Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs.For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note alsothat full access to some links may require site registration or subscriptionpayment.
-----
Global telemedicine market on growth track
August 30, 2011 | BernieMonegain, Editor
LONDON – The globaltelemedicine market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19percent, driven mainly by growth opportunities in Europe, according to a recentreport by Technavio, specialists in emerging technologies marketresearch.
The report coversthe Americas as well as the EMEA and APAC regions.
“Though the United States has been dominatingthe global telemedicine market, Europe and developing nations are rapidly catchingup," said Technavio’s industry analyst. “This shift is occurring mainlybecause of the increase in the number of patients with chronic diseases and theincreasing availability of online healthcare services.”
-----
How PHRs boosted shareholder value at EMC
August 30, 2011 | MaryMosquera
Two IT companiesthat have made personal health records available to their employees in aneffort to engage them in their health care have also found that it’s good forbusiness.
Storage hardwareand software provider EMC Corp. and Cerner Corp., a maker of electronic healthrecords, differ somewhat in their methods, but employee adoption of personalhealth records (PHRs) has resulted in measurable improvements in employees’health, higher productivity, and reduced healthcare costs for thecompanies.
The use of PHRsshould increasebased on recommendations for meaningful use stage 2, in which patientswill be able to view and download their information to their computers or PHRsvia patient portals and other methods.
-----
Thursday,September 1, 2011
The Rise of Electronic Medicine
Medicinetoday is a sea of paper and fax machines, privacy barriers, and unconnecteddata. The public is ready for a better system.
Last November 9 at2 a.m., I received a phone call from a hospital in Southern California."Your mother needs an emergency operation," said the voice on theline. "Your father had chest pain while at her bedside and both are inICUs. We have no idea what medications they take, what allergies they have, orwhat problems they have been treated for. Can you help?"
This is medicinetoday. A sea of paper and fax machines, information silos, privacy barriers,and unconnected data. And yet, we know the public is ready for a better system.According to a 2010 Harris Poll, four in five Americans believe any doctortreating them should have instant access to their medical record online.
-----
Morecambe Bay still working on Lorenzo
1 September2011 Shanna Crispin
UniversityHospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust says it’s on track to have twofurther Lorenzo modules go live this autumn, despite further minor delays.
In July, eHealthInsider reported that the trust wasdue to go live in August with the pathology requesting and reporting module ofthe iSoft electronic patient record.
However, a trustspokesperson has told EHI this will now be deployed in the autumn, asadditional work on data messaging needs to be completed.
-----
Medical home achievement the goal of athenahealth'accelerator program'
August 29, 2011 — 4:04pmET | By Ken Terry
athenahealth haslaunched an "accelerator program" for its cloud-based electronichealth record to help physicians achieve recognition as patient-centeredmedical homes (PCMHs). athenahealth is the first EHR vendor to meet thecorporate review requirements of the National Committee on Quality Assurance(NCQA), which recognizes practices that meet its PCMH requirements. Inaddition, NCQA will continue to evaluate athenahealth's EHR.
The acceleratorprogram will include prebuilt content that can help practices meet some PCMHcriteria, according to athenahealth.
-----
West Virginia Selects Thomson Reuters' HIE Advantage™Platform for Statewide Health Information Exchange
Published Tuesday, Aug.30, 2011
ANNARBOR, Mich., Aug. 30, 2011 -- /PRNewswire/ -- TheWest Virginia Health Information Network (WVHIN) has selected Thomson ReutersHIE Advantage™ as the technology backbone for its statewide health informationexchange (HIE) system. WVHIN is a state agency governed by healthcare payer,provider, consumer, and government stakeholders.
The system willsecurely capture real-time clinical and administrative data from electronicmedical records, healthcare claims, and other sources and provide clinicianswith comprehensive patient histories at the point of care so they can makebetter-informed clinical decisions.
-----
By Joseph Conn
Taking license with open-source software
Let's wade togetherinto the deep weeds of open-source software licensure.
