Cost, Lack of Protocols Could Delay Health IT Adoption
Anita Huslin, The Washington Post
A provision in the economic-stimulus bill that allots about $20
billion for health IT could advance efforts to implement the
widespread use of electronic medical records and bolster technology
companies, but challenges remain. High implementation costs for
providers and the lack of universal standards for data collection
and sharing could delay progress.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/15/AR2009021501284.html
Electronic Medical Records Might Benefit IT Firms
Dallas Morning News
There has been a lot of talk about how this huge infusion of
federal cash will benefit healthcare providers and patients, but
there is another side of the healthcare business that stands to
gain: the vendor. This story from the Dallas Morning News examines
benefits and the challenges vendors will face as they attempt to
get the multitude of hospitals and doctors' offices and pharmacies
and state agencies and private insurers to coordinate with each
other and adopt systems that can share that data.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-medicalrecords_15bus.ART0.State.Edition1.4c3f33a.html
Medical Center Cuts ER Wait Times in Half
Heather Duncan, macon.com
Emergency room waits at The Medical Center of Central Georgia
have been slashed almost in half since the hospital spent six
months overhauling its ER treatment system last year, doctors and
hospital officials say. The result is the hospital has not had to
refuse emergency patient transfers from other hospitals since
October, patient satisfaction ratings have improved and the
hospital has increased its revenue because it is able to see more
patients. The hospital hired the Wisconsin-based Compirion
consulting firm to help hospital workers create a strategy for
improving patient flow through the emergency room. The consultants
worked with doctors and other staff members from June through this
past December, and they will continue to evaluate emergency room
data weekly for two years.
http://www.macon.com/198/story/613908.html
At Wal-Mart, a Health-Care Turnaround
Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post
Washington policymakers contemplating a fundamental overhaul of
the nation's troubled health-care system may want to study the saga
of Wal-Mart. Once vilified for its stingy health benefits, the
world's largest company has become an unlikely leader in the effort
to provide affordable care without bankrupting employers, their
workers or taxpayers in the process. From its headquarters in
Bentonville, Ark., the retailer is doing in the real world what
many in Washington are only beginning to talk about. At a time when
other firms are scaling back or eliminating health coverage,
Wal-Mart has made a serious dent in the problem of the
uninsured.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR2009021204096.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Bay Pines Expands Emergency Services
Bob McClure, Seminole Beacon
A trip to the emergency room at Bay Pines VA Healthcare should
be a lot more efficient and beneficial to veterans. The hospital
opened the second and final phase of renovations to its emergency
department in January. This phase doubles the size of the facility
to 15,000 square feet and expands the number of beds from 10 to 20.
An electronic bed board at a nurse's station allows the hospital's
"bed czar" to calculate more accurately the number of beds that
will be required for admitted patients. "The most exciting thing
about this is our ability to offer state-of-the-art treatment to
our patients," said Diehl. "I would say we have caught and
surpassed most emergency rooms in the region and country."
http://www.tbnweekly.com/content_articles/012709_smb-01.txt
Freenomics and Healthcare IT
Robert Rowley, The Health Care Blog
Electronic medical record (EMR) adoption has remained
frustratingly low, despite numerous studies showing improvement in
health care delivery resulting from EMR use, measured in many
different ways (quality, consistency, cost, etc). The Obama
administration has proposed widespread, even universal, EMR
implementation over the next five years, though how to accomplish
it remains to be seen. The Medicare reimbursement "bump" given to
physicians this year to use electronic prescribing is a step in
this direction, trying to create incentives. The biggest barrier to
EMR adoption has been cost.
http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2009/02/freenomics-and-healthcare-it.html
The $1 Trillion Lean Health Care Opportunity
Evolving Excellence blog
Pretty stunning figure, eh? Also pretty easy to achieve, if we
just think very slightly out of the box and make a commitment. Most
people continue to think that budgeting, service return, and the
like is a zero sum game. To get more services you must pump in more
money, or to save money you must cut services. Lean concepts
disprove that erroneous concept every day. But $1 trillion? In
2008, U.S. healthcare costs exceeded $2.4 trillion and are expected
to climb to $3.1 trillion by 2012, according to The National
Coalition on Health Care. As a health-care quality consultant, I
know that 25-40 percent of these costs are caused by delay, defects
and deviation. That's $600 billion to almost $1 trillion dollars a
year in unnecessary costs. And that's just the cost to the
health-care industry; it doesn't include the cost to society, which
is perhaps 10 times higher.
