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.
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Why open source may win the electronic health record market
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are the trend of the day.
Starting with its stimulus package, the Obama Administration has been pushing EHRs as the solution to all that ails health care. The idea is that the data they collect can drive change, change can drive efficiency, and efficiency can reduce costs.
There are literally dozens of EHRs to choose from. The vast majority are proprietary.
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http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/white-paper-outlines-healthcare-interoperability-goals
White paper outlines healthcare interoperability goals
December 09, 2009 | Kyle Hardy, Community Editor
SAN FRANCISCO –
A new white paper outlines national healthcare goals on healthcare information exchange, regional health information organizations and leveraging stimulus money to achieve “meaningful use” of electronic health records.
“Fulfilling ARRA: A Collaborative Approach to Connected Health,” a white paper released by San Jose, Calif.-based Axolotl as part of the Healthcare Stimulus Exchange National Roadshow 2010, outlines efforts to educate healthcare organizations on how to optimize the use of healthcare IT to receive stimulus money allocated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/business/media/08adco.html?_r=3
Groups Far Apart on Online Privacy Oversight
Washington
IF online privacy was once an obscure policy subject, it has come front and center. That much was apparent at the standing-room-only roundtable on privacy and technology that the Federal Trade Commission held here on Monday.
The commission had brought in academics, consumer advocates and executives from Google, Microsoft and Wal-Mart to debate what needs to change to address privacy issues online.
It was not just a theoretical question. The commission has been examining whether online privacy should be regulated. The debate has grown louder as technology companies are tracking and profiling people in new ways, Congress is showing an interest in the subject, and companies are trying to avoid government intervention.
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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20091211/REG/312119987
Facebook privacy revisions ‘sign post' for healthcare
By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer
Posted: December 11, 2009 - 11:00 am EDT
Part one of a two-part series:
Facebook, the global phenomenon in Web-based social media, rolled out a massive overhaul of its privacy protection policies and technology this week—and in so doing may have drawn up a playbook for healthcare as well, industry experts say.
The privacy upgrade gives its 350 million worldwide users increased control over who has access to some of, but not all, the information on their personal pages. These new, so-called “granular” controls—specifically those embedded in the site's “publisher” function, which enables a user to post new material to his or her Facebook pages—reach down to the level of discrete data elements. The new controls, for example, allow a user to restrict who gets to see each newly posted photo or typed comment.
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http://www.fortherecordmag.com/archives/120709p10.shtml
December 7, 2009
Never Say Good-Bye?
By Greg Goth
For The Record
Vol. 21 No. 23 P. 10
A proposal to create a 10-year nationwide records retention policy has produced differing opinions on the merits of such a plan. Should healthcare organizations hold on to what they’ve got?
The retention and preservation of paper- and film-based medical records isn’t the sexiest topic, especially as so much emphasis across the healthcare industry is currently being placed on selecting and implementing EHR systems. However, the fate of decades’ worth of records on paper and film is receiving increased scrutiny precisely because the healthcare delivery system has reached a critical transition point between storing patient information on paper and in digital formats.
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http://www.healthimaging.com/index.php?option=com_articles&view=article&id=19870&division=hiit
RSNA: Visage Imaging introduces all-inclusive workstation
Visage Imaging promoted its new diagnostic imaging solution, the unified viewer Visage 7 platform at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual conference in Chicago last week.
“[The Visage 7] allows the end-user to view 2D, 3D and 4D images all on one screen and all on a thin client,” explained Diane Clifford, director of global marketing for Visage.
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http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Health-Care-IT/Obama-Dedicates-88M-More-for-Health-IT-368534/
Obama Dedicates $88M More for Health IT
By: Roy Mark
2009-12-10
As part of the new Recovery Act funding, President Obama pushes health information technology systems for community health care centers.
President Obama is seeding the health care industry with another $88 million in funding for health care centers to adopt new health information technology systems to manage their administrative and financial matters and transfer old paper files to electronic medical records. The initiative is part of $600 million in stimulus money that will go toward improving community health centers across the country.
