First a definition - to be Mushroomed is to be “Kept in A Dark Place and Fed Smelly Excreta”.
To me that is what is happening to the e-Health Community . We have all sorts of meeting where there are lots of e-Health research presentations but where is NEHTA and DoH explaining the big picture and what the future is? Pretty well absent I guess.
With the ONC in the US we have a weekly e-mail newsletter and in Canada regular, is slightly selfserving, material from Infoway. Here all we hear about is AMT and SNOMED releases and about publicity ventures when a dead duck is being pushed on unsuspecting allied health professionals, nurses or administrators.
No futures, no strategy, no analysis of practical success has been forthcoming. Just why might that be? Emperor and nudity flicker to mind.
I really don’t think the cone of inactive silence is good enough. Do you?
David.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
This Astonishing Article Appeared A Few Days Ago. $400Million Just Blown Up!
I was just blown away ( no pun intended) when I read this article.
Defence blows up $400m worth of missiles
PUBLISHED: 10 Oct 2014 00:05:55
Brian Toohey
The Australian Defence Force has disposed of almost 100 AGM-142 stand-off missiles, costing about $400 million, by blowing them up or, as Defence put it, they were “disposed of by explosive demolition”.
The F-111 strike fighters only operated the US-manufactured missiles for about a year before the big jets were retired in 2010.
The Israeli-designed AGM-142 missile was meant to give the F-111s a formidable new supersonic precision-guided weapon with a 350 kilogram warhead and a range of 78 kilometres.
Because of the severe difficulties Boeing experienced in Australia trying to integrate the missiles into the F111, they only became operational available nine years later than intended.
Defence says the total project cost for “approximately” 100 missiles and the integration process was $406 million.
The retirement of the 28 F-111s left the Australian Defence Force with almost 100 near-new missiles it didn’t consider suitable for use by the air force’s 24 new Super Hornet or 72 new F-35 fighter planes.
The Super Hornets cost $32,000 an hour to fly, more than double the cost for the RAAF’s 71 “classic” Hornets.
Read more of this incredible story here:
So somehow Defence managed to blow up what seems to be the cost of the first year of the new war in Iraq or the cost of 2-3 new Hospitals and so on.
One must really wonder why there were not some others who could extract value from these and work out how to usefully integrate them.
The parallel with the PCEHR seems rather obvious to me. Over $1.0B spent and to date it still has not been effectively integrated with the national health system, it is still hardly used almost 2.5 years later, and now seems to be at similar risk of just being ‘blown up’.
The ways Governments can get rid of our money for no real benefit or accountability is just astonishing!
David.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Weekly Australian Health IT Links – 13th October, 2014.
Here are a few I have come across the last week or so.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and a few paragraphs. 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.
General Comment
Another quiet week where we heard no useful information about what the Government is up to in e-Health. Maybe the Rural Medicine Conference at the end of the month will reveal something.
See here:
Ehealth reform in Australia
Innovation Stream Session 2
Innovation Stream Session 2
31 October, 2014
Session 1 : (10.30am – 11.0am)
Beyond the Hype – PCEHR in action in rural general practice.
Simulation/demonstration
Presenter: Dr Ewen McPhee
Session 2 : (11.00am – 11.30am)
National eHealth reform and priorities – a National approach
Panel includes:
Dr Steve Hambleton, NeHTA; Mr Peter Fleming, NeHTA; Mr Paul Maddon, DOH; Dr Jeff Ayton, ACRRM ; Dr Ewen McPhee, RDAA
Session 3 : (11.30am – 12.30pm)
Whole of health sector : What’s happening in My State
Chair: Dr Jeff Ayton
State and Territory Health Departments’ overview of ehealth/telehealth goals, programs and achievements.
We can all look forward to hearing what is said!
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Digitising healthcare: The state of e-health in Australia
Several health organisations give examples of how digitisation is transforming healthcare
If there is one industry experiencing rapid change right now, it is healthcare. Whether it’s the shift from paper to electronic records, face-to-face consultation to telehealth diagnosis, or instructing patients to empowering them, the industry is evolving fast.
Here, we look at several examples of how digitisation is transforming the healthcare industry.
Integrated digital hospital
UnitingCare Health is rolling out Australia’s first fully integrated digital hospital, which will connect up e-medical records, X-rays, pathology results, vital sign machines and other health information.
St Stephen’s digital hospital in Hervey Bay, Queensland is set to open on 13 October and is receiving $47 million from the Federal Government's Health and Hospitals Fund, with UnitingCare contributing $49m.
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Experts question the value of some new medical technologies
Date October 8, 2014 - 11:45PM
Elisabeth Rosenthal
Medical technology is finding a vast number of new data-gathering techniques but many professionals are questioning the value of all that information, Elisabeth Rosenthal says.
As a former physician, I shivered a bit when I heard Dr Vivek Wadhwa say he would rather have an artificial-intelligence doctor than a human one.
"I would trust an AI over a doctor any day," he proclaimed at a health innovation conference in San Francisco, noting that artificial intelligence provided "perfect knowledge". When asked to vote, perhaps a third of those in attendance agreed.
In some cases, the ability to collect data has outpaced medical understanding.
