

"Today that common vision does exist... Right now there is a focus on high value transaction services and standardising information so that clinicians can access it at the point of care," said Howard.”

Full article here (Liam Tung):

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/NEHTA-denies-stakeholder-gag-/0,130061733,339291756,00.htm

Then we have from the Australian Financial Review:

“The new NEHTA chief executive comes into the organisation as it prepares to submit a business case for a national electronic health record to the Council of Australian Governments next month.

Mr Howard has shepherded the business case through its final stages and Mr Fleming will be briefed on the contents of the document over the coming weeks.”

Full article here (Ben Woodhead):

http://www.afr.com/home/viewer.aspx?EDP://20080902000030260789&section=information&title=E-health+body+adds+to+commercial+talent

And from the Australian we have:

Mr Howard said reports that stakeholders taking part in recent reference forums had been "gagged" were untrue.

"In fact, having participants sign non-disclosure agreements means we are able to share NEHTA's inner workings -- all the way to business cases, financial budgets and work programs - with them," he said. "Our intention is to give a greater voice and power to these parties.

"Naturally, NEHTA is a (not-for-profit) company, the owners are the governments of the nation, but there are directors that have direct liabilities just like any other company director. Managing those responsibilities means we have to have these constraints."

Full article here (Karen Dearne):

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24297934-15306,00.html

What is being reflected here in my view is a passion to keep secrets that is totally unjustifiable. I don’t give a hoot whether NEHTA is a company, a trust or actually part of the Government. It is planning to put a major funding proposal to Government (in the form of the Councils of Australian Government - COAG) and is claiming it therefore can say nothing.

This is just rubbish.

No one wants to see the detailed budget spreadsheets. However the public should be provided with the following.

1. A detailed description of what NEHTA is proposing.

2. A broad outline of any planned timetables and implementation plans.

3. Details of the Privacy Impact Statement that has confirmed the plan is privacy protective (Not a promise to do the work after it is funded)

4. In industry impact analysis (who are the winners and losers if the project goes ahead).

5. A broad outline of the projected costs and the value that will derive from going forward.

None of this is commercially sensitive. To provide such information would make sure there is the right amount of accountability, discussion and scrutiny of the plans. Briefing a few selected stakeholders in secret just does not cut it in my view!

Given the CEO change I am hoping for a dramatic improvement in openness very soon. The old way is just not good enough.

Final remark, – also given the CEO change - I would be very surprised if we see anything go to COAG before December 2008 at the earliest.

David.