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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20091210/REG/312109987
Security, privacy breaches plague healthcare in '09
By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer
Posted: December 10, 2009 - 11:00 am EDT
It has been a bad past couple of months for healthcare information security.
In October and November, multiple healthcare organizations announced patient data losses that made headlines in their communities, and national news in a few of the most egregious instances in which of breaches involved hundreds of thousands of records.
Healthcare security experts, however, say the breaches, while shocking to some, come as no surprise to industry security cognoscenti. These experts attribute the heightened publicity to federal breach notification provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that went into effect in September.
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Design, implementation of Manitoba's secure health record now underway: Oswald
December 9, 2009 (Winnipeg, MB) - The province’s electronic health record (EHR) project continues to move forward with the design and implementation of a system that will offer authorized health care providers immediate access to selected patient information, Health Minister Theresa Oswald announced today.
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http://license.icopyright.net/user/webEprint.act?id=3.8425-43432
December 4, 2009
Health-care tip: Investing in information technology saves lives
By Robert Bell
Special to Globe and Mail Update
Manitoba, Newfoundland and Ontario are working together to create a tele-pathology system
In the long history of medicine, innovations in technology - from antibiotics and vaccines to X-rays and MRIs - have steadily improved our ability to save lives, preserve health and improve the quality of life for patients. But not every life-saving innovation can be seen in doctors' offices or operating theatres. Some of the most important technological advances in health care are only found behind the scenes.
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Survey: Those with EMRs more likely to report drug errors
December 10, 2009 — 11:55am ET | By Neil Versel
We've heard, at least anecdotally, how EMRs make it so much easier for physicians to report on compliance with quality measures, so this news was probably inevitable: those with EMRs are more likely to report adverse drug events. That is the finding of an Ipsos survey of 300 primary-care physicians, commissioned by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.
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http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10413086-92.html
December 10, 2009 7:48 AM PST
Microsoft to buy Sentillion for health care software
Microsoft is adding another player to its portfolio of health care offerings.
The software powerhouse said Thursday that it plans to buy Sentillion, a privately held company that supplies software to health care professionals. Microsoft hopes to combine Sentillion's technologies with its own Amalga Unified Intelligence System (UIS). The goal is to offer integrated technology that can help health care providers more easily access patient data from across multiple sources.
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
Plan Launched To Bring Health IT Academics to Ground Level
by George Lauer, iHealthBeat Features Editor
Until now, the academic emphasis in health IT and medical informatics has been largely at the post-graduate and research level. A new plan fueled by stimulus funding hopes to quickly take it to the community college level to train a new work force for the country's evolution toward a digital health system.
Put very simply, this is a tightly choreographed, high-speed effort to extend health IT academics beyond the theoretical realm to the everyday, hands-on realm.
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http://members.sg2.com/content-detail-standard/default.aspx?contentid=6485785487182123892
Electronic Medical Records: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly [Expert Insight]
- By Pitud Rangsithienchai, MD, Consultant, Sg2
- December 7, 2009 at 08:40 AM
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the stimulus bill), which provided payment incentives to encourage all hospitals and physicians to adopt electronic medical records (EMRs) by 2015. As a practicing internist who "grew up" using EMRs, this goal excites me. I cannot imagine practicing medicine without an EMR. In my career, I have been fortunate enough to use 3 different systems: Epic (EpicCare Inpatient and Ambulatory), Cerner (PowerChart), and VistA (the Department of Veterans Affairs Computerized Patient Record System, or CPRS). Having experienced similar issues with each of them, I want to focus here on EMR use in general and discuss both the benefits (the good) and the pitfalls (the bad and ugly) from a physician's standpoint.
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http://www.ehealtheurope.net/news/5461/isoft_signs_first_pacs_deal_in_germany
iSoft signs first PACS deal in Germany
10 Dec 2009
ISoft has announced that it has taken the first order for its new Picture Archiving and Communications System in Germany.
