Aug 2007
Raising Efficiency. Raising Capacity. Raising the Bar.
Report: Hospitals Must Prepare for Future Health IT Systems
A new report from First Consulting Group provides an overview of next-generation clinical information systems on the horizon and details steps that hospitals should begin taking to prepare for these new systems. "The planning horizon for most health care information technology is three to five years, so the time to start planning for the next-generation clinical information technology is now," the report states.
Health Data Management
Report: 12 States Leading Way with Health IT
Twelve states are out in front when it comes to adopting health information technology in their statewide Medicaid programs and another two dozen are close behind, according to a just-released government report. But the level of progress and the types of technologies in use vary widely, and no state has implemented a personal health record initiative, the report also shows.
Matthew DoBias, Modern Healthcare
Doctors, Hospitals Slow to Go Digital
Electronic health record systems can increase efficiency, reduce errors and boost care, but physicians and hospitals have been slow to adopt the expensive technology, the Virginian-Pilot reports. About 11% of hospitals that responded to an American Hospital Association survey reported a fully implemented EHR system, while about 24% of physician practices reported using any form of EHR.
Nancy Young, The Virginian-Pilot
U.S. Presidential Candidates' Health Plans: Incorporating Information Technology to Provide 21st Century Care
Supermarkets, businesses and banks utilize it, even children use it, but the incorporation of information technology (IT) in the practice of medicine is woefully lacking. Over 1.5 million Americans are injured and more than 100,000 die annually due to medical errors, and a recent study found that 80% of these mistakes began with miscommunication, missing or incorrect information about patients, or lack of access to patient records.
Susan J. Blumenthal, M.D., Jessica B. Rubin, Michelle E. Treseler, The Huffington Post
Lower Hudson Valley Hospitals Use Bar-code Technology to Improve Safety
Patients checking into hospitals throughout the Lower Hudson Valley are finding something on their wristbands they once only saw in supermarkets and department stores: a bar code. Local hospitals are part of a growing national trend aimed at improving safety and reducing medical mistakes that cost lives through use of the same technology that grocery stores and other retailers have long relied on to track sales and check prices.
Jane Lerner, Lower Hudson Online
Vendors Dispute EHR, Ambulatory-Care Report
Jeffrey Linder, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an internist at 746-bed Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston said that most EHR quality studies have been done at what he described as "benchmark" institutions, and the intent of this study—which was sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality—was to take a more general view of how EHRs were being used across the nation. What the study shows, Linder said, is that with the way EHRs are being used they "are not much more than a replacement for the paper chart." "They're not magic. You just can't plug it in, turn it on and watch quality magically improve."
Andis Robeznieks, Modern Healthcare
Laying the Foundation for Health Information Highway
Car dealerships have long been able to generate letters reminding customers that based on past mileage and service records their vehicles are due for tune-ups. Medicine, however, has been slower to harness computer technology to routine clinical data to enhance the way doctors care for their patients. One of the biggest roadblocks: Most medical records are still paper documents stuffed in file folders.
Nancy Remsen, Burlington Free Press
Ten Lessons from the Top 100
The nation’s 100 Most Wired Hospitals and Health Systems have better outcomes than other hospitals on four key measures: mortality rates, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s patient safety measures, the Joint Commission’s Core Measures and average length of stay. This is the strongest evidence in the nine-year history of the survey of an association between the implementation and adoption of information technology and the quality and cost of patient care.
Alden Solovy, H&HN
Report: Health IT Bills Will Not Affect U.S. Health Care
A new Commonwealth Fund report finds that federal health IT bills do not provide the funding or central leadership necessary to make an impact on the U.S. health care system. The president of the Commonwealth Fund said that due to a lack of funding and leadership, a paperless health care system in five to 10 years is unrealistic.
Government Health IT
Forget Sicko; Here Comes “Clicko”
In “Clicko,” the threat is not the alleged greed of corporate profit-mongers, but rather something Bria calls “e-latrogenesis,” the fear that health-IT can cause harm, brought to the fore by several recent peer-reviewed journal articles questioning the clinical benefits of electronic medical records (EMRs), computerized physician order entry (CPOE), and clinical decision support. “We are getting our own version of an exposé starting to shape up,” according to William Bria, chief medical information officer (CMIO) of Tampa, Fla.-based Shriners Hospitals for Children and chairman of the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems (AMDIS), an organization of CMIOs.
Neil Versel, Digital Healthcare & Productivity.com
Demand Side Q&A: Ed Brown, VP & CIO Gwinnett Medical Center
Q: Which IT trends are currently having the biggest impact on the healthcare industry?
A: It’s a bit like a mission to the moon: in 17 years we’ll have electronic health records for everybody. A noble undertaking, but it’s an unfunded mandate right now. I’ve seen estimates that we may need somewhere between $400 and $500 billion to make electronic health records a reality. At the same time, doctors and hospitals have declining reimbursements as insurance companies are taking more and more. We’re getting to the point where the entire healthcare industry is unsustainable. Automation might potentially be a throttle for rapid growth right now, but we have to have some seed money. Electronic medical records are about getting the paperwork out of healthcare. It’s a huge technology only just beginning to be developed.
TechLinks
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