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Health apps 'useless' says health app expert
Date October 9, 2014 - 10:28AM
Matthew Hall
Amid claims that healthcare applications from Apple and Samsung will assist in propelling the health hardware industry to be worth $3 billion by 2019, an Australian expert in eHealth systems has described recent health apps as 'useless'.
Dr George Margelis, from the University of Western Sydney, told ITPro that health apps like Apple's HealthKit were of little use to medical professionals unless the collected data could plug into other digital platforms like the Federal government's eHealth systems.
Margelis called for app developers to collaborate with the health profession to make more functional and practical platforms.
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Unresolved Ethical Challenges for the Australian Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) System: Key Informant Interview Findings
The American Journal of Bioethics (Impact Factor: 3.6). 08/2014; 5(4):30-36. DOI: 10.1080/23294515.2014.919972
ABSTRACT Background: A national Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) system was made available across Australia in July 2012. While the technical, policy, and commercial aspects of the new Australian PCEHR system were examined thoroughly by the National E-Health Transition Authority in developing the new e-health record system, little attention was given to examining the related ethical implications of PCEHR advances. This article reports on ethical concerns about the new Australian electronic health record system identified by expert stakeholders.
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Telemedicine
Stuck in the waiting room
A long-touted health-care revolution may at last be about to arrive
Oct 11th 2014 | ROME | From the print edition
THE idea of telemedicine—health care provided using telecommunications equipment—has a lengthy history. Radio News, an American magazine, devoted its cover to a patient at home consulting a doctor in his surgery via a television link as long ago as 1924. When NASA began monitoring astronauts in space in the 1960s, fantasy became reality. It has been touted as health care’s future ever since.
But even smartphones and tablets have failed to usher in the telemedicine revolution: most health care still happens face to face. Now, enthusiasts think the wait is nearly over. Governments have been slow to embrace an approach that could improve coverage and outcomes, as well as saving money. But they are under increasing pressure from ageing populations and a surge in chronic diseases, just as public budgets are being squeezed.
At an industry conference in Rome on October 7-8th, participants discussed the problems that must be solved if telemedicine’s day is to come. They include redesigning laws and payment systems set up for face-to-face care, and finding ways to keep patients’ data secure and private.
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Pharmacist ‘alert fatigue’ blamed for woman’s death
10 October, 2014 Christie Moffatt
The failure of a pair of pharmacists to identify an adverse interaction between two prescription drugs has led to a Canadian woman’s death, according to investigators.
As reported by CBC News, 76-year-old Helena Lambert was healthy and active for her age, when she was prescribed allopurinol to treat her gout. However, Ms Lambert was already taking mercaptopurine for colitis.
The adverse interaction led to a bacterial infection that spread quickly and resulted in respiratory failure, resulting in Ms Lambert’s death in 2012.
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Trish Greenhalgh
Trish Greenhalgh is Professor of Primary Health Care and Dean for Research Impact at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry. read more
OCT 8, 2014 0
Is Evidence-Based Medicine Broken?
LONDON – Evidence-based medicine, as David Sackett and his colleagues wrote in 1996, is “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.” At first glance, this seems entirely logical; indeed, many would say that this simply could be called “medicine.” But the approach is generating considerable controversy, with many asserting that it is “broken.” Last month, when the British Medical Journal asked its readers whether evidence-based medicine is malfunctioning, the responses were almost evenly split: 51% answered positively, and 49% negatively.
The controversy stems from the kind of evidence that is used. Sackett implies, but does not stipulate, that epidemiological evidence (findings from randomized controlled trials and large-cohort studies carried out over many years) should underpin doctors’ decisions about patients – and, one hopes, in consultation with them.
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Cambridge, analytics and all that: Melb Health's Dr Gareth Goodier
Posted Tue, 07/10/2014 - 14:11 by Josh Gliddon
With a quarter century of experience as a healthcare chief executive under his belt, Dr Gareth Goodier, Chief Executive of Melbourne Health, has some critical ideas about the way healthcare systems can become more efficient, save money and deliver better patient outcomes.
“The real challenge these days is not new treatments,” he tells eHealthspace.org. “It’s affording existing treatments and making sure that they can be used across the community in an equitable manner.”
Dr Goodier’s most recent post before Melbourne Health was as Chief Executive at Cambridge University Hospital, a 600 bed facility attached to the famed university.
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Question: Using #FHIR Medication Resources
Posted on October 7, 2014 by Grahame Grieve
Question:
To what extent should FHIR Medication resources be reused? Should they be reused across multiple patients’ records?
Answer:
The general answer is that they should re-used as much as possible. The general expectation is that either a system has a formulary or drug dictionary, in which case there would be one medication resource per entry, and these commonly re-usable medications would be used across many patients, or that you are prescribing by some external code. In the second case, you wouldn’t re-use the medication resource at all.
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AUSTRALIAN research has found internet-delivered cognitive behaviour therapy (iCBT) was associated with reduced self-reported absenteeism in employees with depression, anxiety and social phobia. The study, published in the MJA, reanalysed data from five randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of iCBT between 2008 and 2010. The study included 284 participants from the trials, with a mean age of 43 years (range, 18–68 years). About 70% were women. In each of the five RCTs used in the study, the intervention group received relevant iCBT and the control group was drawn from people on waitlists for the same therapy. The iCBT course for each condition was completed over 11 weeks in six online lessons, guided by clinical psychologists, with assignments, automated emails and resource guides.
