Here are a few I have come across this week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and a paragraph or two. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or payment.
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http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/health/article7028324.ece
Healthy return for the two GPs who computerised patient records
Catherine Boyle
Two former GPs have discovered the equivalent of a happiness pill — start a business, float it on the stock exchange and pick up millions of pounds. That is the prognosis for Peter Sowerby and David Stables when Egton Medical Information Systems (EMIS) goes public next month.
They were working in a rural Yorkshire practice in the 1980s when Dr Sowerby realised how important technology could be in keeping patient records. He and Dr Stables wrote the software for an IT package and when GPs started computerising their records, the pair were ready to take advantage of the new market.
EMIS now holds about 34 million patient records on its platform, representing 52 per cent of all GP practices. Last year, the debt-free company made an operating profit of £15.8 million on turnover of £58 million.
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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100219/NEWS/302199990
‘Core measures' at center of health IT debate
By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer
Posted: February 19, 2010 - 11:00 am ET
The Health IT Policy Committee has asked the CMS to drop three so-called “core measures” from its proposed rule on “meaningful use,” but that's not to say the committee has a problem with another group of core measures used by the Joint Commission, the CMS and the Hospital Quality Alliance quality measures reporting programs.
The two groups of measures are different, and the recent use of the phrase “core measures” by CMS rulemakers was an unfortunate choice of words that could lead to some confusion between the two, according to a Health IT Policy Committee leader.
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http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/surescripts-lowers-e-prescribing-costs
Surescripts lowers e-prescribing costs
February 17, 2010 | Molly Merrill, Associate Editor
ALEXANDRIA, VA – Officials at Alexandria, Va.-based Surescripts say it is reducing what pharmacies, pharmacy vendors and pharmacy benefit managers pay for e-prescribing.
According to company officials, it has been six years since Surescripts, which operates the nation's largest e-prescription network, has had a price increase.
"Our decision to lower prices fulfills a public promise made when legacy SureScripts and RxHub were founded," said Harry Totonis, pre
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CDC to monitor adverse blood transfusions
ATLANTA, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- A new national surveillance system will monitor adverse events in patients who receive blood transfusions, U.S. health officials said Thursday.
By having a coordinated national network, health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta can summarize national data to understand better how to prevent adverse transfusion events such as reactions to blood products, medical errors, and process problems.
The system, called the Hemovigilance Module, is part of CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network -- an Internet-based surveillance system that allows healthcare-associated infection data to be tracked and analyzed to allow CDC and healthcare facilities to maximize prevention efforts.
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http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/docs-using-mobile-apps-point-care
Docs using mobile apps at the point of care
February 18, 2010 | Kyle Hardy, Community Editor
The introduction of a medical check list for the iPhone could be a benefit to providers as mobile technology is quickly being integrated into the care process.
Peter Waegemann, vice president of development for the mHealth Initiative, Inc. says so many health professionals have started using smartphones to help administer better care that some say they "don’t know how colleagues manage without them."
Official statistics aren't published, "but anecdotal reports confirm that many doctors are using the iPhone at the point of care,” says Waegemann. "There are several hospitals where all doctors are using the iPhone."
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Friday, February 19, 2010
Developing Countries See Promise in E-Health; Challenges Remain
by Kate Ackerman, iHealthBeat Editor
When you think of developing countries, health IT might not be the first thing that comes to mind. In some developing countries, per person spending on health care is as low as $10 annually so it wouldn't be surprising if high-tech health tools weren't a priority.
But in fact, many developing countries worldwide are investing in e-health to help increase access, improve affordability and boost care quality.
From telemedicine in Mongolia to e-pharmacy projects in Malaysia to low-cost electronic health records for HIV/AIDS patients in Kenya to Web-based communication tools to address maternal and child mortality in Peru, e-health applications are being used in many developing countries.
The February issue of the journal Health Affairs focuses on how e-health -- the use of information and communications technology to manage patient care -- is transforming health care in poor and low-income countries. The Rockefeller Foundation provided the journal with financial support for this month's issue, and many of the articles grew out of a 2008 Rockefeller Foundation conference on e-health at the foundation's Bellagio center in Italy.
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http://www.nhinwatch.com/news.cms?newsId=5310
Perspective: California to build out HIE with nearly $40 million
Channel: NHINWatch.com
Source: Patty Enrado,
Date: February 17, 2010
Of the more than $100 million for the healthcare industry that California will receive from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the California Health and Human Services Agency will get $38.8 million to build a statewide health information exchange (HIE).
The grant for HIE comes out to be approximately $1 per resident for the populous state, an amount many local industry leaders felt is insufficient to get the job done. “We’re going to need significant funding to have ubiquitous health information exchange, to fulfill the vision of having information safely and securely reach all corners of the healthcare delivery system and individuals,” said Jonah Frohlich, deputy secretary of Health Information Technology for CHHSA.
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Fed Advisors Ask: Are HIT Systems Safe?
