Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Friday, September 03, 2010

Weekly Overseas Health IT Links - 03 September, 2010.

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 subscription payment.

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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100827/NEWS/100829939

Authors issue reality check on health IT

By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer

Posted: August 27, 2010 - 11:15 am ET

A pair of Boston-area researchers with a penchant for planting proverbial two-by-fours of reality between the eyes of federal healthcare information technology policymakers have landed another whack.

You have to look really hard to find the bright side in the most recent writings of Ashish Jha and Catherine DesRoches. Their article, published online in the policy journal Health Affairs, declares that roughly 2%—and that's rounding up—of U.S. hospitals in 2009 would have had a chance at passing muster under the new federal criteria for meaningful use of health IT.

The overriding message is that even after five years of federal health IT cheerleading, about 98% of hospitals would have failed to qualify for federal subsidy payments for the purchase of electronic health-record technology under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The researchers also conclude that there is a discernable IT adoption gap between the digital haves and have-nots in this country, that the divide is widening, and that the jury is still out as to whether the IT incentives portion of the federal stimulus law will remediate or exacerbate the problem of IT inequality.

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http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/fitness/article_b6ab52a2-6bf4-5ac8-9a17-448b2fcaab81.html

Be wary about health information you get on the Internet

About 70 percent of households have Internet access and with the increasing use of smart phones, the Internet is becoming an even more popular source of medical information for parents. Parents and adolescents often use the Internet before contact with a physician. Sometimes information obtained online may be the only health care advice sought and used.

How accurate is this information? A study to be published in the Archives of Diseases of Children addresses this question. The authors of this study chose five health issues that reflect concerns often expressed to practicing clinicians and have clear answers supported by scientific evidence.

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http://www.cancernetwork.com/news/display/article/10165/1647722

Evaluating and selecting EHRs

By Ron Piana | August 25, 2010

As adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) continues to grow, there still exists a gap in the ability of some providers and vendors to ensure successful implementation. The core factor in EHR delays and failures is a lack of readiness. This list of resources can arm you with the knowledge to take advantage of government incentives.

Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS): The HIMSS EHR Selector is an online database of EHR products and vendors.

Government Initiatives

Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology provides leadership for the development and nationwide implementation of an interoperable health information technology infrastructure to improve the quality and efficiency of health care and the ability of consumers to manage their care and safety.

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http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/TEC-255529/Words-Matter-When-it-Comes-to-TechSavvy-Patients.html##

Words Matter When it Comes to Tech-Savvy Patients

Gienna Shaw, for HealthLeaders Media, August 24, 2010

Steel yourself for some alarming news: Cyberchondriacs are on the rise, up from 50 million in 1998 to 175 million today, according to market research firm Harris Interactive. And they’re also getting more active: "Fully 32% of all adults who are online say they look for health information 'often,' compared to 22% last year."

Sounds like bad news, doesn't it? But wait—what exactly is a cyberchondriac? According to Harris, they've used the term since 1998 to describe people (are you sitting down?) who look for healthcare information online.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/health/policy/23privacy.html?_r=2&hpw

Tighter Medical Privacy Rules Sought

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is rewriting new rules on medical privacy after an outpouring of criticism from consumer groups and members of Congress who say the rules do not adequately protect the rights of patients.

Democratic lawmakers and a few Republicans have denounced the rules, saying they fall short of offering patients the fullest protections possible. Hospitals and insurance companies, seeking to maintain greater control over patient notification, generally support the rules. The White House finds itself caught in the middle.

The rules specify when doctors, hospitals and insurers must tell patients about the improper use or disclosure of information in their medical records. Such breaches appear to have become more frequent, with the growing use of health information technology, social media and the Internet.

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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100824/NEWS/100829965/1029

Progress on advanced privacy controls

By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer

Posted: August 24, 2010 - 12:00 pm ET

The ad hoc work group charged with advising the federal Health IT Policy Committee on matters of information privacy and security recommended last week that the government commit resources to privacy protection technology. The difficulty, the group noted in a 19-page report, is that this technology's development isn't even across vendors, and its lack of widespread use among providers is such that it won't be of much use in the near term to protect patient privacy.

The Privacy and Security Tiger Team based its findings in part on a June 29 hearing at which seven developers of privacy protection technology demonstrated their wares. One of them was Duane DeCouteau, a senior technologist working under contract to the Office of Health Information at the Veterans Affairs Department.

DeCouteau co-authored a computerized data communication profile for privacy and security authorizations, sometimes called "consent directives."

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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100824/NEWS/100829957

Biden touts stimulus law's IT benefits

By Jennifer Lubell / HITS staff writer

Posted: August 24, 2010 - 12:15 pm ET

Recovery Act investments in health information technology are making headway in improving patient care and reducing medical errors, according to a new White House report (PDF).

