Stimulus Act Keeps Attendance High at 2009 HIMSS
Conference
Joseph Conn, Modern Healthcare
HIMSS President and Chair Stephen Lieber attributed the high
turnout at the group's annual conference to the federal
stimulus package. During the conference's final day, former Federal
Reserve Board Chair Alan Greenspan delivered a keynote address and
lawyers offered advice on preparing for stimulus package incentive
payments. Despite the worst economic downturn since the Great
Depression, the HIMSS show, according to unaudited figures, drew
about 27,500 attendees, down about 5% from the record 29,100 the
show drew to sunny Orlando, Fla., last year, which was well before
the nation's economic storm broke this fall. The numbers were well
ahead of the 24,700 or so who attended the 2007 show in New
Orleans.
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090409/REG/304099965
HIMSS Talk Dominated by Meaningful
User
Jim Molpus, Health Leaders Media
It seemed there were as many different definitions of what a
"meaningful user" of an EHR was at HIMSS as there were exhibitor
booths. Lacking any concrete guidance from the federal government,
speakers and vendor at HIMSS were left with some educated guesswork
about what the government really intends to define as a "meaningful
user" to qualify for ARRA funds. There doesn't seem to be much
doubt that CCHIT will be named the certification body for lack of
any other choice, but there is a much wider field of doubt about
whether the government view of a meaningful user will be
restrictive and more complex, or more inclusive and less complex.
http://blogs.healthleadersmedia.com/leadtime/2009/04/himss-talk-dominated-by-meaningful-user/
IT Investments for Naught Unless They Cut Healthcare
Costs, Says Greenspan
Healthcare IT News
During a keynote address at the HIMSS conference on Wednesday,
former Federal Reserve Board Chair Alan Greenspan said a massive
investment in health IT will be meaningless if the technology does
not curb the federal government's unsustainable health care
spending. He said, "If you cannot solve the overall funding
problem, the (global) competitive issue will be quite secondary."
Greenspan said it is a mistake in any reform debate to discuss
entitlement programs as a single entity because Medicare is not a
defined-benefit program like Social Security. The latter can be
fixed much more easily with extra money, while Medicare is much
more of a moving target because it's impossible to predict how
medicine will advance. Only a sharp boost in healthcare efficiency
can keep these factors in check, he said.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/it-investments-naught-unless-they-cut-healthcare-costs-says-greenspan
Optimizing Patient Flow to Protect Against the
RAC
Janelle Randazza, HCPro
Waits, delays, and cancellations are so common in healthcare that
patients and providers have come to expect waiting as part of the
care process. But poor patient flow can have seriously adverse
effects on patient outcomes and your facility's bottom line-and can
even increase your susceptibility to RAC audits. According to
Kelly Cooke, MSN, RN, the director of clinical
resource management, social work, and documentation improvement at
the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, part of maintaining
optimal patient flow is placing patients in appropriate level of
care and creating a system that guard against readmissions.
http://blogs.hcpro.com/casemanagement/2009/04/optimizing-patient-flow-to-protect-against-the-rac/
Let the IT Spending Begin
Annual IT Survey Shows Support For Stimulus, Trend Toward Spending
Uptick
Joseph Conn, Modern Healthcare
The federal government is poised to pour, by Congressional Budget
Office estimates, as much as $38.3 billion into healthcare
information technology support through 2015 under the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The following trends, based
on data from the 19th annual Modern Healthcare/Modern
Physician Survey of Executive Opinions on Key Information
Technology Issues, reflect the impact the legislation might have on
the industry. According to our survey results, an overwhelming
majority of respondents aligned more with recent congressional
intent and favored the government changing the game plan by
providing direct financial support for a federal IT development
program.
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090406/REG/904039990
E-Health Software on a Budget
Rachael King, Business Week
David Whiles faced sticker shock when he decided to install
electronic health records at Midland Memorial Hospital in 2003. He
had been toying with the idea of installing digital medical records
at the 320-bed hospital in Midland, Texas, for more than 5 years.
Vendors told Whiles it would cost about $18 to $20 million to
install a system. "That's far beyond what we could afford," says
Whiles, Midland Memorial's director of information systems. Many
hospital IT executives are now grappling with the same problem, as
the Obama Administration is pushing doctors and hospitals to
provide electronic health records for every American by 2014.