HDM Breaking News, February 18, 2010
A workgroup of the HIT Policy Committee, a federal advisory body, will hear testimony on the safety of health information technology during a public hearing on Feb. 25 in Washington.
Witnesses before the committee's Adoption/Certification Workgroup include Ross Koppel, PhD, principal investigator at the Center for Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Koppel co-wrote a commentary published last March in the Journal of the American Medical Association that contended software vendors place provisions in contracts that protect themselves from harm resulting from faulty software while prohibiting customers from publicly disclosing the problems.
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For more information on the hearing, accessible via the Web, click here.
--Joseph Goedert
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http://www.govhealthit.com/newsitem.aspx?nid=73161
HHS appoints Joy Pritts chief privacy officer
By Mary Mosquera
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The Health and Human Services Department named Joy Pritts, an assistant research professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, as chief privacy officer in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
The chief privacy officer is a new role at ONC, part of a re-organization now underway to help the office meet its responsibilities under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
As chief privacy officer, Pritts will advise Dr. David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health IT, on forming policies on privacy, security and data stewardship of electronic health information, ONC said in an announcement Feb. 17.
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Wound care teleassistance: unique in Canada
February 17, 2010 (Sherbrooke, QC) – A new service is being launched today: wound care teleassistance, also known as téléassistance en soins de plaies (TASP). With this service a nurse can use a camera to film her patient’s wound, while at the same time an expert nurse in another institution can receive the images. They can then hold an online discussion to evaluate the patient’s wound and plan treatment. TASP increases access to care, allows treatment of patients in their own communities, reduces visits to emergency centres and can prevent chronic wound complications. Because it is based both on a clinical network of specially trained nurses and standardized methods, TASP is unique in Canada.
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http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/news/5645/cqc_raises_discharge_concerns
CQC raises discharge concerns
16 Feb 2010
Almost 50% of GPs are not receiving discharge summaries from acute trusts in time for them to be useful, according to the Care Quality Commission’s report on the state of care in England.
In its first annual report, the care regulator found that only 53% of GPs reported receiving discharge summaries in a timely fashion, while 81% said that the details they contain about patients’ medication were incomplete or inaccurate “all” or “most” of the time.
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http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/news/5646/isoft_wins_gp_order_comms_contract
ISoft wins GP order comms contract
16 Feb 2010
NHS Connecting for Health has awarded iSoft a contract to develop a solution to enable GPs to order pathology tests and view the results online.
The deal will see iSoft provide a new module that will enable GPs to request tests from within a electronic patient record and then access the results directly from the EPR when they are ready.
Isoft will also deliver a pilot project to prove the technology. This will begin at a major acute trust that is already using the pathology system, but which has yet to be named.
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http://www.govhealthit.com/newsitem.aspx?nid=73132
Panel proposes reducing meaningful use measures
By Mary Mosquera
Monday, February 15, 2010
Members of a federal health IT advisory group last week proposed to relax the number of measures that will be required for healthcare providers to demonstrate “meaningful use” of electronic health record systems.
The Health & Human Service Department’s meaningful use workgroup crafted an approach they said strikes a “middle ground” between too few and too onerous a set of measures of meaningful use necessary to qualify providers for financial incentives under HHS’s health IT adoption plan.
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Fed Advisors: Change MU Criteria
HDM Breaking News, February 17, 2010
The HIT Policy Committee, which advises federal officials, has approved recommendations from a workgroup to scale back some proposed criteria to demonstrate meaningful use of electronic health records to receive Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments.
The action is important because the committee of industry stakeholders advises federal officials who now are receiving comment on the proposed meaningful use rule as they consider changes for a final rule expected during the first half of 2010.
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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100216/NEWS/302169982
Nearly $1 billion released for healthcare IT
By Jennifer Lubell / HITS staff writer
Posted: February 16, 2010 - 11:00 am ET
The White House has released nearly $1 billion in stimulus money to make health information technology available to thousands of hospitals and primary-care physicians and to train thousands of people in healthcare and information technology careers.
During a teleconference announcing the funds, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said $750 million would be earmarked to help hospitals and physicians adopt electronic health records. “We're at a point in the United States where only 20% of doctors and 10% of hospitals have even basic electronic heath records,” Sebelius said. Many obstacles exist to adopting this technology: small practices often lack their own health IT staff, and incompatible systems make it difficult for doctors to share patient information with pharmacies.
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Health IT's Three Big Issues: Money, Money, and Money
Gienna Shaw, for HealthLeaders Media, February 16, 2010
This year's HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey presents a snapshot of the healthcare industry at a time of excitement, uncertainty, and tumult. And healthcare IT is in the center of so many of the big changes that are coming, especially because of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.
From budgets to staffing to investment in new technologies that will help organizations achieve meaningful use, healthcare IT leaders spoke out on how the changes will affect their organizations—and their organization's budget.