The report, unveiled by Vice President Joe Biden in Washington Tuesday, details the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which funneled more than $100 billion to various programs, including $20 billion in healthcare information technology.

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Health IT Contracts Offer Little Protection For Buyers

Key questions healthcare providers should ask before signing an electronic health record vendor agreement detailed by lawyer.

By Nicole Lewis, InformationWeek

Aug. 23, 2010

URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226900063

As healthcare providers purchase electronic health record software and other health IT to meet meaningful use requirements, they must insist that the legal contracts they sign with vendors will protect their interests.

Last week at the American Health Information Management Association's (AHIMA) 2010 Legal Electronic Health Record (EHR) Conference in Chicago, Steven Fox, a lawyer focusing on health IT issues with law firm Post & Schell, urged healthcare providers to ask themselves key questions when acquiring EHR technology to achieve meaningful use, including: What technology and services should be purchased? What is to be paid for and when? How to assure that requirements will be met? And what happens if the product fails?

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http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/print/TEC-255518/Physician-Investment-in-IT-Accountable-Care-Needed-for-Reform

Physician Investment in IT, Accountable Care, Needed for Reform

Janice Simmons, for HealthLeaders Media, August 24, 2010

While issues such as permanently fixing the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula have disappointed physicians, it still would be in their best interest to support the many provisions of the Affordable Care Act as they work at the practice of medicine, several White House officials write in the latest issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine released Monday.

No one is "more disappointed" than President Obama "who has made it clear" in a statement that he is "committed to permanently reforming this Medicare formula in a way that balances fiscal responsibility with the responsibility we have to doctors and seniors," write the authors who include Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the Office of Health Reform and counselor to the President, and Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, the special advisor on health policy with the Office of Management and Budget.

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http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/08/23/bica0823.htm

EMR courtship: Hospitals wooing doctors to stay afloat

Technically Speaking. By Pamela Lewis Dolan, amednews staff. Posted Aug. 23, 2010.

With hospitals racing to meet meaningful use requirements -- and struggling with declining patient loads -- experts say hospitals want to hook up, technologically speaking, with physicians as a means of ensuring their economic survival.

Despite the hospitals' struggles to meet meaningful use criteria, which would award them bonus money from Medicare or Medicaid, they also are struggling to stay afloat in a bad economy. A recent report by the American Hospital Assn. on the effects of the recession found that 72% of hospitals reported a decline in the number of elective procedures, and 70% reported a drop in patient volume from 2009.

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http://uclalawreview.org/pdf/57-6-3.pdf

BROKEN PROMISES OF PRIVACY: RESPONDING TO THE SURPRISING FAILURE OF ANONYMIZATION

Paul Ohm*

Computer scientists have recently undermined our faith in the privacyprotecting power of anonymization, the name for techniques that protect the privacy of individuals in large databases by deleting information like names and social security numbers. These scientists have demonstrated that they can often “reidentify” or “deanonymize” individuals hidden in anonymized data with astonishing ease. By understanding this research, we realize we have made a mistake, labored beneath a fundamental misunderstanding, which has assured us much less privacy than we have assumed. This mistake pervades nearly every information privacy law, regulation, and debate, yet regulators and legal scholars have paid it scant attention. We must respond to the surprising failure of anonymization, and this Article provides the tools to do so.

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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100827/NEWS/100829938

Wis. submits health info exchange plan

By Andis Robeznieks / HITS staff writer

Posted: August 27, 2010 - 11:30 am ET

The Wisconsin Relay for Electronic Data for Health, also known as WIRED for Health, submitted its plan (PDF) to HHS for a statewide electronic health information-exchange network, and it includes a suggested framework for the governance and financing of the network, the services it would provide and the technical architecture it would require.

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Lockheed Martin Wins $9 Million HHS Contract

Supporting development of future Nationwide Health Information Network capabilities is focus of Department of Health and Human Services work.

By Nicole Lewis, InformationWeek

Aug. 26, 2010

URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227100033

Lockheed Martin has announced that it has won two contracts worth a total of $9 million to help the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) advance digital health records and secure health information exchanges. The contracts were awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).

The Baltimore, Md.-based company said Wednesday that, under the first contract, Lockheed Martin will create new reference implementation software to support the development, testing, and adoption of future NHIN capabilities. The second contract calls for Lockheed Martin to develop real-world demonstrations and pilots for emergent capabilities.

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http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/blogs/blog_Ciotti_McKesson_HERM_healthcare_technology_news-40930-1.html

Best Kept Secrets in HIT (Part I)

Vince Ciotti

Health Data Management Blogs, August 25, 2010

Most people in the HIT business know about Healthquest, McKesson’s aging mainframe product line, which has roots back to Medipac (COBOL/VSAM) in the halcyon ’70s. And many know about their aging Star and Series products, both born in the minicomputer revolution of the ’80s, and growing a little long in the tooth today. But how many people know that McKesson now has a fully modern replacement for all three of these aging products?

