The State of the CEO
When an industry shifts, so do the skill sets of the people
leading the pieces. Hospital CEOs have seen their roles shift away
from operations to more external and strategic roles in recent
years, says Thomas C. Dolan, Ph.D., president and CEO of the
American College of Healthcare Executives. "CEOs were primarily
business managers," Dolan says. "Not that they didn't care about
patient care or were not involved in it, but their primary
responsibility was the business side of the hospital. Today, they
go from being managers to leaders in many respects."
Jim Molpus, HealthLeaders News
Steve Case Launches His Health Revolution
Steve Case launched Revolution Health's Web site, a founder with
a history and deep pockets and recognizable partners - Colin Powell
and Carly Fiorina. "While Revolution Health will be a journey over
many years to come, we are excited today to launch a site that is
the cornerstone of our efforts to revolutionize healthcare," Case
said in a statement today. "There is a lot of great health
information and tools on the Internet, but nobody has assembled
them in a way that is compelling and useful for consumers who want
to take more control of their family's health."
Bernie Monegain, Healthcare IT News
ACP Supports New Bill to Promote Adoption of Health
Information Technology
"The American College of Physicians (ACP) is greatly encouraged
by the introduction of the 'National Health Information Incentive
Act of 2007'," ACP President Lynne M. Kirk, MD, FACP said.
"Increased use of health information technology (HIT) could greatly
benefit health care in the U.S. through improved patient care,
reduction in medical errors, higher efficiency, and potential long
run cost savings." The bill, introduced by Representatives Charles
Gonzalez (D-TX) and Phil Gingrey (R-GA), is designed to facilitate
the development and adoption of national standards, and to provide
initial financial support and ongoing reimbursement incentives for
physicians in smaller practices to adopt HIT to support quality
improvement activities. The legislation is based in large part on
ideas originally developed by ACP.
Medical News Today
Survey: IT a Means to Safer Patient Care
Reducing medical errors is the top reason for implementing
information technology at healthcare delivery systems across the
country, according to the 18th annual HIMSS Leadership survey. The
top barrier to deployment of IT, the survey finds, continues to be
the cost. Respondents also identified patient care and satisfaction
as the top business issues in healthcare today and over the next
few years.
Bernie Monegain, Healthcare IT News
ROI for health IT Takes Time and Comes with
Caveats
It takes a long time for health care organizations to see a
return from IT investments, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers
report, which may explain why the industry has long been seen as a
laggard in technology spending. Based on an analysis of performance
data from nearly 2,000 U.S. hospitals, the report concluded that IT
investment must reach a tipping point before it can lead to cost
reduction. Until reaching that point, hospitals experience
operating costs with little near-term financial benefit, the report
noted.
ComputerWorld
Patient Safety Still Top Reason for IT Adoption, HIMSS
Survey Finds
Promoting patient safety continues to be the top reason for
implementing information technology, while a lack of financial and
staffing resources continues to be the most significant barrier to
implementation, according to the 18th annual Healthcare Information
and Management Systems Society leadership survey. Among the 360
healthcare IT leaders surveyed, 18% reported experiencing a
security breach within the past six months, and internal breaches
of security were named as the top data security concern by 57% of
the respondents. In response to security concerns, 70% were most
likely to implement disaster-recovery technologies; 69% would use
firewalls; 68% would use user access controls; and 64% mentioned
both the use of audit logs and single sign-ons as likely security
measures.
Modern Healthcare
Making the Marriage Work
One of the most prominent hospital-vendor development efforts
belongs to Intermountain Health Care, a Salt Lake City-based
hospital system, and GE Healthcare, a multi-national conglomerate
known for its imaging technology. Beginning in 2006, the two began
a seven-year development project, splitting roughly $200 million in
cost, to build an integrated inpatient, outpatient and emergency
department clinical information systems package. The new system
will replace Intermountain's homegrown legacy system, says Kevin
Smith, associate vice president of information systems and general
manager for the GE alliance. "We needed a partner to help us build
it," he says. "Someone with deep pockets and clinical-systems
expertise."
Health Leaders
Wal-Mart to Apply its IT Expertise to
Healthcare
Retail giant Wal-Mart not only plans to invest in healthcare IT,
but also intends to apply some of what it has learned in the retail
marketplace to help lower healthcare costs for its employees - and
the nation, a top Wal-Mart executive said recently.
Diana Manos, Healthcare IT News
CMTC Presents Lean Healthcare Workshops in
May
CMTC, southern California's leading Lean practice organization,
has teamed with the premier provider of Lean to the healthcare
industry, Lean Healthcare West, to offer Lean Healthcare
California(TM). Lean Healthcare California(TM) will allow
hospitals, clinics and physician offices to look at their work
differently -- identifying potential savings of time, resources and
eliminating errors. CMTC has partnered with Lean Healthcare West to
exclusively provide Lean programs designed for medical
environments.
Sys-con Media
National Health IT Week 2007
(May 14 - 18, 2007) NHIT is a broad-based, collaborative effort
to accelerate national health information technology adoption.
Organizations with diverse perspectives on healthcare gather in
Washington, DC, to work together under one banner with the goal of
improving healthcare efficiency, quality, cost-effectiveness and
patient safety through health IT. National Health IT Week 2007 will
coincide with several partner events, including HIMSS Advocacy Day
'07 - an event that promises to exceed 2006 attendance levels of
250 high-level federal, state, provider, vendor, pharma and payer
leaders from 48 states and 25 associations who assembled to bring
the health IT message to Capitol Hill.
Register at: http://www.himss.org/advocacy/activities_advocacyday.asp
Vision Center Allows Visitors to Experience Patient Flow
Logistics and Tracking up Close
When you first enter StatCom's vision center, you can't help but
be struck by its coolness factor. You're entering the hospital of
the future, but a future which is within your grasp now. Equipped
with everything from family waiting area displays, nursing unit
area, bed management hub, ED facility, and an OR suite, this
innovative facility was created to showcase the StatCom solution,
the first enterprise solution of its kind which can manage patient
flow logistics and tracking from admissions to discharge. In this
state of the art facility potential customers can get a realistic
feel for how the solution works. The facility is also used for
customer users and StatCom staff training and testing, as well as a
research laboratory.
StatCom