The Diagnostische Zentrum am Vincentinum in Southern Germany has signed a €130,000 agreement to implement the system at its specialist diagnostic centre in Augsburg.
The deal is worth €70,000 in licence and implementation fees and €60,000 for services over five years, and for the first time provides the application as a service
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/07/AR2009120703279.html
Report: Health strategy could save W.Va. $1B
By TOM BREEN
The Associated Press
Monday, December 7, 2009 6:57 PM
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia's health care system could save over $1.1 billion by going digital and centralizing patient care, according to a first-of-its-kind report presented to lawmakers Monday.
Those savings would be seen not just by government agencies, but by private insurers and policyholders, who could benefit directly in the form of lower premiums.
The report should lend urgency to some initiatives that have already begun, like electronic medical records and prescriptions, according to the groups behind its creation.
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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20091209/REG/312099985
Loma Linda opens health ‘geoinformatics' laboratory
By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer
Posted: December 9, 2009 - 11:00 am EDT
Students interested in public health and wanting to learn how computerized mapmaking and data analysis software can be used to improve the health of populations around the world will be able to take training at the newly opened Health Geoinformatics Laboratory at Loma Linda (Calif.) University.
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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20091209/REG/312099987
Problems exist in keeping health data secure: experts
By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer
Posted: December 9, 2009 - 11:00 am EDT
A new federal privacy breach law has revealed flaws in the healthcare industry's ability to keep healthcare data private.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which is expected to allocate $34 billion in health information technology spending, requires the government to create a national IT plan that includes security protections for health information exchange and “specifying technologies or methodologies for rendering health information unusable, unreadable or indecipherable.”
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EHR Standard Goes International
HDM Breaking News, December 9, 2009
The International Organization for Standardization has published as an international standard the Electronic Health Record System Functional Model, Release 1.1. The standard was developed by Health Level Seven, a standards development organization in Ann Arbor, Mich.
The functional model is designed to provide guidance to EHR software developers and purchasers about the features any such product should have. The model contains about 1,000 criteria covering more than 150 functions in such areas as medication history, problem lists, orders, clinical decision support, and privacy and security.
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http://govhealthit.com/newsitem.aspx?nid=72691
Military to test lifetime EHR in six local communities
By Peter Buxbaum
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
The Department of Veteran Affairs is seeking community coordinators to head up as many as six localized health information exchange projects designed to advance the VA and Department of Defense joint virtual lifetime electronic record project (VLER).
"The Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record Health Communities Initiative is the first necessary step for the implementation and refinement of VLER," said an online business notice posted yesterday by VA.
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http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/it-helps-drive-232b-personalized-medicine-market
IT helps drive $232B personalized medicine market
December 08, 2009 | Bernie Monegain, Editor
NEW YORK – Information technology and telemedicine are helping to boost the market for personalized medicine in the United States and also benefiting from it.
The $232 billion market is projected to grow 11 percent annually, according to a report published Tuesday by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that the market for a more personalized approach to health and wellness will grow to as much as $452 billion by 2015. Its estimates are based on a broad view of the market opportunity beyond drugs and devices, including demand for high-tech storage and data-sharing as well as low-tech products and services aimed at consumers' heightened awareness of their own health risks.
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McKesson Unveils Pharmacy Automation System
The system is designed to improve dosage accuracy and patient safety while saving pharmacists' time.
By Mitch Wagner InformationWeek
December 8, 2009 12:25 PM
McKesson introduced a system to allow hospitals to automate dispensing tablets, capsules, and other oral solid medications that come pre-packaged from drug manufacturers.
By retaining original manufacturer packaging, PROmanager-Rx helps hospital pharmacies increase accuracy and improve safety. The system also frees pharmacists from packaging and dispensing, so they can play more integral roles on the clinical care team, McKesson said. The system dispenses medications in unit-dose barcoded form.