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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100826/NEWS/100829948/1029

VA hospital to join Ind. health info exchange

By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer

Posted: August 26, 2010 - 11:30 am ET

The Veterans Affairs Department hospital in Indianapolis will participate in a pilot project to exchange veterans' health information with private-sector healthcare organizations via the Indiana Health Information Exchange, the VA announced.

Joining the exchange is part of a broader government effort—also encompassing the Defense Department—that President Barack Obama announced last year to create a virtual lifetime electronic record for active-duty and retired armed-services members.

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http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/6189/ealing_improves_discharge_with_src

Ealing improves discharge with SRC

25 Aug 2010

Ealing Hospital NHS Trust in London is using a electronic discharge summary solution from SRC to deliver discharge summaries to GPs within 24 hours of patients leaving hospital.

SRC says the eDS system is in use in 15 wards and clinical areas and was rolled out in just two months. The company worked with Bluewire Technologies, hospital clinicians and pharmacists to tailor the system to the trust’s workflows and medicines management requirements.

The system is integrated with the hospital’s patient administration system, and updates patient records using HL7 messaging. The interface means that discharge summaries can be produced quickly, with all the required patient data available through a single application.

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http://www.ihealthbeat.org/features/2010/recs-face-uphill-battle-in-meeting-tight-deadlines.aspx

Thursday, August 26, 2010

RECs Face Uphill Battle in Meeting Tight Deadlines

With the country's 60 regional extension centers already four or six months into their first two-year budget period, it appears they have their work cut out for them to reach the federal government's ambitious goal of helping 100,000 primary care providers become meaningful users of electronic health records by 2012.

The HITECH Act authorized the creation of regional extension centers to:

  • Provide training and support services to help health care providers adopt EHRs;
  • Offer information and guidance on EHR implementation; and
  • Provide technical assistance.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT announced 32 REC awards in February 2010 and 28 REC awards in April 2010. Under the REC program, there are two two-year budget periods. The RECs are slated to receive a total of $643 million in federal funding in the first two years and additional $42 million in the subsequent two years.

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http://www.fierceemr.com/story/advanced-emrs-save-time-ers-hospitals/2010-08-26

Advanced EMRs save time in ERs, hospitals

August 26, 2010 — 9:29am ET | By Ken Terry

In ambulatory care, it has long been known that introducing a basic EMR for electronic documentation while continuing to perform other tasks on paper can actually make a physician practice less efficient. Now the same trend is emerging in studies of the use of EMRs in emergency rooms and hospitals.

A new paper shows that patients who go to emergency departments (EDs) that have advanced EMRs spend 22 percent less time there, on average, than people who present at EDs that lack EMRs. In the study of 30,000 patient visits to 364 hospitals nationwide, Michael Furukawa of Arizona State University found that EDs with the best EMRs had 13 percent shorter treatment times, 24 percent shorter stays for patients who eventually were admitted to the hospital, and 21 percent shorter stays for those who were treated and then discharged from the ED.

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http://www.fierceemr.com/story/50-000-extra-employees-needed-meet-meaningful-use-criteria/2010-08-26

50,000 extra employees needed to meet meaningful use criteria

August 26, 2010 — 9:39am ET | By Ken Terry

The Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT projects that healthcare providers will need 50,000 additional IT workers to meet the meaningful use criteria to get government incentives for EMRs. Despite government moves to help train these additional IT workers, a new report from CSC says, healthcare providers will have to adopt alternative strategies to get the job done because the workforce won't expand rapidly enough to meet their needs.

A 2010 College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) survey found that only 10.7 percent of respondents listed staffing as their top concern, the CSC study notes. But about half of the respondents listed staff levels and capabilities among their top three concerns, and it was the most frequently mentioned second and third concern.

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http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Columns/2010/August/082610Sebelius.aspx

The New Momentum Behind Electronic Health Records

Aug 26, 2010

A funny thing happened on the way to a 21st century health care system.

Many different groups representing vastly different interests across health care recently came together around an issue that seemed like a roadblock to building a healthier America a short time ago.

At a press conference earlier this month sponsored by the medical journal Health Affairs and Brandeis University’s Health Industry Forum, major insurance companies, provider groups, doctors, hospitals, and patients announced that they will team up to support so-called “meaningful use” regulations – guidelines that doctors and hospitals will have to follow to earn incentives for moving from paper to electronic medical files.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-25/unitedhealth-vies-with-mckesson-in-overhaul-driven-11-billion-tech-market.html

UnitedHealth Races McKesson in $11 Billion Health-Tech Hunt

By Alex Nussbaum and Pat Wechsler - Aug 25, 2010

UnitedHealth Group Inc., the biggest U.S. insurer, and McKesson Corp., the largest drug distributor, are vying for billions of dollars in added sales by bulking up their information-technology units.