For nearly adecade, the Veterans Affairs Department, developer of the publicly availableVistA electronic health-record software, has kept at arm's length a growingcommunity of outside, open-source VistA developers and users.
Recently, however,the VA embraced open source as astrategy for VistA enhancement. It hired theInformatics Applications Group, or Tiag forshort, to create a not-for profit corporation, the OpenSource Electronic Health Record Agent, to oversee theprogram.
-----
EHR shortcuts can backfire
August 31, 2011 | JeffRowe, HITECH Watch
It’s no secret thatmany HIT advocates are frustrated at the pace of the HIT transition.
To be sure, thehealthcare sector notoriously lags behind most other major sectors of theeconomy when it comes to implementing new technology. But sometimes it helps tostep back and remember what, from the providers perspective, is actuallyinvolved.
This consultantprovides just such a view, though it comes largely in the form of a warningthat many providers are not using their EHRs properly.
“A disturbingnumber of practices,” he says, “have failed to analyze the clinical content oftheir EHR and are distributing exam documents and other information that do notadequately or accurately document patient care. In the more serious situations,EHR clinical documents misrepresent the care provided and the patient’scondition.”
-----
iPods, Androids Could Be Cancer-Detection Tools
By: Talea Miller
Cancerscreening...is there an app for that?
Not quite, but anewly developed device run by an iPod Touch, iPad or Android tablet could helpdiagnose cancers in poor or rural settings, researchers say.
The hand-held andsolar-powered system, called a Gene-Z, can perform genetic analysis of bloodsamples in the field when connected to a consumer tablet like the Android.
When a patient hascancer, certain changes occur in microRNAs -- molecules that regulate genes --that can be detected by the device.
-----
Final CMS e-Prescribing Rule Eases Requirements
Gienna Shaw, forHealthLeaders Media, September 2, 2011
More physicians andpractices can expect to avoid cuts in Medicare payments now that the Centersfor Medicare & Medicaid Services has softened e-Prescribing rules.
In its final rule,published in the Federal Register Tuesday, CMS added new "significanthardship" exemptions, agreed to exempt those practices that are alreadymeaningful users of certified EHRs, and extended the deadline to apply forthose exceptions by one month to November 1, 2011 for the 2012 paymentadjustment.
A 1% cut in feesfor those who are not successful e-Prescribers will begin in 2012. Providersalso face a potential 1.5% and 2% cut for 2013 and 2014, respectively.
-----
Salford Royal looks to EPR for safety
1 September2011 Lyn Whitfield
Salford Royal NHSFoundation Trust is looking to further its ambition to be “the safest hospitalin the NHS” by going out to tender for a newelectronic patient record system.
The trust islooking for a provider to replace its iSoft Clinical Management system with a"more functional and integrated" electronic patient record system,through a five year contract worth up to £10m.
ICM was firstimplemented more than ten years ago, when the trust wanted to “create a patientcentric, comprehensive clinical record for every patient to improve patientcare.”
-----
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Friending Your Doctor Online
Anew social-networking service aims to improve the flow of communication byconnecting doctors and patients online.
ByKatharine Gammon
A social networkthat doctors can prescribe to their patients: that's the idea behind a newSan Diego startup called Wellaho. The companycreates software to manage and support patients after they leave the hospitalby bringing together different parts of a patient's support system. Doctors,family, and friends could all be part of the network, which can be customizedfor individual patients. The system will begin clinical trials in three largeSan Diego hospitals next month, with a larger rollout planned for 2012.
Other patient-basednetworks, including PatientsLikeMe, HealthCentral, Inspire, CureTogether, andCaringBridge, are gaining popularity with the chronically ill. But this one isdifferent, says Wellaho's founder, Naser Partovi. "It's prescribed by adoctor, and it involves clinicians as well as friends and family. It's muchmore controlled."
-----
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/08/30/140059492/taming-high-health-costs-takes-taming-high-tech
Taming High Health Costs Takes Taming High-Tech
01:49 pm
August 30, 2011
Expensivetechnologies like proton beam therapy and hot chemo baths are among thereasons America's health care spending is rising at an unsustainable clip andmaking the federal deficit so hard to tame.
