See StatCom at AONE
Visit us at booth #1811 in Washington D.C. April 12-16
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more...
Ensure that health IT public policy issues
continue to take center stage
HIMSS Advocacy Day/Health IT Day on Capitol Hill, May 15,
Washington D.C.
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Competition Forces Hospitals to
Upgrade
Faced with an increasingly competitive marketplace in which
patients shop for hospitals based on amenities and customer
service, even major teaching hospitals are being forced out of
their ivory towers and onto turf normally reserved for the retail
and entertainment industries. Although some consumer groups fear
the building frenzy will result in fewer services for the poor and
higher costs for all patients, hospitals say the industry is
overdue for a makeover. New technology and better environments will
help patients heal faster.
Janet Kidd Stewart,
Chicago Tribune
Waco's Providence Health Center Goes Live with
Prospective Patient Flow Manager from
Radianse
Patient flow bottlenecks, overcrowding and diversions are common
in hospitals, jeopardizing patient care, staff satisfaction and,
ultimately, hospital revenue. The award-winning Providence Health
Center in Waco, Texas, now has the answer: a ground-breaking
patient flow visualization solution from Radianse, Inc., now
implemented hospital-wide.
RFID Solutions Online
Physician Groups Say IT Is Critical to New Care
Model
Information technology should play a central role in the
coordination and integration of patient care across all elements of
the healthcare system, according to a statement released by four
major physician membership organizations. Of the four principles
underlying the patient-centered medical home (PC-MH) model, one
dealt specifically with healthcare IT. The fourth principle stated
that patient care should be facilitated by registries, healthcare
IT, and health information exchange to assure that patients get the
indicated care when and where they need and want it.
Richard Pizzi ,
Healthcare IT News
Health Care's IT
Revolution
In
the past, physicians have bought administrative IT for their
offices, but have resisted EHR because of time constraints, cost,
confusion, and lack of standards to enable different systems to
communicate with each other. Hospitals have acted slightly faster,
but they are still far behind other industries in installing
state-of-the-art IT networking programs, such as digital medical
records. To drive adoption, the Bush Administration is pushing
government-funded health-care programs (Medicare, Medicaid, the
Veterans Administration, the Federal Employees Health Benefits
Program) to initiate EHR demonstration projects, and has organized
public-private collaborations to set industry-wide standards for
interconnectivity and quality. The federal government is also
funding state-run experimental programs that use innovative EHR
applications.
Wendy
Diller,
Business Week
Group Practice Leaders Looking to Spend:
Survey
Group practice leaders responding to the 17th annual Modern
Healthcare/Modern Physician Survey of Executive
Opinions on Key Information Technology Issues are looking to spend
more on healthcare IT in the near term than they are currently
spending, but how much more is widely variable. With all the
emphasis by the government and business interests on clinical IT
systems, they were not the top "hot button" priority this year,
according to our readers. Asked to prioritize their IT needs and
make their top three choices from a list of 16 alternatives, 41% of
respondents picked practice-management solutions, well ahead of
ambulatory clinical solutions and clinical communication
infrastructure/communication systems that were each chosen by 31%
of the survey respondents.
Modern Healthcare
Open Wide: Kodak Looks to Patent Edible
RFID
Kodak quietly filed an application with the U.S. Patent &
Trademark office for a patent on an RFID tag that can be safely
ingested. The tag, according to the description in the application,
can be used to monitor internal "bodily events" in a patient,
eliminating in some cases the need for surgery, x-rays or access to
a medical facility. "It would be appealing to probe the living body
without the effort, expense, inconvenience and risk of injury or
infection involved with the above methods," according to the
application.
ComputerWorld
Baton Rouge Hospital Begins $15M Rollout
Baton
Rouge General Medical Center has launched a $15 million IT upgrade
that includes the implementation of clinical systems and the
automation of its pharmacy. "Because we're a community hospital, we
are aggressively creating an environment that enables physicians to
work more collaboratively to the ultimate benefit of our patients
and the community we serve," said Bill Holman, president and chief
executive officer, General Health System. "By providing physicians
with access to a connected clinical solution, we are making it much
easier to make more informed decisions that can lead to safer,
faster and more effective treatment decisions."