The companies are expanding beyond their core business to help insurers cope with the health overhaul, which threatens to swamp industry computer systems, said Joanne Galimi, a Boston- based analyst for technology researcher Gartner Inc.

Bracing for added taxes and regulations, insurers are upgrading long-neglected systems used to enroll members, track care and process claims, Galimi said. They also face a 2013 switch to a new government-mandated system for classifying diseases. As a result, insurer spending on data technology will jump 24 percent by 2013, to $11.3 billion, according to a March report by IDC Health Insights, of Framingham, Massachusetts.

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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100825/NEWS/100829955

N.Y. info exchange uses grant to fight diabetes

By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer

Posted: August 25, 2010 - 11:15 am ET

Here's a pop quiz on healthcare information technology, geography, culinary traditions and public health.

Where in the world was David Blumenthal on Tuesday if the eight-county region he was visiting has had an operating clinical health information exchange since 2008 but is better known for its spicy chicken wings and lake-effect blizzards?

The answer is western New York—Buffalo, specifically, the home of not only Buffalo hot wings but also HealtheLink, a regional health information exchange, or RHIO, that in May received a nearly $16.1 million Beacon Community grant from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The award, provided to help the region combat rising diabetes rates, was the largest of 17 Beacon Community grants distributed across the country.

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http://www.ehealtheurope.net/news/6180/us_med_info_body_joins_euro_federation

US med info body joins Euro federation

23 Aug 2010

The American Health Information Management Association has been accepted as an institutional member of the European Federation for Medical Informatics.

The AHIMA is a health information management professional association that is dedicated to the effective management of health information.

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http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/6191/st_george%E2%80%99s_suffers_cerner_teething_pain

St George’s suffers Cerner teething pain

26 Aug 2010

St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust is facing teething problems with its installation of a Cerner Millennium hospital information system.

The trust went live with the Millennium in March, under a new local delivery model from local service provider BT.

Five months later, the trust, which is one of the largest in London, has had to second additional senior management expertise into the project team and institute an additional programme of workflow changes and training.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/23/AR2010082303122.html?hpid=sec-health

Headed to ER? Some post waits by text, billboard

By LAURAN NEERGAARD

The Associated Press

Monday, August 23, 2010; 2:56 PM

WASHINGTON -- Need an X-ray or stitches? Online, via text message or flashing on a billboard, some emergency rooms are advertising how long the dreaded wait for care will be, with estimates updated every few minutes.

It's a marketing move aimed at less urgent patients, not the true emergencies that automatically go to the front of the line anyway - and shouldn't waste precious minutes checking the wait.

"If you're in a car accident, you're not going to flip open your iPhone and see what the wait times are," cautions Dr. Sandra Schneider, president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100824/NEWS/100829959

Telehealth programs win rural healthcare grants

By Jessica Zigmond / HITS staff writer

Posted: August 24, 2010 - 10:15 am ET

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced $32 million in funding to help improve access to healthcare services for rural Americans. The funding will be allocated to seven programs that are administered by the Office of Rural Health Policy in HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration.

"The grants will strengthen partnerships among rural health providers," HRSA Administrator Mary Wakefield said in a news release about the funds. "Funds will be used to recruit and retain rural healthcare professionals and modernize the healthcare infrastructure in rural areas."

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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100824/NEWS/100829963

Iraq providers to test open-source VistA EHR

By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer

Posted: August 24, 2010 - 11:45 am ET

A Defense Department media contractor is reporting that three Iraqi government healthcare organizations will test at a Baghdad military hospital an open-source version of the VistA electronic health-record system developed and used by the Veterans Affairs Department.

According to a story posted Monday on the website of the Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System, a U.S. military media outlet, the Iraqi ministries of Defense and Health and the Kurdistan Ministry of Health signed an agreement earlier this month to implement the open-source WorldVistA software system at the Al Muthana Hospital in Baghdad. The 50-bed Iraqi military hospital opened in 2009. The EHR should be in place by October, the story said.
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http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/news/6170/london_completes_move_to_rio_5.4

London completes move to RiO 5.4

19 Aug 2010

All 36 of the community and mental health trusts in London that opted to take the RiO electronic patient record have been upgraded to the latest version by local service provider BT.

The trusts have been upgraded to V5.4, which delivers improvements to clinical documentation and reporting, plus centralised demographics to provide the first steps to a more integrated care record.

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http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/news/6175/emis_buys_rx_systems_for_%C2%A310m

EMIS buys Rx Systems for £10m

19 Aug 2010

GP system supplier EMIS has acquired a majority share in Rx Systems Ltd, a pharmacy software and services company, for almost £10m.

