Health Data Management articles from April 2008

Health Data Management archives from April 2008

When Nurses Get To Innovate, Everyone Wins.
April 1, 2008... This months cover story largely focuses on Columbus (Ind.) Regional Hospital, the winner of our third annual Nursing I.T. Innovation Award. Columbus has deployed an early detection clinical warning system thats saving lives and improving...

HDM On The Web.
April 1, 2008... WHITE PAPERS The Health Data Management Web site hosts an extensive library of white papers that provides our readers with an in-depth explanation of technologies being used in the field and how health care organizations are using these...

Editorial/Ad Index.(Editorial)
April 1, 2008... A Alegent Health 30 Arnold, David, Leonard M. Miller School of Me of Medicine 40 Atkins, Thomas, Sutter Express Care 51 Avocent ...

Readers' Perspectives.
April 1, 2008... Most health care CIOs are adequately prepared when they take the position. AGREE Chuck Christian CIO, Director of Information Systems Good Samaritan Hospital, Vincennes, Ind. This is a qualified yes. It depends on if the...

CIO Survey Results.
April 1, 2008... Health care CIOs and other I.T. executives are optimistic about the growth of clinical decision support and, even with a looming recession, will continue to invest in I.T. and electronic health records, the Health Data Management 2008 CIO...

Howard Leavitt Wants E-Rx Mandate.
April 1, 2008... U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt has called for mandated electronic prescribing for Medicare patients. At the 2008 HIMSS Conference, he also indicated mandates on use of electronic health records under Medicare are a...

Google CEO Describes PHR Platform.
April 1, 2008... Eric Schmidt, CEO and chairman of Google Inc., Mountain View, Calif., used his keynote speech at the conference to offer more information about the search engine companys personal health records platform, Google Health. The company is...

I.T. Bill To Be Unveiled.(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Leaders of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee in April will unveil legislation to facilitate health information technology adoption, but that doesnt necessarily mean a bill will soon be considered by the full Congress. Thats the word...

Demonstrating NHIN Viability.(National Health Information Network )(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Federal government officials hope initiatives now under way will demonstrate by year-end that a national health information network is viable. The drive is this year to take off the table the barriers to a network of networks, said John Loonsk,...

Frist Backs EHR Incentives.(Conference notes)
April 1, 2008... The federal government should take a lead role in providing strong financial incentives for physicians to adopt electronic health records, said former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D. The keynote speaker at the conference said...

Busy Year For HITSP.
April 1, 2008... The Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel will spend 2008 identifying the appropriate data standards to support six new use cases that will demonstrate interoperability for specific health care processes. HITSP comprises...

Tips For A CPOE Launch.
April 1, 2008... One key element to the successful launch of a computerized physician order entry program is to pay physicians to get involved in the planning. Thats the advice of William McClatchey, M.D., chief medical information officer at Piedmont Hospital...

Heath Records Banks Get Guidance.
April 1, 2008... To help ensure the credibility of emerging health records banks, the Arlington, Va.-based Health Records Banking Alliance has created a series of 12 principles they should follow. Health records banks serve as a custodian for health care...

Contract Negotiating Tips Offered.
April 1, 2008... Health care organizations issuing requests for proposals to software companies should spell out potential contract terms in the RFP, a lawyer who specializes in such contracts advised. This approach helps ensure that software vendors replying...

Clearinghouse Offers Free E-Scripts.
April 1, 2008... Availity LLC, a payer-owned claims clearinghouse in Jacksonville, Fla., will host on its Web site free electronic prescribing software from Prematics Inc. The owners of Availity Humana Inc. and Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Florida,...

Hickman Is CIO Of The Year.
April 1, 2008... George Buddy Hickman, senior vice president and CIO of Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center, has been named the CHIME-HIMSS John E. Gall, Jr. CIO of the Year. The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and the Healthcare Information...

Eclipsys Buys ESPi For $53 Million.
April 1, 2008... Hospital information systems vendor Eclipsys Corp., Atlanta, has acquired St. Louis-based Enterprise Performance Systems Inc., which sells financial decision support software to hospitals, for $53 million. ESPis software supports product line...

MediNotes To Buy Bond Technologies.
April 1, 2008... Ambulatory electronic health records vendor MediNotes Corp. will acquire Bond Technologies, which sells integrated practice management/electronic health records software for physician practices. The software of Tampa, Fla.-based Bond...

InfoLogix Offers Surgical RFID Chip.
April 1, 2008... Hatboro, Pa.-based InfoLogix Inc. has released a passive radio frequency identification-based technology designed to help reduce surgical errors. The SurgiChip technology uses an RFID chip that is placed on a patient at the location where an...

Univ. of Pittsburgh Testing Its HIE.
April 1, 2008... The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is testing a health information exchange designed to ultimately link its 20 hospitals and 400 outpatient sites with 2,500 physicians. The HIE is using integration technology from dbMotion, Pittsburgh....

MS-HUG Awards Announced.(Microsoft Healthcare Users Group )(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... The Microsoft Healthcare Users Group has announced the winners of the 11th annual MS-HUG Healthcare Innovation Awards. The awards, announced at the 2008 HIMSS Conference, are in recognition of innovation in applying Microsoft technologies. ...