But two of thenation's top health care economists are expressing doubts that accountable careorganizations — one of Obama administration's most-hypedmechanisms to save money — will be able to overcomethe medical system's lust for the new new thing.
Established throughlast year's health law, ACOs are networks of doctors and hospitals that wouldcollaborate to provide quality care at lower cost, with the motivation ofkeeping a share of the savings they deliver to Medicare and private insurers.Medicare has been working for months to get the programrunning by next year.
-----
What's Going On With Health Benefit Exchanges?
HealthData Management Blogs, August 30, 2011
It's quite amazingto see the reaction to the health insurance/benefit exchanges that have beenmandated by the health reform bill, to be created and maintained by each stateto manage its uninsured population. There were seven states/coalitions that hadreceived the early innovator grants, ranging from just above $6 million toMaryland, all the way in excess of $50 million to Oklahoma. Now that is somerange of innovation, I must say. But I deviate. The point is that two of thetop three grantees—Oklahoma and Kansas--have since returned the grants. And by thelooks of the conversations we have been hearing in the corridors of power,there may be others who are contemplating a similar response. On the otherhand, the second round of grants provided additional funding to the smallestgrantee, Maryland, in excess of $20 million. That brings me to my originalquestion.
-----
Lessons learned from Steve Jobs
August 30, 2011 by MassDevice
Newly resignedApple CEO and technology titan Steve Jobs left quite a mark on health care andmed-tech.
I recently spokewith several reporters about SteveJobs' impact on healthcare , thanking him for the past 15 years ofinnovation. In preparing for those interviews, I reviewed Steve's careermilestones,
In 1997, AppleComputer was in trouble. Its sales had declined from 11 billion in 1995 to 7billion in 1997. Its energies were focused on battling Microsoft. It had lostits way.
Steve Jobs made these remarks at MacWorld 1997,a few months before becoming Apple's CEO. He outlined a simple go forward plan:
1. Board ofDirectors
2. Focus on Relevance
3. Invest in Core Assets
4. Meaningful Partnerships
5. New Product Paradigm
2. Focus on Relevance
3. Invest in Core Assets
4. Meaningful Partnerships
5. New Product Paradigm
How can we applythese 5 ideas to the work we're doing in HIT?
-----
BI Tools Prep Clinicians For Accountable Care
Healthcareorganizations are turning to business intelligence software to help navigate anew era in the delivery of patient care, says KLAS report.
By NicoleLewis, InformationWeek
August 30, 2011
Healthcare providerspursuing accountable care organization (ACO) initiatives are increasinglyrelying on business intelligence (BI) tools to help identify inefficiencies,quality gaps, and cost issues, reports a study from healthcare research firmKLAS.
The report, BusinessIntelligence: Making Cents of Performance, notes that in an era in which payfor performance will shift the focus from quantity of care to quality of care,many clinicians see BI tools as an essential component monitoring patient caredata and focusing on enhancing efficiency. The aim is to adopt new businessmodels to accommodate the changing requirements of 2010's health reform law.
Lorin Bird, KLASresearch director and author of the report, told InformationWeek Healthcare he'd spoken witha healthcare provider that had used Humedica's BI system--which connectspatient information across varied medical settings and time periods--togenerate information that showed a higher quality of care and lower costs whencompared to medical peers.
-----
EHI focus on: paperless at King’s
King’s CollegeHospital NHS Foundation Trust is hoping to virtually eliminate paper in thenext two years. Shanna Crispin joined staff at the IT department’s annual openday to find out more.
31 August 2011
King’s CollegeHospital NHS Foundation Trust is on a tight deadline to becoming paperless – ithas set 2013 as the year it wants paper eradicated.
Granted, the trustalready has been 60% and 70% of its departments operating on electronicsystems; but converting the remainder within two years will be no mean feat.
The trust firstwent live with its iSoft iClinical Management (iCM) electronic patient recordin 1998; and director of ICT Colin Sweeney says it has had an ambition tobecome paperless ever since.