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New app shines the spotlight on the importance of breast checks for men and women
By Grayce Keen
Oct. 8, 2014, 11:52 a.m.
It is not every day that someone gets to see their life’s work recognised in Federal Parliament before being released to a global audience. And it is not every day that someone discovers they have cancer.
Camden’s Roz Hill is that someone. Diagnosed with cancer at the age of 29, she knew the disease wouldn’t beat her.
Even when cancer claimed the life of her son, Peter, she did not lose her drive or motivation.
Instead, she founded the Young Adults Program (YAP), a not-for-profit organisation that has developed an app that takes teens and young adults through the steps of a self-examination to check for signs of breast cancer.
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http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/58037/analytica-launches-fund-raising-58037.html
Analytica launches fund raising
Wednesday, October 08, 2014 by Proactive Investors
Analytica (ASX:ALT) has initiated a 1 for 8 rights issue priced at $0.03 to raise $3.17 million.
This is a discount of 23% to Analytica's 15 trading day VWAP of $0.0388 to 2 October 2014, and the offer is partially underwritten by Patersons Securities to the value of $1,645,000.
Halonna Pty Ltd, which is controlled by Non-executive Chairman, Dr Michael Monsour, has agreed to sub-underwrite up to an amount of $200,000.
Funds will be directed to its lead product, PeriCoach – an e-health treatment system for women who suffer Stress Urinary Incontinence.
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3D printers: changing lives one hand at a time
3rd Oct 2014
WHEN trauma surgeon Dr Albert Chi gave a talk last year about advanced prosthetics and was asked what was easy, available and affordable, he was stumped. So he began to hunt for more basic options.
He turned to the 3D printer, one his wife bought him for Father's Day and with sheets of coloured plastic, free designs and advice found online, he made a hand for about $23.
"One of the first kids we fitted was a 2-year-old," Dr Chi said.
"We thought the child was too young. But we weren't even able to finish strapping it on and the kid was picking an object up."
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IT fault throws E-scripts into chaos
8 October, 2014 Chris Brooker
A faulty electronic prescribing system may have caused UK pharmacies to dispense thousands of unintended prescriptions.
A report in UK pharmacy newsletter Chemist + Druggist claims that between August 24 and September 20, an estimated 1259 pharmacies downloaded 3600 repeat prescriptions that prescribers had tried to cancel but could not because of a technical error with an electronic prescription service.
In a letter sent to affected contractors on September 23, the health and social care information centre (HSCIC) warned that pharmacists "may have dispensed medication to patients that the prescriber did not intend".
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VIC Minister for Technology Gordon Rich-Phillips has announced that a delegation of 23 Victorian life sciences organisations will participate in the Victorian Medical Technology Mission to the AdvaMed 2014 conference in Chicago, United States.
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Australians demand faster internet speeds: ABS
David Ramli
Consumers want faster internet, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics research that appears to contradict a government report that says Australians don’t need more than 15 megabits per second.
More than two million Australians have internet access faster than 24 megabits per second in June, the bureau of statistics found.
The number of people with advertised speeds between 8Mbps and 24 Mbps rose by 1.27 million to 6.25 million last financial year.
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These Countries Have The Fastest Internet Speeds
October 6th, 2014
by Felix Richter, Statista.com
by Felix Richter, Statista.com
According to Akamai's most recent State of the Internet Report, South Korea boasts the highest average internet connection speed in the world.
Korea's internet users surfed at an average speed of 24.6 Mbps in the second quarter of 2014 according to Akamai's measurements (click here for details on their methodology).
Korea is trailed by Hong Kong, Switzerland and Japan who each saw average speeds around 15 Mbps. The United States ranked 14th with an average connection speed of 11.4 Mbps, which is still way above the global average of 4.6 Mbps. To add a little perspective on what these speeds mean: At 10 Mbps it takes around 50 minutes to download a 2-hour movie in HD quality.
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It's official: HP will break itself in two
CEO Meg Whitman will head Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, while PC and printer business head Dion Weisler will run HP Inc.
One of the companies, comprising HP's enterprise hardware, software and services businesses, will be known as Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, the company announced Monday. The other, made up of its PC and printing businesses, will be called simply HP Inc., and will keep the HP logo.
Both of the new companies will be publically traded, and HP shareholders will be given shares in both firms. HP expects to complete the break-up by the end of its 2015 fiscal year, which ends on Oct. 31 next year.
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Enjoy!
David.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Could It Be True A Proper Audit Of NEHTA and How It / Has Been Performing Is About To Be Conducted?
My various informants who attended to RACGP Conference last week noted that there was a rumour running around that the Victorian Auditor General was soon to be asked to review NEHTA with respect to how it had done and how it was going in terms of providing value to the community and whether it should continue or not. The rumours seem to suggest the review is to happen quickly and not take a long time.
It is worth noting that Victoria, like a number of other States, have not paid their recent contributions to NEHTA's running!
It is worth noting that Victoria, like a number of other States, have not paid their recent contributions to NEHTA's running!