Rx Systems provides a range of integrated pharmacy and retail systems and services for the community pharmacy, including its core product, ProScript, a Windows-based dispensary management system.

The company also provides information required under the National Programme for IT in the NHS for pharmacist audit and remuneration purposes.

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http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2010/August/24/aging-in-place.aspx

NPR: Technology Can Help Seniors Stay In Homes

NPR continued its series on seniors aging at home.

Part two examined a company called Adaptive Home, "one of a growing number of startups that use monitoring technology to revolutionize elder care. These companies are also betting on a big market as the baby boomers enter old age. Chris Bridgers says a basic package includes about a dozen motion sensors placed strategically around a house. They can provide adult children with a stunningly detailed rundown of a parent's day" (Ludden, 8/23).

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http://healthcareitnews.com/news/expert-providers-must-make-it-investments-their-own-have-new-implementation-strategies

Expert: Providers must make IT investments on their own, have new implementation strategies

August 19, 2010 | Molly Merrill, Associate Editor

CHICAGO – With government incentives only offsetting EHR costs by about 15 to 20 percent, providers should not only be prepared to make a significant investment in IT, but should also consider a "radical new approach to IT," say the authors of a new study.

The study was published by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company in its business journal McKinsey Quarterly, and was authored by Francois Laflamme and Nilesh Rajadhyax, associate principals in McKinsey's Chicago office, and Wayne Pietraszek, a principal.

The authors point out that not only do providers have to meet the government's accelerated timetable for achieving meaningful use of these systems before facing fines, but also have to meet new data coding standards with revisions to HIPAA and ICD-10. They estimate that providers should expect to spend around $120 billion, at an average cost of $80,000 to $100,000 per bed, for the required project planning, software, hardware, implementation and training required for this.

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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100823/NEWS/100829967

Kundra: Time to fine-tune federal IT projects

By Jennifer Lubell / HITS staff writer

Posted: August 23, 2010 - 12:00 pm ET

Several health information technology projects may be facing changes or budget cuts as part of a wide-ranging intervention on the federal government's behalf to increase the projects' efficiency.

At a teleconference Monday, White House Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra released a list of 26 so-called high-priority IT projects across the federal government that could benefit from some fine-tuning. The list appeared on the IT Dashboard, a website that lets federal agencies, industry members, the general public and other stakeholders view details of federal IT investments.
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http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/health-care-technology-news-workforce-shortage-report-40884-1.html

Assessing the Need for More I.T. Workers

HDM Breaking News, August 23, 2010

A new report from consultancy and software firm Computer Sciences Corp. examines the health information technology workforce shortage.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology estimates 50,000 additional I.T. workers are needed during the next five years, which is about 50 percent more than the current workforce of 108,000. The biggest demand now for staff obviously is to prepare for implementation of EHRs and health information exchange applications, Falls Church, Va.-based CSC notes.

.....

The report lays out various challenges to beefing the I.T. workforce and examples of successful strategies. To access the report, click here.

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http://www.ihealthbeat.org/perspectives/2010/meaningful-use-what-does-strategic-management-have-to-say-about-it.aspx

Monday, August 23, 2010

'Meaningful Use': What Does Strategic Management Have To Say About It?

The "meaningful use" program is a governmental initiative aimed at influencing electronic health record adoption among hospitals and other providers. The million dollar question (actually, $27 billion) is not whether the meaningful use program will influence EHR adoption, but instead by how much?

Strategic management is about aligning an organization with its changing environment. Environmental changes include shifts in competition, regulation, customer preferences, political will, technology availability and/or economic conditions. For any given organization, environmental changes may serve as either threats or opportunities and can occur at the market level, industry level or societal level. From the perspective of an individual hospital or provider, the meaningful use program is an example of "change" that is occurring at the industry level. Implicitly, anything an organization does in response to the changing environment is a "strategy" being pursed presumably to align the organization with its environment.

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http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=35&sid=2033904

DoD seeks ideas to modernize its e-health record

August 23, 2010

By Jason Miller

Executive Editor

Federal News Radio

The Defense Department is looking to modernize its electronic health record system.

The Tricare Management Activity issued a request for information Aug. 12 asking vendors to provide ideas for a comprehensive military health system capability for warfighters, beneficiaries and providers.

The RFI is part of Tricare's broader effort to improve its electronic health record. Tricare established an office in February to look at the future of the EHR, said Mary Ann Rockey, acting chief information officer for the Military Health System.

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Enjoy!

David.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

The View From the Top on Health IT in the USA. It’s Getting Pretty Exciting!

The following commentary appeared a few days ago.

The New Momentum Behind Electronic Health Records

Aug 26, 2010

A funny thing happened on the way to a 21st century health care system.