“When I think aboutit, it has really been the last six months to a year that we’ve been saying‘yes this is a real objective for us’,” he tells eHealth Insider at a recentopen day to promote the concept to staff. “But when we started off with our EPRvision back in 1997 I think we thought that ultimately we would go paperless.”
-----
EHI focus on: Aintree University Hospitals
Aintree UniversityHospitals may have found that mythical animal: the electronic patient recordsystem that takes trusts paperless. Shanna Crispin reports.
22 August 2011
The electronicpatient record system being assembled at Aintree University Hospitals NHSFoundation Trust is fondly referred to by staff as a ‘unicorn’ – as in they’vefound one that exists.
The trust is lessthan a year away from becoming paper-light and 18 months shy of completing anIT strategy aimed squarely at implementing an operational electronic patientrecord.
Sticking withSystem C
The trust has beena System C customer for more than a decade, and in 2009 opted to stick with thesupplier and deploy its Medway Sigma system – instead of taking what might havebeen on offer from the National Programme for IT in the NHS.
-----
Aintree info exchange goes two-way
22 August2011 Shanna Crispin
Aintree UniversityHospitals NHS Foundation Trust has started to give local GPs online access topatient information held on its in-hospital system.
The trust went livewith a link-up between local primary care systems and its Medwaypatient administration system, using EMIS Web, back in June 2010.
It initially gaveurgent care clinicians access to information held on the GP systems, such asallergies, medications and results.
Now ithas started giving GPs the same access to information held in thehospital’s Medway Sigma electronic patient record.
-----
Natural Language Processing IDs Medical Complications
Embedding NLP intoelectronic health records allows clinicians to spot more postop complications,finds JAMA study.
By Ken Terry, InformationWeek
August 29, 2011
While we have yet toreach the holy grail of converting free text to structured data in anelectronic health record (EHR), natural language processing (NLP) is beginningto show real promise in healthcare. The latest indication of this is a studyshowing that the application of NLP to free text in an EHR identifiespostsurgical complications more accurately than the analysis of dischargebilling codes.
The study in the Journal of the American MedicalAssociation compared the NLP method to the use ofadministrative data in the Veterans Affairs Surgical Quality ImprovementProgram (VASQIP). The study population is a randomly selected sample of nearly3,000 patients treated at six VA hospitals between 1999 and 2006.
-----
Behind the mHealth, Telehealth Boom
Gienna Shaw, forHealthLeaders Media, August 30, 2011
The market fortechnologies that bring healthcare to patients instead of the other wayaround—mobile healthcare and telehealth—has been growing steadily. And manypredict it will take an even bigger jump in the next few years.
That growth will bedriven by a number of factors, including government initiatives and a trendtoward collaboration between healthcare organizations and vendors.
The global mobilehealthcare application market was $1.7 billion last year and it’s expected toreach $4.1 billion by 2014. And the global telemedicine market is expected toreach $19.5 billion by 2014, according to two separate reports released byInfiniti Research, a global market research firm based in London.
-----
Nurses urged to lead on informatics
30 August2011 Daloni Carlisle
NHS Connectingfor Health’s chief nurse is to launch a programme to develop leadership skillsfor nurses in informatics.
Two three-dayworkshops will take place in late September to look at the leadershipskills that are needed and how they can be developed.
Susan Hamer, thedirector of nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals, said: “This isnot an informatics course. It is about understanding the shifting context andtrying to increase leadership capacity.”
-----
EHI CCIO interview: Susan Hamer
NHS Connecting forHealth’s director of nursing, midwifery and heath visiting has been studyingthe role of chief nursing information officer that is emerging in the US. As aresult, she is an enthusiastic supporter of the EHI CCIO Campaign.
30 August 2011
In July this year,Trinity Mother Frances Health System in Texas advertised in the Washington Postfor a chief nursing information officer.
In the lengthy jobdescription was this key phrase: “The CNIO leads nursing in the design andexecution of technology-enabled process change that maximizes patient safety,quality of care and operational efficiency.”