In terms of background we learned last year that the Royale Review had recommended major changes regarding NEHTA with the creation of a new governance entity for Australian E-Health to replace and augment their utility and benefit and improve connections with all of the wide range of stakeholders.
We also know the Victorian Auditor General has a good track record in reviewing Health IT Projects - having done a great (insightful and damning) review of HealthSMART.
Here is the link:
There is commentary here:
And here:
In case it is true a review is planned - and I have been suggesting such a review for ages - I thought assembling the responses to some of the recent polls on the blog might help the AG understand that, at the least, the relatively interested and expert readers of this blog, think how well NEHTA and eHealth Branch of DoH are performing, might be useful.
Here are the results of a few polls
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AusHealthIT Poll Number 239 – Results – 12th October, 2014.
Here are the results of the poll.
Have DoH And NEHTA Contributed To The Progressive Degradation Of Australian E-Health Standards Setting Processes?
Yes 91% (218)
Probably 1% (3)
Neutral 0% (1)
Probably Not 0% (1)
No 6% (15)
I Have No Idea 1% (2)
Total votes: 240
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AusHealthIT Poll Number 237 – Results – 28th September, 2014.
Here are the results of the poll.
Do DoH and NEHTA Understand The Issues Of Clinical Safety That May Surround The Deployment And Use Of Health IT Systems?
For Sure 4% (6)
Probably 5% (7)
Neutral 15% (22)
Probably Not 33% (47)
No Way 41% (58)
I Have No Idea 1% (2)
Total votes: 142
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AusHealthIT Poll Number 235 – Results – 14th September, 2014.
Here are the results of the poll.
How Would You Rate The Federal Government's First Year In Power As Far As E-Health Is Concerned?
Excellent 3% (3)
Not Too Bad 2% (2)
Neutral 15% (13)
Not Too Good 22% (19)
Awful 53% (46)
I Have No Idea 5% (4)
Total votes: 87
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AusHealthIT Poll Number 233 – Results – 31st August, 2014.
Here are the results of the poll.
Do You Believe The NEHTA Leadership Should Be Held Accountable For The Slow Progress In E-Health Over Almost The Last Decade?
For Sure 48% (79)
Possibly 34% (56)
Neutral 6% (10)
Probably Not 5% (8)
No Way 4% (7)
I Have No Idea 2% (3)
Total votes: 163
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AusHealthIT Poll Number 232 – Results – 24th August, 2014.
Here are the results of the poll.
Do You Believe The Present Leadership Of NEHTA and DoHA E-Health Initiatives Will Be Able To Deliver A Successful PCEHR?
For Sure 15% (41)
Probably 4% (10)
Neutral 2% (4)
Probably Not 14% (36)
No Way 65% (172)
I Have No Idea 1% (2)
Total votes: 265
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I think that the message that flows from all these questions is pretty clear. E-Health has been a fiasco for the last few years led by NEHTA and DoH. The Poll currently running will be very interesting as well.
David.
AusHealthIT Poll Number 239 – Results – 12th October, 2014.
Here are the results of the poll.
Have DoH And NEHTA Contributed To The Progressive Degradation Of Australian E-Health Standards Setting Processes?
Yes 91% (218)
Probably 1% (3)
Neutral 0% (1)
Probably Not 0% (1)
No 6% (15)
I Have No Idea 1% (2)
Total votes: 240
This is a pretty clear and enthusiastic outcome. Most are sick of Government interference in the Standards setting process and believe they have not helped.
Again, many, many thanks to all those that voted!
David.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Weekly Overseas Health IT Links - 11th October, 2014.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. 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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Privacy and Security Expert, Entrepreneur
Race To Centralize Your Medical Info Creates A Single Point For Hackers
Posted: 10/04/2014 1:50 am EDT Updated: 10/04/2014 1:59 am EDT
Several provinces in Canada are racing to centralize databases with your sensitive health records in them, providing you no choice to participate in such a system or any transparent explanation of the risks of these ehealth initiatives.
The popular pro-argument is the slight convenience for travellers over a phone call to your doctor, but the risks are not being shared, and they are significant.
Not only are the provinces tripping over each other to be online first, the federal Infoway initiative encourages this increasing risk to your privacy.
Let's start with the information security risks. Every bank in the country, with the world's leading information security teams protecting them, have been hacked several times. This is little risk to us as the users because if any transactions show up on our account that aren't ours, we can call the bank, and they will take responsibility, removing the risk.
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Love, Hate HIT
OCT 2, 2014 12:21pm ET
Physicians use a lot of health information technology systems, and their experiences with those systems vary widely. Some are relatively easy to use and provide real value; others drive them crazy on a daily basis.
Carlos Sesin, M.D., a rheumatologist with three-physician Vanguard Rheumatology Partners in Miami Beach, started his career happy with health IT, in turn had a nightmarish EHR experience that soured him on the technology, but once again is an HIT fan.
Sesin started the practice in 2004 with his wife Charmaine Hamada, an R.N. They bought an electronic health records system from SOAPware, and loved it. The EHR, paired with a disparate practice management system, was rudimentary but worked well. But with meaningful use looming in 2009, Sesin started looking for a bigger vendor with an integrated PPM/EHR on a single platform.
