September

EMR Pushback

Only a small percentage of physician practices have deployed EMR technology, according to a variety of surveys; a recent Accenture study put the figure at 11 percent. Other surveys suggest that EMRs are more common in larger medical groups with multiple sites-a setting that Landes acknowledges makes sense for clinical IT. But given the fact that the vast majority of medical physician groups are small, the low adoption rate is like a bucket of cold water in the face of the growing number of clinical IT proponents. Their contention that EMR will enhance patient safety, improve clinical outcomes and trim unnecessary expenses has fallen on largely deaf physician ears.

Gary Baldwin, Health Leaders Magazine

U.S. Lags in Health IT Adoption, National Coordinator Says

During a speech at a North Carolina IT conference, Robert Kolodner, National Coordinator for Health IT, said statistics indicate that the U.S. is a long way from having IT is the norm in health care facilities. According to Kolodner, only 11% of hospitals have fully implemented EHRs. He also stressed the importance of state-level initiatives in expanding health IT. "Approximately sixty-eight percent of hospitals have some kind of automation, but only eleven percent have fully-implemented EHRs," Kolodner said.

Richard Pizzi, HealthcareITNews

Brailer Insists RHIOs Remain Important

The recent failure of several high-profile regional health information organizations (RHIOs) is not dampening the enthusiasm of the one-time champion of the RHIO, former national health-IT coordinator David Brailer. "I think RHIOs are shaking out. No surprise," Brailer said in an interview last week. "I think there's a shakeout happening in health-IT quite broadly."

Neil Versel, Digital Healthcare & Productivity.com

Report: Health IT Could Boost Competitiveness of Hospitals

The report by the Healthcare Financial Management Association found that adopting IT could affect hospitals' competitiveness in the long term. However, the report also found that of the financial benefits of the technology, such as lower readmission rates, are going to patients rather than hospitals.

ihealthbeat

Managed Care Plans Increase Use of Clinical IT Tools, Survey Finds

Managed care organizations spend most of their clinical technology budgets on utilization management, case management and evidence-based guidelines, according to a survey, Health Data Management reports. The annual study, called "MCO Clinical Technology Expenditures 2007," was conducted by market research and strategy consulting firm Gantry Group. The survey found that responders are beginning to pay more attention to business intelligence and care management applications.

Health Data Management

The Evolving CMIO

As hospitals increasingly use technology to increase health care quality, organization leaders have a growing need for a liaison between clinical practice and information technology. The chief medical information officer role has emerged to bridge this gap, and the position is shaped by a variety of factors, including professional background, reporting relationships and the decision to continue to practice medicine. In general the CMIO is responsible for overseeing the implementation of electronic patient record systems, focusing on quality, safety, usability and process improvement issues, and ensuring physicians and other hospital staff are fully engaged in these processes.

Sarah B. Brown, HHNMostwired.com

The Science of Spread: How Innovations in Care Become the Norm

This report explains why the spread of improvements in health care organizations is distinctly different from the diffusion of innovative ideas in other areas of life. It summarizes some of the thinking within the emerging science of "spread" and provides case studies of health care organizations that have achieved some degree of success in the broad diffusion of institutional change. The author concludes that while the concept that improvement will spread by itself once a tipping point has been reached is often not true for health care organizations, such real-world examples and a growing body of scientific literature provide both a cause for optimism and some useful lessons.

Thomas Bodenheimer, M.D., California Healthcare Foundation

AT&T Unveils New Radio-Frequency Tracking System for Hospitals

AT&T has developed products and services designed specifically to help healthcare providers increase productivity, improve patient care and reduce overall health costs. San Antonio-based AT&T is offering health companies a radio-frequency identification system that will allow them to track equipment, devices and patients. Company officials say with the introduction of the system, AT&T has become the first network service provider to offer RFID for healthcare organizations. Through this system, hospital staff members can track via a Web browser the locations of products, such as blood pressure monitoring devices, EKG machines, gurneys, infusion pumps, crash carts, wheelchairs, computers and laptops.

San Antonio Business Journal

Nurses Cast Wary Eye on High-Tech Advances

Steadily, hospitals around the country are moving toward technology-heavy systems for managing patient care. Yet as this use of technology grows, nurses say they have been overwhelmed with documentation, much of it requiring them to sit in front of a computer screen, says the Baltimore Sun. The article details the downside of clinical documentation systems, namely pulling caregivers away from patients.