Bernie
Monegain, Healthcare
IT News
System Allows Instant Tracking of Hospital
Capacity
Emergency workers can instantly track patient capacity in Rhode
Island hospitals under a new program that's been in the works since
rescue workers scrambled to find places for people injured during
The Station nightclub fire. The Web-based program enables emergency
responders and medical staff to check the number of beds in
hospitals and tell officials if they need to send patients
elsewhere.
Boston.com
Comparison Shop Hospitals with a Click
Now you can
comparison shop for hospital care online the way you might for a
car or a washing machine. As part of a national movement to provide
health-care consumers with more information, the Georgia Hospital
Association is launching a Website that allows patients to check
out the cost and quality of common medical procedures at the
state's 141 acute care hospitals. In fact, the site, www.gahospitalpricecheck.com, is chock-full of
so many facts and figures it can be hard to navigate. "It's a gold
mine of material," said Bill Vaughan, a health care analyst for
Consumers Union, the not-for-profit organization that publishes
Consumer Reports magazine, "but mining is difficult work."
Gayle White,
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Deals, Deployments, and Other Brief Health IT
News
Industry activity round up
John Russell, Digital Healthcare &
productivity.com
HIMSS 2007 Round-up
StatCom feature
Like other folks on that last day of the conference who were
afraid of flight delays because of the weather, our team drove back
to Atlanta from New Orleans. The drive gave us an opportunity to
reflect on the show, as well as to see from our window first hand
the miles of gutted, devastated neighborhoods outside of New
Orleans.
First, let's give credit and thanks to the folks in New Orleans.
From the people who built our booth and handled AV, to the food
vendors, hotels and restaurants, and even the cab drivers, they all
had the absolute best attitude. They went out of their way to make
sure we had what we needed, and expressed sincere appreciation for
our business.
This was a special HIMSS for us as we officially launched
StatCom's enterprise product for patient flow logistics and
tracking. It was definitely the best HIMSS ever for us. Despite
reduced traffic at the show in general, we had a steady stream of
interested visitors and media.
We had an excellent response to our product demos. Running
StatCom's unique patient tracking interface on a 42" plasma screen
with four surrounding smaller screens showing our real-time
dashboards literally stopped people in their tracks. For us it was
extremely gratifying and validated that people are looking for
something that's more than a bed board to solve their patient flow
challenges.
More on HIMSS 2007:
"....We felt it was the best HIMSS ever."
Roberto Ruggeri,
The Healthcare IT Blog
John Russell,
Given the variety and apparent robustness and sheer number of
health-IT products being displayed at HIMSS last week, it's hard to
believe the healthcare industry isn't further along the adoption
curve. Here are snapshots from a few conversations with vendors on
the HIMSS floor.
Digital Healthcare & productivity.com
Ignacio H. Valdes, MD, MS,
So this was my first HIMSS conference. The major difference from
the more academic-oriented AMIA is that HIMSS is a vendor shin dig
with booth babes, unbelievably gaudy and enormous vendor booths,
the smell of big money and major speakers like Steve Ballmer, Colin
Powell, Michael Leavitt and Steven Covey. The good news is that
there is a Free and Open Source presence! The VistA Software Alliance,
Medsphere had booths as
well as the Tolven
group giving an amazing presentation.
LinuxMedNews
Matthew Holt,
I thought Gen. Colin Powell's speech at HIMSS was fantastic,
funny, moving, intelligent, wonderful and hopeful. Lots of other
people were cheerleading him too. However, what else I thought you
can see over at Modern Healthcare.
The Healthcare Blog
Information technology takes us back to the
future
The oft-hyped "always connected" ubiquitous network concept is
now closer to reality. "It's definitely an evolution rather than a
revolution - but convergence is happening," said Ellen Daley, an
analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. In a trend
Forrester has coined the "Extended Internet," both enterprise and
consumers will soon be tracking and managing physical items using a
combination of RFID technology, sensors, Wi-Fi and the
Internet.
Canadian Technology News, Dec 06