Trinity MotherFrances’ job is one of a number of similar posts that have been created in thepast 18 months as leading healthcare organisations in the US have started toadvocate for a senior nursing executive to lead, co-ordinate and championinformatics and IT. Yet the very idea that a UK hospital would place such anadvert is almost unthinkable at present.
-----
EHR App Draws on Photos, Images
HDMBreaking News, August 29, 2011
HealthFusion Inc.has introduced a feature for its ambulatory electronic health records softwareenabling physicians to draw on a patient picture or one of more than 100built-in anatomical images.
The MediDrawfeature works with the vendor's MediTouch EHR on a tablet, laptop or desktopcomputer running Windows or Apple operating systems. A physician can accessembedded anatomical images, or take a picture of a patient and use a smartphoneto upload the picture to the EHR via the Internet, and then draw with afingertip on the picture.
-----
Super-sized HIEs rise up nationwide
August 22, 2011 — 7:06pmET | By Ken Terry
Even as some healthinformation exchange projects fail, others are rising to take their place, andsome are quite large. The two latest examples are regional HIEs in westernPennsylvania and southern California.
The ClinicalConnectexchange in Pennsylvania will include nine of the area's health care systems.Among them are Altoona Regional Health System, Armstrong County MemorialHospital, Butler Health System, Excela Health, Heritage Valley Health System,Jefferson Regional Medical Center, St. Clair Hospital, The Washington Hospitaland the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).
Starting with apilot at Heritage Valley, ClinicalConnect will be implemented over the next twoyears. There are plans to bring in other regional health systems in the nearfuture.
-----
HIEs save payers big bucks
August 25, 2011 — 4:15pmET | By Ken Terry
A study ofemergency-department visits conducted by Humana in the Milwaukee areashows that payers can save money if EDs have access to community healthinformation exchanges (HIEs).
When ED cliniciansqueried patients' encounter histories in the Wisconsin Health InformationExchange (WHIE), the patients' visits cost Humana $29 less, on average, thandid visits by patients whose doctors did not have the benefit of thatinformation, the study found. Much of the savings came from a reduction inredundant testing.
The study, whichran from 2008 to 2010, involved 1,482 fully insured Humana members who soughtcare at 10 Milwaukee hospitals. The test group consisted of patients for whomthe WHIE database was consulted during at least two ED visits; the database wasnot consulted for those in the control group, who also made at least two EDvisits.
-----
Study: HIE Cuts Emergency Dept. Costs
HDMBreaking News, August 29, 2011
A study ofemergency department visits at 10 Milwaukee hospitals finds average savings of$29 per visit when the attending physician can access historical medicalencounter information from a patient's insurer via a health informationexchange.
"Decreasedutilization of imaging procedures and diagnostic tests drove thiscost-savings," according to the study, published in the July-August 2011issue of American Health& Drug Benefits and availablehere.
-----
Increased stress causing hospital CIOs to rethink theirjob situations
August 28, 2011 — 4:25pmET | By Ken Terry
Nearly a quarter ofhospital CIOs are considering leaving their positions for a less stressful jobwithin the next three years, accordingto a survey by healthsystemCIO.com.Moreover, 55 percent agree with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO JohnHalamka that with all of the projects being heaped on their plates, theposition of CIO might eventually be untenable. Halamka made this remark inan earlierinterview with healthsystemCIO.com, a blog written byformer HealthcareInformatics Editor Anthony Guerra.
Meaningful Use,ICD-10 and, in some cases, accountable care organizations have made the CIO'sjob more difficult than ever. Fifty-five percent of the respondents believethat they need more senior IT staff, especially project managers.
Sixty-five percenthave communicated their concerns to the hospital managers above them. Inwritten comments, some of the respondents said that the managers don'tunderstand that the initial investment in hardware and software is only thebeginning of the ongoing investment in implementation and maintenance ofcomplex applications. But other respondents noted that their hospitals aredoing the best they can to give them the funds they need to do a good job.