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Fridsma: Health IT Requires Different Types of Interoperability
OCT 3, 2014 7:25am ET
At a minimum, there are three types of interoperability required to achieve an interoperable health IT ecosystem, according to Doug Fridsma, M.D., ONC’s outgoing chief science officer.
Speaking this week at AHIMA’s 2014 conference in San Diego, Fridsma made the case that health IT requires all three types of interoperability--semantic, syntactic, and information exchange. “If you exchange the information and the codes don’t match or it’s a proprietary set of codes, you’ve got the information but you have no idea what those codes mean,” he argued. “Semantic interoperability is about the vocabularies and syntactic interoperability is about the structure.”
The end result, Fridsma said, is to have the ability of systems to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged, while taking advantage of both the structuring of the data exchange and the codification of the data including vocabulary—with the receiving systems able to interpret the data.
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Tool Boosts Accuracy, Cuts Dosing Time in Pediatric Emergencies
OCT 2, 2014 4:32pm ET
Research concludes that a web- and mobile-based medication reference tool from Raleigh, N.C.-based eBroselow increased the accuracy of medication doses prepared during simulated pediatric emergencies by almost 25 percent.
In addition, prepared doses were done with a “complete elimination of clinically significant errors” and on average were completed eight minutes faster than when using standard dosing references, according to the results of a study published in the Journal of Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics.
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Go easy on Stage 3 MU, says JASON group
Posted on Oct 03, 2014
By Mike Miliard, Managing Editor
It's imperative for the success of interoperability that Stage 3 meaningful use be less stringent, giving health IT vendors the necessary latitude to develop innovative products, according to a draft report from ONC's joint HIT Policy and Standards Committee JASON task force.
In a draft of the JASON task force's final report, due to be submitted to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, the group – co-chaired by Micky Tripathi, CEO of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, and David McCallie, senior vice president of medical informatics at Cerner – confirms what most of us already suspect: that Stages 1 and 2 have failed to foster interoperability "in any practical sense."
This is blamed on a lack of a comprehensive nationwide architecture for health information exchange, ingrained EHR technology and business practices – and more systemic impediments, such as lack of incentive for data sharing.
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The Standards Committee work ahead
Posted on Oct 02, 2014
By John Halamka, CareGroup Health System, Life as a Healthcare CIO
On October 15, the Policy Committee and Standards Committee will meet to review the draft interoperability roadmap that will guide our work in the post-meaningful use era.
The draft to be presented is a work in process and will be iteratively improved over the next 4 months with multi-stakeholder input. Clarifying the Modern Healthcare story, October 15 will include a straw man for Federal Advisory Committee reaction, not a finished plan.
We’ll also hear an important presentation from the JASON task force, translating the general recommendations in the JASON report into actionable policy and technology next steps, especially around the need to extend interoperability from the sending/receiving of CCDA documents to also enable the data-element level query capabilities of well defined, secure application programming interfaces (APIs), likely using HL7’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR).
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Geisinger finds telemedicine cuts readmissions, costs for heart failure patients
October 3, 2014 | By Susan D. Hall
Heart failure patients participating in a Geisinger Health Plan telemonitoring program were significantly less likely to be readmitted to the hospital, according to a study to be published in the December issue of Population Health Management.
The researchers calculated the program saved $3.30 for each dollar spent to implement the program.
There were 541 participants in the study, which incorporated Bluetooth scales with an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution to assess weight changes and ask specific questions about their symptoms. The questions, including about shortness of breath, swelling, appetite and prescription medication management, were designed to detect indicators of worsening conditions.
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Health app market to reach $6.7 billion by the end of 2014
The mobile health market is expected to be valued at $6.7 billion by the end of 2014, according to a report from research firm Visiongain.
London-based Visiongain defines mobile health as “the practice of medicine and health services, through mobile devices” and analyzed smartphone and tablet apps for its report. Apps included in the report range from free apps all the way to premium apps that have diagnostic features.
“Austerity measures have forced many health departments around the globe to rein in their spending and find more cost-effective ways of operating,” Visiongain explains in its summary. “Enabling them to diagnose, monitor, and communicate with patients remotely, mHealth promises extensive cost-savings for healthcare professionals and institutions. This new industry will also pay dividends to network operators, software developers, and data platform management providers who may turn their core competencies onto the medical field.”
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What's the Prognosis for Apple HealthKit?
- By Chandra Steele
- October 3, 2014 11:00am EST
Google and Microsoft haven't fared so well at playing doctor. What does that mean for Apple?
Apple's HealthKit got off to a bumpy start, when bugs delayed the launch of apps that sync up with Cupertino's Health app within iOS 8. It's now ready for primetime, but can HealthKit overcome the issues that have plagued other e-health services like Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault?
Paging Dr. Google
Google Health was a way for users to centralize their personal health information. Introduced in 2008, it was an opt-in system where users could add data from medical providers, insurance companies, pharmacies, and related healthcare agencies. Google inked deals with CVS and provided links to the Withings scale, but Google Health suffered a few maladies right from the start.
Google Health was a way for users to centralize their personal health information. Introduced in 2008, it was an opt-in system where users could add data from medical providers, insurance companies, pharmacies, and related healthcare agencies. Google inked deals with CVS and provided links to the Withings scale, but Google Health suffered a few maladies right from the start.
