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