September 2008
Raising Efficiency. Raising Capacity. Raising the Bar.
St. John’s Mercy Medical Center focus is on efficiency
Mary Jo Feldstein, St. Louis Post-DispatchHospitals nationwide, including those in the St. Louis area, are beginning to adopt concepts that will ultimately enhance the quality of care and make facilities more efficient, taking a lesson from manufacturing companies that have been employing such tools for decades. Hospitals across the St. Louis area — and the country — are employing the concepts and tools used for decades by manufacturing companies to make operations more efficient and quality more consistent. Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma are overlapping process-improvement strategies that aim to take the waste out of a process while standardizing the process itself.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/healthcare/story/ 0C26B0477B517516862574C700090370?OpenDocument
ER Care, Stat!
Sandra G. Boodman, The Washington PostHealthPlex's full-service emergency department, which can treat everything from heart attacks to finger "lacs" (ER-speak for laceration), sees close to 33,000 patients annually, nearly as many as the emergency department at Georgetown University Hospital. Unlike traditional emergency rooms, it has no inpatient beds. Patients who need hospitalization or surgery are transferred by ambulance to surrounding hospitals, most to Inova Fairfax, seven miles away. Experts say that HealthPlex, which opened in 2001 and is designed to divert patients from the ERs Inova operates at Alexandria, Fairfax and Mount Vernon hospitals, is an innovative, patient-friendly response to one of the gravest problems facing the fraying health-care system: overcrowded ERs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091203002.html
Stark plans to introduce healthcare IT legislation
HealthDataManagementU.S. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., chairman of the Ways and Means health subcommittee, is planning to introduce legislation that would advocate the development of an open-source electronic health record. The proposed bill also would add more specifications about violating patient-privacy laws.
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/legislation26946-1.html
HIMSS identifies global EHR implementation trends
HealthcareITNewsFour factors affect how EHRs are implemented around the world, according to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society: funding, governance, communication and standardization, and interoperability. A 119-page report explains in detail and looks at the status of EHR projects in 15 countries.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9927
Providers link HIE to lower costs, improved outcomes
HealthImagingNewsElectronic health information exchange (HIE) between physicians, hospitals, payors and patients is decreasing the cost of care and improving outcomes, according to a new survey released by the non-profit eHealth Initiative. The 2008 Fifth Annual Survey of Health Information Exchange at the State and Local Levels, which included responses from 130 community-based initiatives in 48 states, shows the significant impact fully operational initiatives are having on improving healthcare delivery and efficiency. According to the survey results, 69 percent of the fully operational exchange efforts reported reductions in healthcare costs.
http://www.healthimaging.com/content/view/12096/89/
Hospitals invest in RFID at explosive rate
EHEALTH SmartbriefThe use of RFID technology is exploding in hospital facilities with more than 300 beds as a way to contain costs, track assets and patients, and improve patient care, according to a study by California-based Spyglass Consulting Group. The study also found that cost, questions about return on investment and the lack of interoperability with some devices still present a barrier for some groups.
http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/08/09/013.html
Case study: KY hospital ED cuts patient wait times with EMR
Daily LeaderKing's Daughters Medical Center has steadily implemented new technology and techniques throughout 2008 that have cut almost in half patients' waiting time during visits to the emergency room. KDMC Chief Nursing Officer Merlene Myrick said the emergency department's new gear has reduced patients' LOS (length of stay) from 220 minutes, recorded during the first week of February, to 118 minutes, record throughout June. The June average is two minutes under the department's LOS goal of 120 minutes, and the most recent department best is 90 minutes.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20096721&BRD=1377&PAG=461&dept_id=172922&rfi=6
Google and Microsoft look to change healthcare
New York TimesGoogle and Microsoft have begun working on plans to improve the nation's healthcare. The two will combine the Web's resources, online health records, and enhanced Internet search tools to ultimately help people make better choices when it comes to their healthcare. By combining better Internet search tools, the vast resources of the Web and online personal health records, both companies are betting they can enable people to make smarter choices about their health habits and medical care. Google and Microsoft recognize the obstacles, and they concede that changing health care will take time. But the companies see the potential in attracting a large audience for health-related advertising and services. And both companies bring formidable advantages to the consumer market for such technology.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/technology/14healthnet.html?_r=2&scp=3&sq=business,%20healthcare&st=cse&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Standards of care in the ER: The emergency waiting game
Thomas A. SharonThe emergency room is the place where most of us enter the health-care system. Many are there with undiagnosed life-threatening conditions when they first arrive. Their survival depends on how fast and accurately the staffers diagnose and treat their problems. Most emergency rooms can at times get so crammed full that they become unsafe. Accordingly, there are three determining factors in getting -or preventing- a good result in the emergency department. These are triage, waiting time, and capacity.