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http://health-care-it.advanceweb.com/editorial/content/editorial.aspx?cc=211710
The Tipping Point for ePrescriptions
The use of ePrescribing is on the rise, but more must be done to encourage adoption of the technology.
By Sumit Dutta, MD
Electronic prescribing will soon become a standard medical practice in the United States. Initiatives promoting clinicians' use of ePrescribing are achieving remarkable results. Starting this year, Medicare is increasing reimbursements to doctors using ePrescribing. By 2012, physicians not using this technology will be penalized with lower Medicare reimbursements.
Key medical organizations have endorsed a timely transition to ePrescribing, and a growing number of health plan sponsors are supporting ePrescribing programs that put the technology into physicians' offices. Finally, the merger between major networks SureScripts and RxHub is setting the foundation for uniform ePrescribing standards. As a result of these and other efforts, an estimated 100 million ePrescriptions were "written" in 2008, a 300 percent increase from 2007.
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http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/2009/News/WTX057811.htm
e-Health initiative generates first published research
The Wellcome Trust and Research Councils Joint Initiative in Electronic Patient Records and Databases in Research, supporting the use of electronic resources in health research, has generated its first published research.
The papers provide insight into the use of antibiotics to treat respiratory tract infections and the methodology of stroke research. They illustrate the potential of electronic patient databases to deliver key analyses that can help improve health care and public health, as well as analysing methodological questions facing researchers using large datasets from electronic records.
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Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Celebrating the Small Wins: Respite From a Feast of Grand Visions
by Thomas H. Lee M.D.
As the turkey makes its way into sandwiches, casseroles and tetrazzini, and as the family slowly revives itself from food coma, it's perhaps a good time to digest and reflect upon the year.
And what a year it has been. Economic crisis. Multi-billion dollar stimulus for health IT. The contentious battle over health care reform. And the persistent rhetoric proclaiming that health IT will save the day.
Lost among the grand and hopeful visions for health care reform and health IT subsidies, however, have also been the small victories that occur daily on the ground. Accomplishments unheralded. Challenges overcome.
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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/1120/1224259174134.html
Technology 'could save HSE millions'
JOHN COLLINS
THE HSE could save €79 million a year by introducing electronic patient records and €195 million a year by treating chronic illness in the home, according to a report prepared by a coalition of 17 telecoms and technology firms.
The report, presented to Minister for Health Mary Harney, also found there would be 106,000 fewer prescription errors in the primary care sector and 292 fewer diabetic deaths per year if Ireland “radically improved” the use of and investment in technology in the health sector.
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http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2009/12/att_develops_household_items_t.html
AT&T sets its sights on the 'telehealth' industry
By Venuri Siriwardane/The Star-Ledger
December 06, 2009, 6:00AM
A laser micro projector adjunct.The device works with a smartphone to illustrate diagrams, x-rays and MRIs on any surface.
The doctor will see you now. Or at least in the few seconds it takes AT&T to relay your vital signs over its broadband network.
The telecommunications giant has big plans to establish a foothold in the "telehealth" industry, an emerging field that links patients and physicians across the country via video and medical-information technology.
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10 Most Hazardous Technologies in Healthcare
Cheryl Clark, for HealthLeaders Media, December 3, 2009
The ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit company that evaluates medical devices and processes, has published its list of the 10 most dangerous technological hazards in healthcare.
The organization made its choice and prioritized the order "based on the likelihood and severity of the reports we've received over the past year, the recalls and other actions we've reviewed, and our continuing examination of the published literature," ECRI authors wrote in their introduction.
These 10 are "problems that we believe are the most crucial right now, and that hospitals should consider putting at the top of their to-do lists for keeping patients safe from technology-related risks."
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http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/news/5452/dh_mandates_incident_reporting
DH mandates incident reporting
08 Dec 2009
The Department of Health has confirmed that it will end the voluntary system for reporting patient safety incidents to the National Patient Safety Agency.
Instead, it will make it mandatory for all NHS trusts in England, including hospitals, primary care trusts, mental health services and ambulance services to report instances of harm or death to the NPSA.