Noteworthy To Buy MARS.(Noteworthy Medical Systems Inc. acquires Mars Medical Systems Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Noteworthy Medical Systems, a Cleveland-based ambulatory electronic records vendor, is acquiring MARS Medical Systems, a Phoenix-based practice management company. Noteworthy expects to close the deal by the end of March, says Mark Conner, who...

HDM Gives Away Four Vespas At HIMSS.(Health Data Management)(Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society )(Brief article)(Conference notes)
April 1, 2008... Health Data Management gave away Vespa LX 150 scooters to four attendees at the 2008 HIMSS Conference. The winners were: Chris Foster, a staff assistant at the Veterans Administration in Melbourne, Fla.; Betty Dunagan, a director at...

Hospital Tests Agfa's ORBIS.
April 1, 2008... A 146-bed hospital in rural North Carolina is serving as the development site for Belgium-based Agfa Healthcares efforts to adopt its European clinical information system for use in the United States. Sampson Regional Medical Center, Clinton,...

New Hospital To Use Cisco.
April 1, 2008... Palomar West Medical Campus in San Diego will use various technologies from Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., when it opens in 2011. The $811 million hospital will use Ciscos TelePresence video network technology to develop a virtual...

Microsoft Offers $3 Million in Grants.
April 1, 2008... Microsoft Corp. will provide $3 million in grants to support research and development of applications that use the companys HealthVault platform for patient records. The Redmond, Wash.-based company will solicit proposals that deal with disease...

The Nursing Information Technology Innovation Award: How a 'Guardian Angel' System Saves Lives.
April 1, 2008... When Jennifer Dunscomb, R.N., arrived at Columbus (Ind.) Regional Hospital to begin her shift one morning, she used her handheld computer to make an extraordinary difference in the treatment of a patient. The senior systems clinical nurse...

About The Award Competition.
April 1, 2008... This is the third year that Health Data Management has sponsored the Nursing Information Technology Innovation Award competition. The award is co-sponsored by the Maryland Technology Committee and the Capitol Area Roundtable on Informatics in...

This Calculator Is Far From Ordinary.
April 1, 2008... Administering intravenous drugs and liquid oral medications involves mathematical challenges. Nurses and others routinely use calculators, sometimes in crisis situations, to verify the right dose of medications. But math errors can have serious...

Fixing An Alarming Situation.
April 1, 2008... Bombarding nurses with too many alarms can be akin to crying wolf. After a while, the alerts are ignored if too many of them do not actually represent an urgent situation. To help address this significant problem, 465-bed Texas Childrens...

Point of Care Part I: The Evolution Of Mobile Hardware: Health care organizations seek new features and functionalities from their point-of-care devices.
April 1, 2008... A growing number of health care organizations are making new choices of mobile hardware after getting some experience with point-of-care computing under their belts. For example, over the past four years, Alegent Health, an Omaha,...

Multiple Devices Offer Better Data Access.
April 1, 2008... I.T. staff at St. Johns Hospital in Springfield, Ill., never had an issue with enabling physicians to use multiple mobile devices to access data from its hospital information system, from SoftMed, Silver Spring, Md. Supporting a variety of...

Wrapping Safety Around Patients: Providers discover that many technologies-some bought for other purposes-can be safety tools.
April 1, 2008... Deep vein thrombosis, the formation of blood clots, is a common risk factor for hospitalized patients, particularly those immobilized in bed or undergoing surgery. To better prevent the condition, 67-bed Riverside Walter Reed Hospital in...

Note To Vendors: What Your Clients Want.(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Health care executives have wish lists of the information technology functionality that would be helpful in improving patient safety. Charles Frazier, M.D., director of medical informatics at Riverside Health System in Newport News, Va.,...

Web Site Eases Safety Collaboration.(Website overview)
April 1, 2008... A password-protected Web site is helping members of the Connecticut Hospital Association share ideas and best practices to improve the quality and safety of care. The association last November launched the site starting with the issue of...

Philips Working To Digest Its Buys: With vendors of medical imaging technologies challenged by a drop in demand triggered by declining insurance reimbursement, Philips Healthcare made a number of acquisitions.
April 1, 2008... Weve gained considerable market share in our patient monitoring space, says Brent Shafer, CEO at Philips Healthcares North American operations in Andover, Mass. The name Philips Healthcare also is new, after parent Royal Philips...

Managing By Remote Control: Systems management software eases the task of updating thousands of computers.
April 1, 2008... The sneakernet approach to managing thousands of desktop and mobile computers by sending information technology staff scurrying about the organization is clearly outmoded. Thats why many larger hospitals as well as integrated delivery...

Retail Clinics Rely On Automation: Extensive use of electronic records provides lessons for small group practices.
April 1, 2008... Smaller group practices could learn a thing or two about automation from the hundreds of retail clinics that are popping up in drugstores all over the country. Its disappointing that, so far, most small group practices are not seeing these...

Ramping Up The PHR Assembly Line: A Blues plan dives into personal health records for 1.5 million members.
April 1, 2008... For three years, executives at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina evaluated how personal health records could support their quality improvement efforts. For example, they anticipated they could use PHRs to help disease management...

CIO Wears Many Hats: At smaller hospitals, I.T. leaders play multiple roles.
April 1, 2008... When I describe my job, I usually get the same reaction: You wear many hats. As the CIO of a small, rural hospital, its vital that I be versatile. I increase my value to the organization by contributing in many areas. In addition to the...