http://legalnurseconsultanttom.com/?p=205
Brothers in arms
Cristina De Martini, Health Management TechnologyScanning recent headlines, it is difficult to ignore the fact that radio-frequency identification (RFID) is receiving substantially more ink than bar coding. Even in healthcare, the consensus seems to be that bar coding is no longer cutting-edge and that RFID is the newer, more advanced auto-identification solution that healthcare IT leaders have been searching for. However, the origins of the two technologies reveal that they have peacefully coexisted for several decades.
http://www.healthmgttech.com/features/2008_september/0908_thought_leaders.aspx
C Side
BJC opens up its books
STLtoday.comSt. Louis-based BJC HealthCare recently laid out its financial position and plans for the future in a recent bond filing. About one in three admissions to a St. Louis-area hospital go to one of BJC's nine area hospitals, and this market dominance hasn't changed much over the last 10 years, said Chief Executive Steve Lipstein. Maintaining that position requires constant investment in new technology and new facilities, a strong physician referral system, and a profitable mix of patients, he said.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/columnists.nsf/maryjofeldstein/story/ 1308F12B5AE354DA862574C0000793A4?OpenDocument
The new C-suite: Sailing the seven Cs (Part 1&2)
William K. Cors, MD, for HealthLeaders NewsHealthcare leaders need to reinvent the C-suite and establish a new set of leadership skills to help them address the challenging nature of hospital-physician competition and collaboration.
Part 1http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/218370/topic/WS_HLM2_LED/The-New-Csuite-Sailing-the-Seven-Cs-Part-1.html
Part 2
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/218810/topic/WS_HLM2_LED/The-New-Csuite-Sailing-the-Seven-Cs-Part-2.html
The Healthcare CIO: Jonathan Teich, M.D. Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Elsevier
Health Management TechnologyThe CIO is traditionally someone who has operational responsibility for the information technology of an organization, and certainly plays an important role in supporting those needs across the hospital. Generally, the CMIO is a person, usually a physician, who provides a bridge between practical medical needs and information technology capabilities. Usually, it is someone who has a solid understanding of both, and who is there to translate clinical strategy into information technology possibilities and vice versa.
http://www.healthmgttech.com/features/2008_september/0908_cio.aspx
Unclear on how to get the right healthcare providers? Let Healthcare Job Boards bring things into focus
Health Management TechnologySteady demand will fuel the growth of the healthcare industry. As the demographic of the population gets older, the need for health care resources increases. According to the latest numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in August, 2008 alone, nearly 27,000 employees were added to the industry. Employers need assistance in filling open positions quickly because of the industry growth. How do employers fill these key rolls quickly? Healthcare Job Board is the leading provider of career concierge sites dedicated to the healthcare market. The portfolio of sites --TherapyJobs.com, MDSearch.com, medreps.com, RNSearch.com, and ICUNursingJobs.com -- offer qualified job seekers and healthcare employers a place to connect and simplifies the matching process.
http://www.healthcarejobboards.com/focus/
StatCom is a HIMSS Analytics client and a HMSS platinum sponsor.