March 2008

Raising Efficiency. Raising Capacity. Raising the Bar.

St. Vincent Mercy Selects StatCom to Help with Patient Flow Efficiency Initiative

St. Vincent, a seven hospital faith-based system serving Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan, has undertaken a facility wide initiative to improve patient flow efficiencies. They are engaging StatCom to implement its enterprise patient flow logistics and tracking solution to automate patient flow processes and improve operations.

StatCom.com

Thomson Healthcare Study Names Top 100 Hospitals on Patient Safety

It's not just about information technology or the cost of delivering care, but those two factors play a role in a complex formula that technology company Thompson Healthcare uses to measure the top 100 performing hospitals on patient safety. The highest performance levels in patient safety were achieved by the 100 hospitals in the study that delivered the highest balanced performance across quality, efficiency and financial stability.

Bernie Monegain, HealthcareITNews

To Build a Better Hospital, Washington Hospital Takes Lessons from Toyota

Beginning in 2000, the leadership at Virginia Mason hospital looked at their infrastructure and saw it was designed around them, not the patient. They then began looking for a better way to improve quality, safety and patient satisfaction. After two years of searching, they discovered the Toyota Production system, also known as lean manufacturing, and Virginia Mason has tailored the Japanese model to fit healthcare.

Cheri Black, Seattlepi.com

The Future of HIMSS

To the untrained eye, HIMSS08 may have seemed like a typical HIMSS show, if not a bit bigger. But below the surface, it was clear an evolution is taking place. This year, long-time attendees and industry observers noted they were encountering perhaps at least a few fewer CIOs and more executives and managers below the CIO level. Some attributed it to the fact that more hospital-based organizations have now at least completed the initial phase of their core EMR implementations, and thus are in what one industry expert called the "what's next?" phase of clinical IS development.

Mark Hagland, Healthcare Informatics

The Show Will Go On — Without Cerner

When the 2009 HIMSS Conference and Exhibition opens next April at McCormick Place in Chicago, it will include a projected 3 1/2 percent increase in reserved exhibition space, according to H.Stephen Lieber, president and CEO of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. But it will not include the Cerner anchor booth.

Bernie Monegain, HealthcareITNews

Movement on Federal Health IT Bills Looks Bleak, Insiders Say

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said a new amendment to create a reserve fund would address the lack of investment in health IT, which he believes is responsible for hindering progress on a nationwide interoperable health IT system. However, one insider said the election and the country's economy pose major hurdles to the passage of health IT legislation.

Diana Manos, HealthcareITNews

Battle Between Best-of-Breed and Sole Source Continues

Given all the consolidation among health-IT suppliers in the last few years, more than a few big guns have assembled true, end-to-end integrated clinical and management systems. Yet the ongoing national push for data and interoperability standards means it easier than ever to knit together best-of-breed solutions in Lego-like fashion.

Neil Versel, Digital Healthcare & Productivity.com

Midland Hospital Proves Open Source Savings

Midland Memorial Hospital got an $18 million EMR system for $7 million, thanks to open source. Midland signed its contract with Medsphere in late 2004, removed its paper records in February, 2007, and now has a year of experience using a completely automated patient records system. Midland has also removed pressure from both government and insurance companies to automate. Its EMR system is one of only 9 nationwide to have a Stage 6 designation from HIMSS Analytics, the highest yet achieved.

Dana Blankenhorn, ZDNet

Healthcare Clamors for iPhone Apps

The analyst group Datamonitor predicts the iPHone could lead to more doctors adopting healthcare applications such as electronic health records and clinical. Medics have been slow to adopt such technologies--which provide patient and medical data--because turning to a PC in the middle of an examination can disrupt the doctor-patient relationship. But the analyst said mobile devices such as the iPhone can help reduce these problems.

Steve Ranger, posted on ZDNet

Mergers Make a Comeback

It may not be the 1990s all over again, but hospital consolidation is picking up. "The day is coming when it is going to be exceedingly difficult for smaller and medium-size, and even some larger, independent hospitals to continue to operate efficiently in their communities as standalone hospitals," Spoelman says. Thus, the two hospitals' merger is perhaps emblematic of an industry consolidation wave that has been a long time coming and may accelerate in the near future.

Lola Butcher, HealthLeaders Magazine

Overcoming the Barrier to Participating in the IHE Initiative

Since it's inception in 1998, IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) has embarked on a commendable mission to "improve the way computer systems in healthcare share information." Over the past 10 years the initiative has made great strides in standardizing the implementation of not-so-confining "standards" such as HL7.

Jason Williams, Neotool blog

Improving Denial Management

WVU has an annual inpatient discharge rate of more than 22,000 patients per month. WVU Hospitals had quite a list of operational goals --streamlining and coordinating the utilization of services, improving case and discharge management processes, as well as incorporating a new, coordinated denial management practice with financial services.

Christy Whetsell, RN, for HealthLeaders Media

A View from the C-Side

Hospital management focused articles

Innovation in Health Care: An Interview with the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic

Check out this interesting interview on Toby Cosgrove, CEO of Cleveland Clinic. He touches on a variety of topics such as: how CC gets the most out of its money (metrics and more metrics), CC's take on patient charts (they belong to the patient, not the hospital) patient "experience" (and why you won't find those behind-revealing hospital gowns at CC), Partnership strategy (very clear about what they want and don't want), CC's core value proposition - technology leadership, and more. (Free reg)

The Mckinsey Quarterly

Boards Gone Wild

Whenever I hear about a board-CEO battle that ends in a CEO's dismissal, I can't help but wonder how it went so wrong. After all, in theory, CEOs and their boards have the same goal: the organization's success.

Molly Rowe, HealthLeaders Media

CIO Survey Finds IT Implementation is a Lower Priority

Hospitals and health systems are looking at electronic medical records (EMRs) and other clinical systems more than most other components of health-IT as their organizations sharpen their focus on quality of care, according to an analysis of a survey of hospital IT professionals. Of the 307 people - mostly chief information officers - who participated in the 19th annual survey of health-IT leaders by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), 40 percent named inpatient clinical information systems as a current IT priority. Nearly as many listed reducing medical errors and implementing EMRs as priorities, though the numbers for all three categories fell by 8 to 15 percentage points.