Many different groups representing vastly different interests across health care recently came together around an issue that seemed like a roadblock to building a healthier America a short time ago.

At a press conference earlier this month sponsored by the medical journal Health Affairs and Brandeis University’s Health Industry Forum, major insurance companies, provider groups, doctors, hospitals, and patients announced that they will team up to support so-called “meaningful use” regulations – guidelines that doctors and hospitals will have to follow to earn incentives for moving from paper to electronic medical files.

In doing so, they cleared a major hurdle to a health information technology revolution that will cut health care costs, reduce paperwork, improve outcomes and empower patients.

Today, in almost every other sector besides health, electronic information exchange is the way we do business. A cashier scans a bar code to add up our grocery bill. We check our bank balance and take out cash with a debit card that works in any ATM machine.

But despite the clear benefits of health IT, only two in ten doctors and one in ten hospitals use even a basic electronic record system.

That means patients spend too much time filling out the same form over and over. And doctors spend too much time writing down medical histories, tracking down x-rays and repeating expensive tests.

Health care providers may agree with the benefits of electronic health records. But they’ve also believed that adopting them was too difficult and expensive.

As the event earlier this month demonstrated, that’s changing – in large part due to an ambitious investment we made in the Recovery Act to reduce many of the obstacles that limited the spread of electronic health records in the past.

As part of that investment, we’ve created health IT Regional Extension Centers across the country where providers can go to find out which health record system fits their needs.

We’re training thousands of new health IT professionals who can help providers make the switch from paper to digital records.

And we’re providing grants to states for health information exchange, which will ensure that information can be shared across provider and hospital networks, while maintaining our strong commitment to patient privacy.

In the past, some providers also had financial concerns. For smaller practices and clinics in particular, the promise of greater efficiency and long-term savings was often overshadowed by the up-front costs of putting in an electronic health record system and the staff to administer it.

That’s why, under the Recovery Act, providers will be able to earn substantial bonus payments if they adopt electronic records: up to $44,000 in Medicare or almost $64,000 in Medicaid for individual providers, and millions of dollars for hospitals.

To earn these incentives, providers will have to meet “meaningful use” standards which require that electronic health records are, in fact, used to improve the quality of care – to collect essential health data, support better clinical decisions, and give patients electronic access to their own medical records, so they can be full partners in their care. These systems must be able to encrypt information and automatically logoff users, among other safeguards.

Previously, some provider groups had expressed skepticism about these standards, worrying that they were too burdensome. But this month’s press conference underscored an emerging consensus that the benefits of electronic health records far outweigh the costs – and that the time for action is now.

In fact, the most promising sign for the future of our health care system is not what stakeholders were saying, but what they’re already doing.

At that same press conference, major insurers like Aetna, United and WellPoint announced their own provider loan and training programs for electronic health records.

Full Article here:

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Columns/2010/August/082610Sebelius.aspx

There are a few points that arise from this column.

First it is clear that the US Health Secretary really has a plan that has full Government backing to more into the future and has attached very substantial funds to bring that outcome about.

Second a holist approach is being adopted to address educational needs, funding, and the various regulatory, safety and standards issues and so on.

Thirdly Government is providing seed funding in areas where it seems useful to demonstrate the practicality and workability of the various strategies and directions so they can be adopted with confidence.

Fourth, where appropriate, the private sector is being engaged in delivery of the seeding and demonstration programs and the work products that have been developed have been placed in the public domain for use by all.

Last there is clear, goal orientated strategic leadership coming from the very top of Government, with the support of the President, and, in dramatic contrast to the Australian situation we see all the policy and strategic direction setting happening with very high levels of transparency and openness.

The combination of sensible private / public co-operation, transparency, smart investments via applying the concept of ‘meaningful use’, a holistic approach and senior leadership seems to have the US moving very quickly to make up what may have been seen 2-3 years ago as a substantial gap.

There is clearly stuff we can learn from all this in my view.

David.

More Evidence Electronic Reminders Can Help Improve Care.

The following appeared a few days ago.

Tracking system can improve follow-up after abnormal Pap test

August 20, 2010 | Bernie Monegain, Editor

BOSTON – Physicians who use an automated, electronic medical record tracking system to follow up on patients with an abnormal Pap test could increase the number of women who achieve diagnostic resolution and do so in less time than using traditional methods, according to new research.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) reported their findings in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Screening for cervical cancer with a Pap test is only as successful as the follow-up rate for an abnormal result, the researchers said. If a patient has a Pap test, yet does not receive appropriate follow-up for an abnormal result, then the opportunity to prevent or treat pre-cancerous lesions or cervical cancer is missed and the Pap test is ineffective.

The advent of tracking systems provides great potential to address inadequate follow-up on a systemic level, researchers found.