Today, less than 2% of acute care hospitals have a comprehensive
electronic health record system in place. Today, Midland Memorial
is one of the few hospitals in the private sector that is nearly
paperless.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/technology_at_work/archives/2009/04/e-health_softwa.html?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
Eight Tips for Managing Healthcare Information Systems
Securely and Cost-Effectively
TerryAnn Fitzgerald, TMCnet.com
For the past few years, healthcare organizations have struggled to
make healthcare more affordable and efficient by making information
more accessible to nurses, doctors and patients; enabling
real-time, remote diagnoses; and improving billing systems.
Traditionally, that has meant quickly constructing islands of
ad-hoc wired and wireless voice, video and data networks on-site
and at remote locations. As a first step to solving this problem,
CIOs and their teams have consolidated infrastructure and staffing
into data centers, serving up applications, storage and expertise
to remote and branch sites from centralized resource pools. While
these are excellent first steps, healthcare organizations must also
consider the benefits of leveraging centralized management to
automate deployment, providing configuration and oversight of the
data center and remote operations. Here are eight tips
organizations can use as they begin to deploy centralized
network management projects.
http://healthcare.tmcnet.com/topics/healthcare/articles/53824-eight-tips-managing-healthcare-information-systems-securely-cost.htm
Reminding us why the system must be improved
There's a human in that bed --
Will $20 billion Solve This Problem?
Frank Poggio, The Kelzon Group, on HIStalk
There was a poignant opinion editorial in the Chicago Tribune this
Sunday that got my attention, written by Candy Schulman, entitled
"There is a human in that bed". It caught my eye and got my empathy
because I lived that same experience about a year ago. There were
however, two major differences. First it happened in a different
hospital in a different state. Second, since I have worked in the
hospital world as an administrator, systems supplier, and
consultant for thirty-five years, I had a better understanding of
the issues and therefore was able to force a faster resolution. As
I read Candy Shulman's article I kept asking myself, as I did a
year ago, what is really wrong with this 'system' and what can be
done about it?
http://histalk2.com/2009/04/01/readers-write-4109/
Candy Schulman, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-oped0329humanmar29,0,552996.story
For an April Friday - from the totally absurd
30 Insane Inventions to Win Patents
Businessweek
You know how it goes: It's a beautiful day, and you've got a pet
gerbil too cute to keep under wraps. What you need is a gerbil
shirt. Its transparent tunnels allow you to show off your furry
friend -- hands-free! -- while enjoying a stroll in the park. Or
maybe you need the "half wit" -- a demi-helmet to wear when only
part of your head is worth protecting. Hospital gown to cover your
privates (don't hospital gowns have ties), and a watch which counts
down to your death.
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/04/0408_ridiculous_patents/index.htm
Health CIOs Push for Increased Role in Delivering
Quality Care
Health Data Management
A panel of chief medical information officers and health CIOs who
attended this year's HIMSS conference said they want to shift their
efforts from deploying IT solutions to enhancing the delivery and
quality of care. These leaders need to collaborate and support each
other to achieve such a goal, said Patricia Skarulis, CIO and vice
president at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. David
Artz, the New York-based facility's CMIO, works with the IT unit to
ensure that the organization is "going in the right direction."
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/HIMSS_Conference-28030-1.html
Executives Discuss Stage 7 EMR Deployment
Healthcare IT News
Officials from health care organizations talked about the process
and advantages of a stage 7 deployment for electronic medical
records at this year's HIMSS conference. Only .01% of U.S.
hospitals have attained such a level of implementation, which
involves a paperless system and interoperable functions for
clinical data and decision support. Kaiser Permanente executives
said funding and planning for the initiative should last five to 10
years.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/few-us-hospitals-have-achieved-stage-7-ehr-implementation
3 Ways to Lead Like Leno
John Baldoni, Harvard Business Publishing
Leadership Blog
Good leaders, like good comedians, "look at life from a different
perspective," writes John Baldoni. He thinks leaders in difficult
times should follow the example Jay Leno set during a visit to
hard-hit Detroit: Point out absurdity, lampoon hypocrisy and cut
the high and mighty down a notch.
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/baldoni/2009/04/what_you_can_learn_about_leade.html