It didn't integrate with every healthcare provider or insurance company. The gatekeepers of patient health information struggled with what to share and consumers were just getting acquainted with the idea of access to their own digital health records.
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FDA Guidance Targets Medical Device Security
OCT 1, 2014 1:52pm ET
The Food and Drug Administration has finalized guidance on cybersecurity issues that medical device manufacturers should consider when submitting a device for FDA approval.
Such guidance could change or enhance the types of security functions that will be in devices purchased and installed in provider organizations.
“This guidance provides recommendations to consider and document in FDA medical device premarket submissions to provide effective cybersecurity management and to reduce the risk that device functionality is intentionally or unintentionally compromised,” according to a notice published on Oct. 1.
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Study: Primary-care clinics realize positive ROI from EHRs
October 2, 2014 | By Julie Bird
Primary-care clinics recovered their financial investments in electronic health record (EHR) systems in 10 months on average, a recent study found, in part because EHRs allowed them to see more patients.
Clinic revenue increased with EHR implementation, along with the ratio of active patients per clinical full-time equivalent (FTE) employee, according to the study by researchers at Montreal's McGill University, published in JMIR Medical Informatics.
"Our analysis of the variances in the time required to achieve cost recovery from EHR investments suggests that a positive ROI does not appear automatically upon implementing an EHR and that a clinic's ability to leverage EHR for process changes seems to play a role," the researchers concluded.
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New FDA strategic roadmap includes health IT-related goals
October 2, 2014 | By Dan Bowman
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week unveiled a new roadmap that outlines its strategic priorities through 2018.
According to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg (pictured), the plan--which includes many health IT-related goals--was in development for more than a year.
"More often than not today, a drug or medical product that ends up on the shelves of an American drugstore or in our hospitals will come, at least in part, from some foreign source," Hamburg said in a blog post touting the roadmap. "Nearly 40 percent of finished medicines that Americans now take are made elsewhere, as are about 50 percent of all medical devices. … These and other new challenges and transformative developments in global science, technology and trade are rapidly altering the environment in which we work to fulfill our broad public health mission. In order to continue to carry out that mission, we need a set of clearly defined priorities and goals, as well as the strategies for reaching them."
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Confed wants e-mental health strategy
2 October 2014 Lis Evenstad
The Department of Health and NHS England should create a national strategy for e-mental health and invest in a national programme to support this, says a report by NHS Confederation.
The report, entitled ‘The future’s digital - mental health and technology’, surveyed the members of the Confederation’s Mental Health Network about their current use and plans for utilising technology.
It found that although organisations were clear that technology could be used to improve patient care, there was a lack of a sense of “future vision and the right skills” in the workforce.
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JASON Task Force: Narrow Scope of MU Stage 3 to Interoperability
October 1, 2014 by David Raths
Group suggests ONC lead charge on coordinated architecture, public APIs
A task force is preparing recommendations for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT suggesting that in order to place a greater emphasis on interoperability, the scope of meaningful use Stage 3 should be significantly narrowed.
The ONC JASON Task Force is a response to a white paper written by the JASON initiative within the McLean, Va.-based Mitre Corp., and funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. That paper concluded that the lack of interoperability among the data resources for electronic health records (EHRs) is a major obstacle to the effective exchange of health information. The paper recommended that CMS use Stage 3 meaningful use to embark upon the creation of a truly interoperable health data infrastructure.
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Digitizing the Ivory Tower of Academia
Thursday, October 2, 2014
For the past half century, academia has sometimes been considered an "Ivory Tower," with some considering the university as an impractical and self-indulgent institution disconnected from society and reality. To counter, in the early 1980s, the federal Bayh-Dole Act promoted a surge in "academic commercialization" through an exodus of ideas out of higher education and into the marketplace.
Flash forward to today and some academicians have argued that "the seduction of academia by the marketplace" has gone too far by compromising free-thinking minds that are now beholden to capitalist demands. While many can debate the pros and cons of this controversial culture, our small laboratory on the 5th floor of the old hospital at the University of California-Los Angeles has embraced the ideology that marketplace and academia, collectively, can foster advancements in policies and innovations.
The digital health arena is a prime example of where meaningful collaborations between industry and academia can spur on a paradigm shift in the health care system towards a preventive, patient-centered approach by leveraging technology.
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CIO sings the praises of HL7 analytics
Posted on Oct 01, 2014
By Mike Miliard, Managing Editor
Wes Wright, chief information officer at Seattle Children’s Hospital, says a new analytics tool that unobtrusively monitors the performance of his HL7 transactions "gives me peace of mind."
Seattle Children's is unique, says Wright, in that it's a "smaller hospital, in terms of bed size," but serves a four-state region: Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. It offers critical, highly-advanced care to a large geographic area.
"We're a tertiary, almost quaternary care hospital," he says. "It's a really specialized pediatric hospital."
On top of that, Wright is in charge of a 1,200 person research institute – "the fifth leading NIH grant recipient for pediatric research," he says.
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Digital health investments continue to rise
October 1, 2014 | By Katie Dvorak
So far in 2014, $5 billion has been invested into digital health, according to a new report by StartUp Health. The funding made in the first three quarters of this year has already surpassed the total invested in 2013, according to StartUp.