"We developed a tracking system for our internal EMR, and evaluated this tracking system as an intervention to improve adequate follow-up of abnormal Pap tests," said lead author Elizabeth Dupuis, MD, from the Section of General Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine, and the Women's Health Interdisciplinary Research Center at BUSM.

The BUSM researchers compared abnormal Pap test follow-up rates for the 24 months prior to implementing the tracking system with rates 12 months after its implementation. The evaluation monitored all subjects for 12 months from the date of their abnormal Pap test through diagnostic resolution. Controlling for type of abnormality and practice location, the adjusted time to resolution decreased significantly from 108 days prior to implementing the tracking system to 86 days after implementation.

More here:

http://healthcareitnews.com/news/tracking-system-can-improve-follow-after-abnormal-pap-test

This seems to be a very good outcome, ensuring there is no unreasonable delay between a identification of a suspicious result and definitive resolution being achieved in terms of completed follow-up and treatment if needed.

Of course the front end of this is also important – where the EMR identifies patients who need various screening interventions and makes sure they are done – and then – when abnormalities are identified – makes sure the issue is properly and safely resolved.

Another brick in the evidence wall!

David.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

This Is Pretty Exciting News - I Wonder Will Australian Users Get Access At Some Point?

The following blog post appeared a few days ago.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Evidence-Based Medicine’s Giant Leap

Cerner and the British Medical Journal (BMJ) have teamed to provide evidence-based medicine (EBM) embedded in the electronic medical record in a manner that is as exciting and encouraging a development in healthcare IT as anything I’ve ever seen — I repeat, as exciting as anything I’ve ever seen. Coming from a noted cynic and critic of healthcare IT, this flash of optimism is a significant change in the wind.

I was attracted to healthcare by the huge greenfield opportunity to apply the lessons I learned in military command centers (the Universe loves irony) about embedded computerized decision support. I’ve been searching for a sustainable piece of grass in that green field ever since.

One of the factoids I enjoy throwing around is the length of time that elapsed before US healthcare providers widely adopted and routinely practiced EBM for the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia —17 years. The Mean Time To Improvement (MTTI) in healthcare is abysmal, but not because clinicians are unwilling to change, rather because the clinicians don’t always know how to change or whether they should change at all.

The BMJ methodology provides clinicians with a trustworthy and convincing source of evidence upon which to justify a change in clinical behavior; and the integration of the BMJ knowledge into Cerner’s EMR gives clinicians an easy avenue for practicing that change in a fashion that can drive the MTTI in healthcare from decades to days. That’s not a dramatic overstatement — this collaborative effort between Cerner and BMJ, and what I hope will be similar efforts in the future, can radically lower the MTTI in healthcare.

As I mentioned in previous blogs, one of my major challenges in this relatively new position as CIO is to squeeze more value — measurable and perceived — from the Cayman Islands’ substantial investment in Cerner’s products. At the same time, we are undertaking a new care delivery model here that looks and feels very similar to the concepts evolving in the United States under an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) and Medical Home.

Among other commitments, our new model (known as CayHealth) is contractually committed to practice and measure EBM. The challenge, of course, is to enable EBM, that is, make it as easy as possible for clinicians to practice true EBM and then measure that practice somehow. This marriage of BMJ’s EBM content with Cerner’s Millennium application suite is an opportunity to do both — derive more value from the Cayman Islands’ Cerner investment, as well as support the imperatives of CayHealth.

Historically, there have been several barriers that were too high for EBM to hurdle:

· Governing the definition and content of EBM

· Updating, maintaining, and disseminating EBM to clinicians in a timely fashion

· Efficiently integrating EBM into the clinicians’ workflow

· Achieving all the above while making EBM affordable

The Cerner-BMJ collaboration knocks every one of these hurdles to the ground.

Read the details here:

http://callitanything.blogspot.com/2010/08/evidence-based-medicines-giant-leap.html

The blog is written by Dale Sanders, CIO of the Cayman Islands National Health System.

For those who are curious go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayman_Islands

It seems there are only 60,000 or so people living there but that it has a huge economy, built apparently on being a rather major tax haven!

A little more research came up with this site:

http://group.bmj.com/products/evidence-centre/cerner/

BMJ Evidence Centre

Action Sets and Cerner Millennium

We have worked closely with Cerner to develop our Action Sets within the CareDesigner tool, which effortlessly pre-validates them for integration directly into the Millennium PowerChart.

Customised for your specific needs

Cerner Millennium’s PowerChart centralises patient information management and supports comprehensive care planning and coordination. Care plans and orders are created specifically for each region, and reviewed by local expert reviewers. They can be individualised based on the patient information entered during admission and ongoing treatment.