Sindya N. Bhanoo, Baltimore Sun

True Asset Utilization

Everyone is talking about using RFID technology to solve healthcare's overwhelming asset utilization problem. I visit and talk to hospital administrators almost every day and they universally tell me they want to solve this problem. There is a lot of capital and operating expense consumed here, as well as a lot of inefficiency. No wonder they are so enamored with asset tracking technologies that promise to make this problem disappear by adding a small tag to all the assets. I'm afraid, however, that they may end up disappointed if they only implement an RFID-based asset tracking system.

Peter Seiff, for HealthLeaders News

Baylor Medical Center Uses Wireless for IM, Presence Technology

Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas is using instant messaging and presence technologies over wireless networks to shrink its 120-acre campus. The wireless system means that technicians can be on any floor of a hospital building to receive an X-ray order, without wasting time return to the radiology department after each procedure, said Don Allen, Baylor's director of radiology, in a statement. The system should increase productivity and the availability of information for a physician making a diagnosis, resulting in better patient care, Allen said. Baylor expects to extend the technology to other departments as well.

Matt Hamblen, ComputerWorld

ER Kiosks Let Patients Avoid Long Lines

Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas has installed self-service computer kiosks that are similar in functionality to those used in airports and hotels. The kiosks allow patients to check in quickly and privately while allowing major emergencies immediate access to care.

Jamie Stengle, AP

Pa. Report Says State is Leading in Health IT Use

A survey by the American Hospital Association confirmed what most healthcare executives already knew -- adopting health information technology is expensive -- in many cases too costly for some hospitals. However, the same survey showed Pennsylvania hospitals are outpacing their counterparts across the country in many health IT categories. The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania used the 2006 AHA survey measuring health IT use and barriers to entry to create its report, Improving Patient Care: Pennsylvania Hospitals' Use of Information Technology, showing its hospitals are in the lead.

Jean DerGurahian, Modern Healthcare

Leapfrog Names Top Hospitals for Quality, Safety

Leapfrog Group has named 41 hospitals to its 2007 list of top quality and safety performers, while calling for even greater strides in implementing quality and safety practices. Those hospitals-33 adult facilities and eight children's hospitals-have fully met Leapfrog's standards in intensive-care physician staffing, safe-practices scoring, and in either two or more of the eight evidence-based hospital referral areas or in computerized physician order entry plus one of the eight referral areas. The results are based on 1,285 hospitals that responded by Aug. 31 to the group's annual quality and safety survey.

The Leapfrog Group

Microsoft unveils user interface for health apps

Microsoft extended itself a bit further into the healthcare IT marketplace with the release of a new set tools designed to help developers create user interfaces for healthcare apps. The toolkit, the Microsoft Health Common User Interface (CUI), was developed in cooperation with the U.K.-based national Health Service, and is available for no cost (downloadable at http://www.mscui.net). The tool, which is focused on helping developers offer interfaces to EMR apps, includes a set of .NET 2.0 controls designed for use in ASP.NET AJAX applications and WinForms.NET. The toolkit can use industry standards such as SNOMED CT, and is designed to be flexible enough for developers to use in varied environments.

John Moore, Government Health IT

In Shift, Auto Workers Flee to Health-Care Jobs

(On an interesting side note - will they applied the efficiencies they learned on the line to healthcare?) As auto manufacturers attack increased costs by cutting down on excess workers, the buyouts they have offered has let tens of thousands of employees launch new careers. Among former auto workers, the most popular choice has been healthcare because the jobs pay well and are less vulnerable to being outsourced.

Wallstreet Journal online

City Emergency Rooms Crowded, but No Worse

The city's 11 hospital emergency rooms continue to be crowded, often too full to accept patients, keeping ambulance crews off the streets where they are needed as they wait for beds to open up. But data released yesterday show that the major logjams of a year ago have not gotten worse -- and in some cases have improved slightly. Crowded emergency rooms are a problem nationwide, experts say. The number of hospital beds in the United States declined by about 200,000 from 1993 to 2003, Bass said, even as the population was aging.

Stephanie Desmon, Baltimore Sun