March 2007
Raising Efficiency. Raising Capacity. Raising the Bar.
See StatCom at AONE
Visit us at booth #1811 in Washington D.C. April 12-16
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Ensure that health IT public policy issues continue to take center stage
HIMSS Advocacy Day/Health IT Day on Capitol Hill, May 15, Washington D.C.
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Competition Forces Hospitals to Upgrade
Faced with an increasingly competitive marketplace in which patients shop for hospitals based on amenities and customer service, even major teaching hospitals are being forced out of their ivory towers and onto turf normally reserved for the retail and entertainment industries. Although some consumer groups fear the building frenzy will result in fewer services for the poor and higher costs for all patients, hospitals say the industry is overdue for a makeover. New technology and better environments will help patients heal faster.
Janet Kidd Stewart, Chicago Tribune
Waco’s Providence Health Center Goes Live with Prospective Patient Flow Manager from Radianse
Patient flow bottlenecks, overcrowding and diversions are common in hospitals, jeopardizing patient care, staff satisfaction and, ultimately, hospital revenue. The award-winning Providence Health Center in Waco, Texas, now has the answer: a ground-breaking patient flow visualization solution from Radianse, Inc., now implemented hospital-wide.
RFID Solutions Online
Physician Groups Say IT Is Critical to New Care Model
Information technology should play a central role in the coordination and integration of patient care across all elements of the healthcare system, according to a statement released by four major physician membership organizations. Of the four principles underlying the patient-centered medical home (PC-MH) model, one dealt specifically with healthcare IT. The fourth principle stated that patient care should be facilitated by registries, healthcare IT, and health information exchange to assure that patients get the indicated care when and where they need and want it.
Richard Pizzi , Healthcare IT News
Health Care's IT Revolution
In the past, physicians have bought administrative IT for their offices, but have resisted EHR because of time constraints, cost, confusion, and lack of standards to enable different systems to communicate with each other. Hospitals have acted slightly faster, but they are still far behind other industries in installing state-of-the-art IT networking programs, such as digital medical records. To drive adoption, the Bush Administration is pushing government-funded health-care programs (Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program) to initiate EHR demonstration projects, and has organized public-private collaborations to set industry-wide standards for interconnectivity and quality. The federal government is also funding state-run experimental programs that use innovative EHR applications.
Wendy Diller, Business Week
Group Practice Leaders Looking to Spend: Survey
Group practice leaders responding to the 17th annual Modern Healthcare/Modern Physician Survey of Executive Opinions on Key Information Technology Issues are looking to spend more on healthcare IT in the near term than they are currently spending, but how much more is widely variable. With all the emphasis by the government and business interests on clinical IT systems, they were not the top "hot button" priority this year, according to our readers. Asked to prioritize their IT needs and make their top three choices from a list of 16 alternatives, 41% of respondents picked practice-management solutions, well ahead of ambulatory clinical solutions and clinical communication infrastructure/communication systems that were each chosen by 31% of the survey respondents.
Modern Healthcare
Open Wide: Kodak Looks to Patent Edible RFID
Kodak quietly filed an application with the U.S. Patent & Trademark office for a patent on an RFID tag that can be safely ingested. The tag, according to the description in the application, can be used to monitor internal "bodily events" in a patient, eliminating in some cases the need for surgery, x-rays or access to a medical facility. "It would be appealing to probe the living body without the effort, expense, inconvenience and risk of injury or infection involved with the above methods," according to the application.
ComputerWorld
Baton Rouge Hospital Begins $15M Rollout
Baton Rouge General Medical Center has launched a $15 million IT upgrade that includes the implementation of clinical systems and the automation of its pharmacy. “Because we’re a community hospital, we are aggressively creating an environment that enables physicians to work more collaboratively to the ultimate benefit of our patients and the community we serve,” said Bill Holman, president and chief executive officer, General Health System. “By providing physicians with access to a connected clinical solution, we are making it much easier to make more informed decisions that can lead to safer, faster and more effective treatment decisions.”