"We are living in an extraordinary moment in history where big data, sensors, genetics, connected mobile devices are making it possible for entrepreneurs to reimagine what's possible in healthcare," Unity Stoakes, president and co-founder of StartUp Health, said in an announcement.
For 2014, some of the biggest investments include Privia Health, Preventice, Proteus Digital Health, NantHealth and Flatiron Health, according to StartUp Health.
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HIMSS: Road to coordinated care has become rocky
October 1, 2014 | By Katie Dvorak
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society reached out to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to create a plan to address health IT issues facing the nation's healthcare system.
In a letter sent to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on Sept. 30, HIMSS Chairman Paul Kleeberg and President H. Stephen Lieber said the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's plans to revise the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan open up the doors for collaboration between HIMSS and ONC.
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AHIMA issues information governance framework
October 1, 2014 | By Susan D. Hall
AHIMA has released a framework for healthcare information governance at its annual convention in San Diego, calling for commitment to managing information as a strategic asset.
It's part of AHIMA's ongoing effort to stress the importance of information governance, which it called an "undeniable imperative" in a recent white paper.
"We need to step up in healthcare as they've done in banking and retail," AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon recently told Hospitals & Health Networks. Future success, she said, will "boil down to who has the best data" and what's being done with it.
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Doctors Find Barriers to Sharing Digital Medical Records
As a practicing ear, nose and throat specialist in Ahoskie, N.C., Dr. Raghuvir B. Gelot says that little has frustrated him more than the digital record system he installed a few years ago.
The problem: His system, made by one company, cannot share patient records with the local medical center, which uses a program made by another company.
The two companies are quick to deny responsibility, each blaming the other.
Regardless of who is at fault, doctors and hospital executives across the country say they are distressed that the expensive electronic health record systems they installed in the hopes of reducing costs and improving the coordination of patient care — a major goal of the Affordable Care Act — simply do not share information with competing systems.
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25 Years Of Health IT: Highs & Lows
9/30/2014 01:53 PM
IT has transformed the business of healthcare over the past quarter century. Take a look at some of the major consequences -- good and bad -- of health IT's growth.
When the US government began charting an ambitious course to modernize healthcare and prepare a foundation for the future, it faced its share of detractors and advocates. With the clarity of the passing years, both have been proven right and wrong.
Technology experts are driving success and will overcome the challenges, executives agreed.
"The industry has rapidly deployed the dramatic changes and innovated as a result of the last several years after the Affordable Care Act," said Ash Shehata, partner in the Global Healthcare Center of Excellence at KPMG. "IT has been at the center of the transformation."
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Federal HIT Strategic Plan to Look Beyond Meaningful Use
SEP 30, 2014 7:15am ET
The government is working on a “refresh” of the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan to advance technology beyond electronic health records. That’s the word from National Coordinator for HIT Karen DeSalvo, M.D., who spoke Monday at the opening session of the AHIMA 2014 conference in San Diego.
“That plan is one of our responsibilities laid out in the HITECH Act,” DeSalvo told the audience of health information management professionals. “The last one was developed in 2011. As you can imagine, it was more focused on the HITECH-era work of meaningful use. With our federal partners, we have been working together for the last few months to think about setting new priorities for the next five years for this country.”
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DeSalvo strikes interoperability chord
Posted on Sep 30, 2014
By Bernie Monegain, Editor
ONC chief Karen DeSalvo, MD, promised an audience of AHIMA members that the government would act "fast into interoperability." She drew applause when she added, "We cannot wait for 10 years to get this done."
DeSalvo emphasized that every other industry has already achieved interoperability.
The message resonated with the 2013 AHIMA conference audience whose work is dedicated to making sure healthcare data is accurate and secure. In their work, they have seen up close the difference accurate, accessible data makes to patient care.
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Poor interoperability a significant barrier for ACOs
September 25, 2014 | By Susan D. Hall
Though designed to improve care by sharing data from various sources, poor interoperability remains a huge barrier to accountable care organizations (ACOs), according to a survey from Premier and the eHealth Initiative.
In fact, all 62 ACOs responding to the online poll reported that access to data from external sources was a challenge for their organization.
"Even when ACOs have successfully adopted and merged HIT systems, they aren't able to effectively leverage data and analytics to derive value out of their investments," Keith J. Figlioli, Premier's senior vice president of healthcare informatics and member of the Office of the National Coordinator's Health IT Standards Committee, said in an announcement.
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Third-party report GP software launched
29 September 2014 Sam Sachdeva
GP practices are being offered free access to software that creates and electronically sends reports for insurance companies and other third-party organisations, automatically redacting sensitive information.
The Intelligent GP Reporting software, developed by Niche Health and launched this week, has already been adopted by insurers Legal & General.
Guy Bridgewater, managing director of Niche Health, told EHI the inspiration for the software is the significant amount of time that GP practices spend manually preparing the reports, redacting information and sending them to insurers.
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Patients need 'control panel' for data
26 September 2014 Sam Sachdeva
The rise of big data cannot be stopped so patients must be able to make “fine-grained” decisions about how their clinical information is shared and used, a GP has argued.