-----
Axolotl HIE is now OptumInsight
August 24, 2011 | DianaManos, Healthcare IT News
EDEN PRAIRIE, MN –Axolotl HIE solutions are now part of OptumInsight (formerly Ingenix)healthcare management systems and services, Optum announced Wednesday.
"For more than16 years, Axolotl Health Information Exchange (HIE) solutions have beenconsistently top-ranked among all HIE systems," Optum said."Hospitals, regions and entire states that use Axolotl HIE are unequalledin delivering vital patient information, empowering clinical collaboration,improving quality of care and patient safety and reducing healthcare costs."
-----
7 things to consider when choosing mobile devices
For physicians whowant a mobile device, what's the best choice -- a smartphone or a tablet? Orboth? Or something else? Experts say the answer depends on how a physician is planningto use the device, and where.
Frost &Sullivan, a business consulting firm, published a white paper that looks at thedecision-making process of adopting one or more major wireless devices --smartphones, tablets, push-to-talk and machine-to-machine (M2M) monitoringtools, such as home monitoring instruments that send data to an electronicmedical record. The paper, which received financial support from Sprint, saysthe decision can be broken down into seven criteria: functionality, usability,security, network connectivity, durability, application availability and price.
-----
Mostashari: Pick a health problem, 'knock the heck out ofit'
August 29, 2011 | BernieMonegain, Healthcare IT News
NationalCoordinator Farzad Mostashari, MD, urged an audience at the annual AllscriptsClient Experience Conference Monday morning to pick a health problem - strokeor heart attack, for example – and "knock the heck out of it."
"All of youout there, pick a target."
As he has before,Mostashari reminded the group that "technology is not an end toitself." Better care for individuals and better care for the population,along with lower costs are the goals, he said.
He forecast moreinnovation and more connection between healthcare providers and individualconsumers for the future, and "more liberation of data."
-----
Red Cross: Social media prevalent in disasters
August 25, 2011 | MollyMerrill, Contributing Editor
A pair of newsurveys conducted by the American Red Cross confirmed that the uptick seen onsites such as Twitter and Facebook is part of a growing trend of Americansturning to social media in response to emergencies.
“Social media isbecoming an integral part of disaster response,” said Wendy Harman, director ofsocial strategy for the American Red Cross.
Clear evidence ofthis was the East Coast earthquake that occurred on Aug. 23, which producedmore than 40,000 earthquake-related tweets on Twitter, was discussed in morethan 3 million Facebook accounts, and caused Twitter to hit 5,000 tweets persecond.
-----
EHR Vendors Give Keyboard-Hating Docs Pen Alternative
Digital pentechnology becomes an option from more EHR vendors. Will it help doctors crossthe bridge away from legacy process?
By Ken Terry, InformationWeek
August 26, 2011
Digital pentechnology--an alternative to keyboard-based data entry--is starting to make serious inroads in healthcare, according to Anoto, theSwedish company that manufactures the leading digital pen in the U.S. Mostsignificantly, electronic health record (EHR) vendors are beginning to offerAnoto-licensed digital-pen applications as part of their hospital, ED, andambulatory-care products.
Anoto partner ShareableInk said it has integrated its applicationwith the EHRs of Allscripts, Cerner, Epic, McKesson, and Meditech. Allscriptsconfirmed that it is offering Shareable Ink with its Enterprise EHR for largegroup practices and is in the process of implementing it with its ProfessionalEHR for medium-sized groups.
-----
ANSI launches operations to approve EHR certifiers
August 26, 2011 | MaryMosquera
WASHINGTON – TheAmerican National Standards Institute (ANSI) has launched its program toapprove organizations that want to certify electronic health records formeaningful use.
ANSI will acceptapplications through Oct. 7, with its first organization accreditationsanticipated in 2012, the standards-setting group said in an Aug. 25announcement.
The Office of theNational Coordinator for Health IT named ANSI in June as the soleauthorized accreditor of certifying bodies for the permanent certificationprogram.
-----
Enjoy!
David.