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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/iuso-kao021610.php
Keys and obstacles to e-health in low income countries
INDIANAPOLIS – In an essay in the February 2010 issue of Health Affairs, a special issue of the journal devoted to global e-health, William Tierney, M.D., of Indiana University School of Medicine and the Regenstrief Institute, and colleagues, who like Dr. Tierney have significant experience in the development of workable health information technology systems in low-income countries, identify critical steps toward allowing developing countries to cross the "digital divide" to realize the full potential of e-health to improve the quality and efficiency of their health care systems.
"Although business enterprises in developed nations have begun to use electronic information systems to collect, manage and communicate information, low-income nations generally lack advanced e-health tools that can help them achieve better health outcomes. In countries where per capita spending on health care barely reaches US $10 per year, it is key that they get the most out of whatever they can spend," said Dr. Tierney, an Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Joseph J. Mamlin Professor of Medicine at the IU School of Medicine and executive director of the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Improvement and Research at the Regenstrief Institute.
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Friday, February 12, 2010
Federal Officials Tout Importance of Health IT Adoption
by Kate Ackerman, iHealthBeat Editor
Last week, three high-level federal officials tasked with overseeing different areas of the Obama administration's agenda walked into the same conference room, stood at the same podium and touted the same thing -- health IT.
Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Director Carolyn Clancy spoke at a joint plenary session of the National Health Information Exchange Summit, the Health IT Summit for Government Leaders and the Eighteenth National HIPAA Summit.
Chopra, Blumenthal and Clancy offered insight into how health IT fits into the Obama's administration's larger health care and innovation goals.
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Health IT Jobs Outlook Bright
The health IT sector will spawn 50,000 to 200,000 jobs between now and 2015, survey says.
By Antone Gonsalves, InformationWeek
Feb. 12, 2010
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=222900186
Most new health IT jobs over the next five years will be filled by consultants and application trainers, a survey of IT professionals showed.
In addition, the survey conducted by the American Society of Health Informatics Managers found that 90% of the respondents believed that employers were looking for people with both IT and healthcare experience and knowledge.
Participants in the jobs survey released this week included beginners, intermediate workers and experts. Workers at the expert level, which comprised half of the respondents, were described as decision makers and senior management. The ASHIM interviewed 135 people.
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Breach Prevention is Critical as HIPAA Compliance Worlds Collide
Dom Nicastro, for HealthLeaders Media, February 12, 2010
Privacy and security officers have to comply with more rules than ever. The Federal Trade Commission's Red Flags rule, existing HIPAA laws, and the new Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act require that covered entities:
- Protect patient information with technical, administrative, and physical safeguards (HIPAA)
- Lessen the negative effect of unauthorized disclosure (HIPAA)
- Notify patients within 60 days of breaches that involve unsecure personal health information (PHI) and pose a significant risk of financial, reputational, or other harm (HITECH; enforcement effective February 17)
- Inform HHS of breaches (HITECH; enforcement effective February 17)
- Establish an identity theft prevention program with policies and procedures to detect, prevent, and mitigate identity theft (Red Flags Rule; enforcement effective June 1)
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http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/5643/isoft_creates_uk_lis_development_team
ISoft creates UK LIS development team
16 Feb 2010
ISoft is creating a development team to advance the capabilities of its pathology systems. It is also planning to release a series of new functions for its i.Laboratory and i.Laboratory TP range.
The new modules will include GP test results requesting and reporting, business intelligence, digital solutions for lab-lab connectivity, configurable dashboards and a dedicated laboratory manager.
The modules will be demonstrated at a user group forum at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham on 10-11 June 2010, where users will be able to provide feedback to inform future developments.
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http://euobserver.com/867/29445
[FOCUS] Hurdles confront e-health across Europe
HELENA SPONGENBERG
15.02.2010 @ 12:26 CET
EUOBSERVER/ HEALTH FOCUS– Information technology applied to healthcare – broadly termed e-health – is set to revolutionise patient care and how healthcare systems can be structured and managed. However, different obstacles are standing in the way for Europe to truly embrace the digital reform of its healthcare systems.
Europe's aging population and increase in chronic lifestyle illnesses pose serious challenges and strains to the sustainability of governments' national health and social care systems, which are mostly based on public financing.
Health expenditure in the European Union is therefore expected to increase from nine percent of the EU gross domestic product at present to around 16 percent by 2020, according to Healthcast 2020.
"The health sector is, however, very information intensive, so advanced information and communication technologies can make healthcare systems more cost-effective, allowing more funds to be spent on healthcare, and less on administering it," states the European Commission.
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Mass. health IT attracts $26M in federal funds
By Mass High Tech staff
Massachusetts has pulled in $25.6 million in federal funding for work in health information technology, according to an announcement by Gov. Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation.
The funding will be divided so that $15 million supports electronic health records implementation and $10.6 million will be used for a secure health information network to be built in Massachusetts.
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Enjoy!
David.