Dr Marcus Baw suggested to EHI that giving patients a “control panel” to let them to decide how their data is used might be one way to address concerns about data sharing, and to reduce the burden of consent on GPs and other care providers.
The future of GP databases and the information they contain will be one of the topics of discussion at the BCS Primary Healthcare Specialist Group’s 34th annual AGM and conference next month.
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PHRs focus of IT strategy - Williams
24 September 2014 Sam Sachdeva
Personal health records systems are set to be a significant part of the National Information Board’s upcoming informatics strategy, Health and Social Care Information chief executive Andy Williams has said.
The long-awaited strategy is set to be released later this year, outlining a ten-year plan for how to make the most of data and technology in healthcare.
The board is comprised of representatives from a number of health organisations including the Department of Health, NHS England and the HSCIC.
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Informed women more likely to skip prenatal testing
By Deborah Kotz
| Globe Staff September 29, 2014
While most pregnant women get noninvasive genetic testing to screen for chromosomal abnormalities, such as Down syndrome, in their fetuses, some might choose to skip the testing if they are fully informed about the upsides and downsides.
In a new study involving 710 pregnant women that was published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that those who were shown an interactive computer program educating them about prenatal testing were more likely to skip noninvasive screening blood tests and ultrasounds. They were also more likely to skip invasive testing, such as amniocentesis, that involves using a needle to draw DNA-containing fluid from a woman’s womb and carries a small risk of miscarriage.
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Data Analysts Say They Can Save Billions in Healthcare
Laird Harrison
September 26, 2014
SANTA CLARA, California — Powerful new software can save billions in healthcare costs by analyzing data to target therapies more precisely, programmers say.
"We believe this has the potential to revolutionize the way we can use healthcare data for treatment choices," said Louis Monier, chief executive officer of the data analytics company Kyron.
Kyron and other companies presented their ideas here at the Health 2.0 Annual Fall Conference.
Many of the programs discussed search existing information sources for connections that human researchers might have overlooked.
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Health IT's Future: 9 Issues To Watch
9/29/2014 09:06 AM
Expect the pace of innovation to pick up as healthcare providers increasingly leverage IT to improve patient care, make competitive gains, and save costs.
They've forged a strong foundation, but technologists and health professionals have more to do to fulfill the vision of a cost-effective, consumer-oriented, patient-engaged industry.
"Future systems will support clinicians and patients as they work together toward wellness," said Joe Frassica, chief medical informatics officer and chief technology officer/vice president for Philips Patient Care and Monitoring Solutions at Philips Healthcare. "These systems will provide increasingly personalized and real-time insights and advice for clinicians and patients and will come to be trusted partners in the care of patients."
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These Algorithms Reduce Readmissions
Scott Mace, for HealthLeaders Media , September 30, 2014
Using glycemic management software that integrates with its EHR system, a Virginia hospital system has achieved a 79% improvement over the national average for hyperglycemia rates.
Doctors and nurses following the standard of care in hospitals aren't just paying more attention to analytics. These days, the algorithm can be the cornerstone of superior care.
Consider the tricky process of controlling the glycemic levels of patients with diabetes.
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A security threat worse than Heartbleed
Posted on Sep 29, 2014
By Mike Miliard, Managing Editor
The Health Information Trust Alliance has put out a word of warning about Shellshock, a system vulnerability it says could wreak much more damage than the infamous Heartbleed bug.
The HITRUST Cyber Threat Intelligence and Incident Coordination Center, known as the C3, announced this past week it has been tracking the remote code execution vulnerability, which it says can allow hackers to bypass commands and execute arbitrary code, leaving OS X and Linux machines open to attack.
"We base the assessment that Shellshock is a more serious vulnerability than Heartbleed due to the ability of potential perpetrators to use the exploit to craft malicious code that enables them to gain complete control of a compromised server," write HITRUST officials in their dense and detailed threat report.
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Feds ramp up tech efforts for Ebola
Posted on Sep 29, 2014
By Government Health IT Staff
Amidst the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, which has claimed the lives of some 3,000 people thus far, government entities in the U.S. and abroad are moving to harness personnel and technologies to better manage the outbreak.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, in fact, projected that the number of infected people could potentially double every 20 days if nothing is done – a figure that could skyrocket to 1.4 million by January's end.
And if that "if nothing is done" scenario seems hyperbolic, the World Health Organization has said it needs "a 20-fold increase" in the number of public health workers to effectively manage the virus and treat infected patients.
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Health 2.0: The Customer Is King
Monday, September 29, 2014
SANTA CLARA, CALIF. -- Placing more care decisions in the hands of consumers and personalizing that experience is a major theme in health application and product development today, as evidenced at the 8th annual Health 2.0 conference, held in Santa Clara, Calif., last week.
However, providers, payers and government regulators may tap the brakes on this trend, as they continue to worry about patient safety and privacy in the new digital realm.
A survey by Medscape and WebMD released at the conference indicated that while the majority of physicians and patients (63% and 64%, respectively) agree that the smartphone can be a useful diagnostic tool in regards to blood tests, just one-third of physicians said they would use a smartphone to perform an ear or eye exam and about a half of patients would do so. The survey included 1,102 patients and 827 physicians.
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Enjoy!
David.
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