Bernie Monegain, Healthcare IT News
System Allows Instant Tracking of Hospital Capacity
Emergency workers can instantly track patient capacity in Rhode Island hospitals under a new program that's been in the works since rescue workers scrambled to find places for people injured during The Station nightclub fire. The Web-based program enables emergency responders and medical staff to check the number of beds in hospitals and tell officials if they need to send patients elsewhere.
Boston.com
Comparison Shop Hospitals with a Click
Now you can comparison shop for hospital care online the way you might for a car or a washing machine. As part of a national movement to provide health-care consumers with more information, the Georgia Hospital Association is launching a Website that allows patients to check out the cost and quality of common medical procedures at the state's 141 acute care hospitals. In fact, the site, www.gahospitalpricecheck.com, is chock-full of so many facts and figures it can be hard to navigate. "It's a gold mine of material," said Bill Vaughan, a health care analyst for Consumers Union, the not-for-profit organization that publishes Consumer Reports magazine, "but mining is difficult work."
Gayle White, Atlanta Journal Constitution
Deals, Deployments, and Other Brief Health IT News
Industry activity round up
John Russell, Digital Healthcare & productivity.com
HIMSS 2007 Round-up
StatCom feature
Like other folks on that last day of the conference who were afraid of flight delays because of the weather, our team drove back to Atlanta from New Orleans. The drive gave us an opportunity to reflect on the show, as well as to see from our window first hand the miles of gutted, devastated neighborhoods outside of New Orleans.
First, let’s give credit and thanks to the folks in New Orleans. From the people who built our booth and handled AV, to the food vendors, hotels and restaurants, and even the cab drivers, they all had the absolute best attitude. They went out of their way to make sure we had what we needed, and expressed sincere appreciation for our business.
This was a special HIMSS for us as we officially launched StatCom’s enterprise product for patient flow logistics and tracking. It was definitely the best HIMSS ever for us. Despite reduced traffic at the show in general, we had a steady stream of interested visitors and media.
We had an excellent response to our product demos. Running StatCom’s unique patient tracking interface on a 42” plasma screen with four surrounding smaller screens showing our real-time dashboards literally stopped people in their tracks. For us it was extremely gratifying and validated that people are looking for something that’s more than a bed board to solve their patient flow challenges.
More on HIMSS 2007:
“….We felt it was the best HIMSS ever.”
Roberto Ruggeri, The Healthcare IT Blog
John Russell,
Given the variety and apparent robustness and sheer number of health-IT products being displayed at HIMSS last week, it’s hard to believe the healthcare industry isn’t further along the adoption curve. Here are snapshots from a few conversations with vendors on the HIMSS floor.
Digital Healthcare & productivity.com
Ignacio H. Valdes, MD, MS,
So this was my first HIMSS conference. The major difference from the more academic-oriented AMIA is that HIMSS is a vendor shin dig with booth babes, unbelievably gaudy and enormous vendor booths, the smell of big money and major speakers like Steve Ballmer, Colin Powell, Michael Leavitt and Steven Covey. The good news is that there is a Free and Open Source presence! The VistA Software Alliance, Medsphere had booths as well as the Tolven group giving an amazing presentation.
Matthew Holt,
I thought Gen. Colin Powell's speech at HIMSS was fantastic, funny, moving, intelligent, wonderful and hopeful. Lots of other people were cheerleading him too. However, what else I thought you can see over at Modern Healthcare.
The Healthcare Blog
Information technology takes us back to the future
The oft-hyped “always connected” ubiquitous network concept is now closer to reality. “It's definitely an evolution rather than a revolution - but convergence is happening,” said Ellen Daley, an analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. In a trend Forrester has coined the “Extended Internet,” both enterprise and consumers will soon be tracking and managing physical items using a combination of RFID technology, sensors, Wi-Fi and the Internet.