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http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=55653
IT can improve health care and streamline health processes
Decision makers need to think about how digital data can help improve processes, Microsoft executive says
12/7/2009 4:32:00 PM By: Rafael Ruffolo
The best way to prevent wasteful spending and actually improve health care, according to Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) global e-health czar, is to think about technology as a way to streamline health processes.
“Health care organizations are getting so caught up, and in many ways distracted, by the (electronic health records) discussion and are not thinking about the ways in which technologies can be used to transform medical practice,” said Bill Crounse, a medical doctor who is Microsoft's worldwide health senior director.
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http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/5449/turmoil_grips_nhs_it_programme
Turmoil grips NHS IT programme
07 Dec 2009
The future of the National Programme for IT in the NHS has been plunged into doubt after the Chancellor of the Exchequer singled it out as a suitable candidate for cuts.
Speaking ahead of the Pre-Budget Report, Alistair Darling made it clear that he believed there were savings to be made, and bluntly stated that he viewed the programme as expensive and unnecessary. NPfIT “isn't essential to the frontline”, the Chancellor told the Andrew Marr show.
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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20091207/REG/312079987
Nurses group to open quality database to researchers
By Joe Carlson / HITS staff writer
Posted: December 7, 2009 - 11:00 am EDT
The American Nurses Association is opening up its database of nursing and quality measures to scientific inquiries in the hopes that the large data set will enable researchers to draw more parallels between nursing and patient outcomes.
The proprietary National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators, or NDNQI, was established 11 years ago and today includes data submitted quarterly by more than 1,500 hospitals. ANA officials said the data are broken down into more than 12,000 individual nursing units, which enables researchers to find specific patterns that would otherwise be obscured by hospital-specific data.
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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20091207/REG/312089979
Gov't won't always rule HIT, Blumenthal says
Posted: December 7, 2009 - 11:00 am EDT
Private industry, not the federal government, will eventually drive health information technology initiatives, said David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health information technology at HHS, at a policy conference sponsored by the National Committee for Quality Assurance in Washington.
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http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/new-center-duke-universtiy-focus-healthcare-it
New center at Duke University to focus on healthcare IT
December 04, 2009 | Kyle Hardy, Community Editor
DURHAM, NC – In response to the growing need for specialists in healthcare information technology, Duke University has created the Duke Center for Health Informatics.
The new center will be dedicated to overseeing an interdisciplinary approach to education in healthcare informatics gearing up a new generation of nurses, physicians and healthcare administrators, said Duke officials.
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UK group: Facebook flirting 'wholly inappropriate' for doctors
December 7, 2009 — 12:20pm ET | By Neil Versel
It's well known that many physicians are among the 350 million-strong Facebook community, and that more than a few doctors have "friended" patients. It's been documented that physicians can embarrass themselves in such online social forums. We've also heard of patients attempting to discuss clinical information with their doctors via Facebook. So it seems inevitable that some people would use the world's most popular networking site to flirt with their physicians.
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Medical imaging moves to the cloud
December 7, 2009 — 2:10pm ET | By Neil Versel
Editor’s Corner
Call it coincidence, or perhaps confirmation of a trend. HealthLeaders Media published a story about web-based PACS just as the massive, annual Radiological Society of North America expo got underway in Chicago.
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http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10014580o-2000673651b,00.htm
Monday 7 December 2009, 7:43 PM
NHS spend on IT - How would you make savings?
Posted by Fat Pop Do Wop
So chancellor Alistair Darling may cut back or even scrap the National Program for IT, NPfIT, saying that the expensive system isn't needed right now. A spokesperson for the BMA said that this system is already being used in frontline care, and their comments seemed to show a worrying possibility that removing the NPfIT system could impact on care of patients. The spokesperson went on to add that the Government ought to examine the use of private sector external management consultants before cutting IT systems. The BMA's statement said that it's crucial that clinicians have the tools they need for the job.
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Enjoy!
David.
By Sarah Colyer