Giving you control

Cerner’s Care Designer tool enables customers to customise Action Sets for use within their organisation, for example, by incorporating national, regional or local guidelines. You can change, add to or remove Action Sets in line with changing guidelines and local best practice. Local Cerner teams work closely with all customers to support successful implementation.

The Action Sets package includes links to Evidence Summaries, which present relevant content from Best Practice, Clinical Evidence, performance measures, and links to Cochrane and national and international guidelines. The package also includes full web access to Clinical Evidence and Best Practice allowing for both to be used as referential tools outside of the clinical workflow.

----- End Page.

Pleasingly it seems the core information is available in standardised form for integration into a range of clinical systems.

See here:

http://group.bmj.com/products/evidence-centre/systems-integration

Systems integration

There is considerable diversity in the electronic health systems being used by hospitals, and no single solution for integrated healthcare.

Accordingly, the BMJ Evidence Centre supports multiple delivery channels for its authoritative healthcare information. We store our content in an industry-standard structured format and can provide access to it via a web API. This enables clinicians to access our authoritative evidence, expert opinion and guidelines within the tools they already use.

Standards:
Our approach is to develop support for whatever standards, contexts and vocabularies your system requires. We already support the following for structuring and querying our clinical information:

  • HL7 Infobutton, REST, or other messaging standards (e.g SOAP)
  • Multiple query contexts covering treatment and diagnosis
  • Clinical vocabularies including ICD 9 / 10, SNOMED-CT and free text
  • Results in a range of formats including XHTML, XML, ASCII, Atom/RSS

----- End Extract.

Maybe NEHTA or DoHA could investigate and possibly fund some form of national program to have this information made available to Australian practitioners.

Dream on I guess!

David.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

It Looks Like It Will be a While Before iSoft Recovers from This Mess!

iSoft released its annual 2010 Full Year results just on market open today.

You can read the gruesome details here:

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/16/161325/investorpack.pdf

and for the real details here:

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/16/161325/4e.pdf

The result has already be covered here:

iSoft CEO steps down after poor result

ISOFT Group chief Gary Cohen has stepped down as part of a review after a horror full-year result.

Shares in the Sydney health information technology company slumped more than 20 per cent to 12.5 cents, after it reported a $382.9 million loss, following $34.7m profit last year.

The company's shares have now fallen about 83 per cent this year.

The result included a $341m one-off impairment charge, primarily related to goodwill. Total revenue fell 20 per cent to $431 million and earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation tumbled 77 per cent to $30m.

Chairman Robert Moran, who described the result as "disappointing", said iSOFT's board has commenced an in-depth review of the company's business operations.

A number of aspects of the review are already being implemented, including the departure of Mr Cohen who will remain with the company to assist with its transition and strategic development.

iSOFT has engaged an executive search firm to assist in finding a new CEO, with chief operating officer Andrea Fiumicelli to serve as acting chief.

The company has also commenced a "board renewal" process to identify candidates from both Britain and Australia to join the board.

On the result, Mr Moran said: "A difficult economic environment, adverse currency impact, delays to the implementation of the National Program for IT in the UK and an increased cost structure all contributed to this result."

iSOFT changed its name back to iSOFT last year after IBA Health acquired the group in 2007.

Mr Moran said the review has already targeted annualised operational cost savings of $50m by end of June 2011, with more than half of this to come through headcount reductions.

More here:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/city-beat/isoft-ceo-steps-down-after-poor-result/story-fn4xq4zx-1225912302486

There is also some additional information here:

STOCKS ON THE MOVE

* Health information company iSoft (ISF.AX)

ISOFT

31 August,2010

ISF.AX, (0.135, -0.030, -18.180%), the market's most active stock, lost a quarter of its value to hit a 6-½ year low of A$0.125 after it reported a loss of A$383 million due to a hefty writedown of goodwill.

It said it needed to restructure its senior debt facilities, review its capital structure and was considering asset sales. Its chief executive stepped aside to work with the board on strategic options for the company.

Full article is here:

http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7953645

Clearly all this is pretty bad news for iSoft investors – to say nothing about how the ex-CEO (Gary Cohen) must feel to essentially lose his job.

While it is hard to be sure it does seem we are in part seeing in the figures the effects of the takeover transaction from a year or so ago impacting – as well as all the issues around the UK National Program for Health IT which have harmed cash flow and the need to recognise that there has been a major reduction in the value of the company’s intangible assets.

The 2009 annual report reveals there was over a billion dollars of intangible assets on the company and with the write down in these results this amount has been essentially halved but it is still a rather large $480 million.

Given that the company has a very substantial amount of ongoing legacy and maintenance revenue and many customers all over the world as well as a very newly developed and apparently quite good product in Lorenzo we can only hope the steps planned will turn the ship around!

For all concerned it would be sad if this can’t be achieved, but I doubt it will be quick!

David.