Paper Kills 2.0: How Health IT Can Help Save Your Life
and Your Money
Center for Health Transformation
Next week StatCom and the Center for Health Transformation will be
announcing the launch of Paper Kills 2.0: How Health IT Can Help
Save Your Life and Your Money. The timely, powerful sequel to the
award-winning book, Paper Kills. Newt Gingrich, Tom Daschle, and
national industry leaders explores the leading information
technologies that can and will transform our health system.
StatCom, a leading innovator in helping hospitals achieve peak
performance, contributed a chapter on adaptive technology in the
new book.
To order
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Former Hospital Executives Join StatCom in
Strategic Partner Engagement
StatCom.com
StatCom announces the addition of three former hospital executives
to the StatCom team: Mary Kay Thalken, who served previously as COO
and chief nurse executive of Bergen Mercy Medical Center; PJ
Johnson formerly CEO of Summerville Medical Center and COO Trident
Medical Center; and Tom Brunelle most recently EVP and chief
executive from Bon Secours Charity Health System. StatCom is
committed to helping hospitals decrease departmental fragmentation
and improve operations. In a bold strategic move they are engaging
established hospital leaders who have dealt with complex hospital
environment challenges. In their role as an enterprise VPs, the
three will partner with client hospital executives to ensure the
success of their process improvement and patient throughput
projects.
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Obama Administration to Award Nearly $1B in Health IT
Grants
iHealthBeat
The Obama administration announced plans to award nearly $1 billion
in grants to help states and health care providers implement health
IT systems, Healthcare IT News reports. The grants aim to extend
health IT access to more than 100,000 hospitals and primary care
physicians by 2014, administration officials said. The funds also
will bolster training programs for careers in health care and
IT.
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Beyond Meaningful Use
Carrie Vaughan, HealthLeaders Magazine
Technology can help the healthcare industry achieve better outcomes
and cost savings, but only if providers incorporate
decision-support tools and a coordinated approach to delivering
care. Most electronic health records are a silhouette.
Organizations can recognize the patient and, by exchanging medical
records, can even help expedite or improve care-but to improve
outcomes, the healthcare industry needs to add detail and context.
Only then can the silhouette be transformed into a true portrait,
in which all of the pertinent information is up-to-date and
accurate and can be effectively used, says James L. Holly, MD, CEO
of Southeast Texas Medical Associates in Beaumont, TX.
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Study Says Lower Hospital Competition Leads to Higher
Costs
Wall Street Journal, Mathews, Anna Wilde
A recent Harvard Medical School study using Dartmouth Atlas data,
published in the American Journal of Managed Care, reveals that
small markets with only a few hospital systems have higher costs
than those in areas with higher competition. Researchers analyzed
healthcare spending among large employers and compared it to
geographic patters of Medicare spending, revealing that commercial
insurers spent more money in areas with fewer hospitals. Experts
suggest the study highlights the need for antitrust regulation to
reduce healthcare integration and ensure markets remain
competitive.
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Transformation in Small Steps
Mary Stevens, CMIO
Although individual practitioners and healthcare systems are
adopting new IT approaches at almost every level of care, National
Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal, MD, is calling for more
innovation. The U.S. health system must take full advantage of the
computing technology that has transformed virtually every other
aspect of modern life, wrote Blumenthal in a recent commentary in
the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Forecast 2010
Health Management Technology
Consulting services for the healthcare industry are in the midst of
tremendous change. While cost and quality issues continue to drive
the need for transformation across the industry, advances in
technology and government stimulus will accelerate the rate at
which it is implemented. In particular, three trends will shape the
future of services.
First, technology advances are providing a foundation for
capturing, sharing and analyzing information.
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KLAS: Hosting Healthcare Apps Creates Benefits, Requires
Compromise
CMIO
Healthcare providers are finding greater success and satisfaction
for application hosting working with software vendors but are able
to host a wider selection of applications by partnering with
services firms, according to a report from KLAS, a healthcare
market research firm.
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HealthGrades: Top Hospitals Have 29% Lower Mortality,
Improving Faster
CMIO
Hospitals rated in the top 5 percent in the U.S. have a 29 percent
lower risk-adjusted mortality rate and are improving their clinical
quality at a faster pace than other hospitals, according to a study
issued Jan. 26 by HealthGrades, a healthcare ratings
organization.
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Health IT Panel: Use Technology Now to Help Transform
Healthcare
Carrie Vaughan, HealthLeaders Media
Healthcare transformation is long overdue-especially as it relates
to technology, according to a panel of technology executives who
spoke at a Nashville Health Care Council luncheon last week about
the future and current state of healthcare information
technology.
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What Technologies Are Likely To Get Attention and Budget
Approval in Hospitals
iHealthBeat
Thirty-one percent of survey respondents predicted that patient
flow and logistics technology would receive attention and hospital
budget approval in 2010.
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CEOs' View of Marketing: Cloudy with a Chance of
Opportunity
Marianne Aiello, HealthLeaders Media
CEOs need your help-they just don't know it yet. The results of the
HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey 2010 show a disconnect between
marketing-related initiatives hospital leaders plan to take on in
coming years and their esteem (or lack thereof) for the marketing
department. Lucky for you, the first step to solving a problem is
learning about it. We've got you covered there.
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Healthcare CEOs Focusing on the Now
Philip Betbeze, HealthLeaders Media
Here's a statement that should get your attention: CEOs are less
concerned about quality and patient safety this year than last
year. Actually, that broad conclusion is tough to draw from the
data contained in the HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey 2010,
which went live on our site yesterday. But what's clear is that
long-term goals are dropping in importance in favor of initiatives
that can bring near-immediate returns.
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Hospital C-suite Favors Hospitalist Growth, Says
Survey
Karen M. Cheung, Health Leaders Media
Hospital leaders in the C-suite support hospitalist program growth,
according to a recent study, "California hospital leaders' views of
hospitalists: Meeting needs of the present and future," which was
published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
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