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2009/01/the-1-trillion-lean-health-care-opportunity.html
Emergency Room Doctors Sue State of California
Kimi Yoshino, LA Times
The class-action suit alleges that the system -- which received
a failing grade in access to care -- is on the edge of a breakdown
unless more funds are obtained. Frustrated emergency room doctors
filed a class-action lawsuit against the state Tuesday, saying that
California's overstretched emergency healthcare system -- which
ranks last in the country for emergency care access -- is on the
verge of collapse unless more funding is provided. Across the
state, scores of hospitals and emergency rooms have shut their
doors in the last decade, leading to long waits, diverted
ambulances and, in the most extreme cases, patient deaths.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-erdoctors28-2009jan28,0,7632115.story
Instant Information: The Real Appeal of Social Networking
Kathryn Mackenzie, HealthLeaders IT
For people who have followed the evolution of social networking
sites, Henry Ford Health System's use of Twitter to provide
real-time surgical updates from the operating room has made Health
2.0 history. General curiosity aside, one reason the Henry Ford
Twitter surgeries have garnered so much attention is the
educational possibilities they bring to light for medical students,
providers, and the public.
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/228371/topic/WS_HLM2_TEC/Instant-Information-The-Real-Appeal-of-Social-Networking.html
HIMSS Adds Stimulus Sessions
Health Data Management
The 2009 HIMSS Conference, to be held April 4-8 in Chicago, has
added 10 educational sessions on subjects related to the economic
stimulus package that President Obama signed into law Feb. 17. The
added sessions cover a broad range of topics. For example, a 2:15
p.m. session April 6 will address how to optimize opportunities for
physician practices. Another session at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday, April 7,
will discuss how the stimulus could support achieving health
information interoperability.
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/HIMSS27741-1.html?ET=healthdatamanagement:e774:117429a:&st=email&channel=policies_regulation
Cleveland Clinic and CVS Unit Will Collaborate, Integrate EMR
Systems
Bernie Monegain, Healthcare IT News
Cleveland Clinic and MinuteClinic, a unit of CVS Caremark, have
entered a partnership that calls for the full integration of their
electronic health-record systems to boost patient care. Under the
deal, Cleveland Clinic will provide services at some locations
inside certain CVS drugstores in northeast Ohio that cater to
individuals with acute minor ailments, giving them direct access to
one of the leading hospitals in the U.S., officials said.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/cleveland-clinic-partners-minuteclinic-links-emrs
Comparative-Effectiveness Research Advances with Stimulus
Plan
Robert Pear, The New York Times
President Barack Obama's imminent approval of the $787 billion
economic-stimulus bill will clear the way for the government to
compare the cost-effectiveness of drugs, surgery, medical devices
and other methods used in treating particular diseases. The
legislation, which calls for the creation of an advisory council of
up to 15 members, allocates $1.1 billion to fund the systematic
analysis of published research as well as head-to-head clinical
studies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/health/policy/16health.html?_r=2
Transformation of Health Care at the Front Line
JAMA, Patrick H. Conway, MD, MSc; Carolyn Clancy,
MD
Concern about escalating costs and the quality of health care
delivered in the United States continues to mount. This has led to
an increasing focus on pay-for-performance, value-driven health
care and public reporting of quality and cost information. However,
several authors have questioned the effectiveness of pay for
performance and public reporting to improve patients' outcomes and
have highlighted the potential for unintended negative
consequences. Currently, frontline clinicians are exposed to
disparate pay-for-performance programs that are often uncoordinated
and not clearly aligned with producing better outcomes for
patients. Evidence is produced at an astonishing rate, but its
incorporation into clinical practice is difficult. (requires
registration/subscription)
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/301/7/763
Quality: A Perception Gap?
HealthLeaders Media
Leaders in the healthcare quality arena are a positive bunch
when it comes to their assessments of their organizations,
according to the quality portion of the HealthLeaders Media
Industry Survey 2009. When asked to rate the quality of 11 aspects
of their organizations-including medical quality, information
technology, fiscal management, workplace morale, growth prospects,
and a host of other areas-on a rating scale of very strong to very
weak, quality leaders' top answer was moderately strong for every
category. Such optimism, however, also demonstrates a gap in
perception between patients and the people charged with improving
the quality of care provided to those patients.
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/227854/topic/WS_HLM2_MAG/Quality-A-Perception-Gap.html
Is $19 Billion on Healthcare IT Well-Spent?
HealthLeaders Media blog
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act contains one of the
largest government injections into healthcare since LBJ decided
Medicare and Medicaid would be a good idea. Healthcare itself gets
$147 billion, the largest chunk put into Medicaid, notes
HealthLeaders Media Editor-in-Chief Jim Molpus. But $19 billion
gets put into support for healthcare IT, including $2 million in
direct grants and other $17 billion in tax credits to providers
starting in 2011.
http://blogs.healthleadersmedia.com/leadtime/2009/02/is-19-billion-on-healthcare-it-well-spent/