Health Data Management articles from April 2009

Health Data Management archives from April 2009

One Picture, 22,000 Words.(Editor's Notes)(Editorial)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Gary Baldwin, Editorial Director Every time I see a good photograph, the proverbial 1,000 words flow through my mind. This month's special report demanded a shot that conveyed teamwork - perhaps the most critical ingredient in any...

TEPR conference "in limbo," former leader says.(Newsline)(Report)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert The leaders of the Medical Records Institute in Boston have left the organization and will lead mHealth Initiative Inc., an organization launched in early February. The Medical Records Institute "is in limbo,"...

Doctors in Class Action Suit Against Aetna, CIGNA.(Newsline)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Howard Anderson The American Medical Association, five state medical associations and several physicians have filed two class-action lawsuits against Aetna Inc. and CIGNA Corp., alleging under-reimbursement of physicians. The...

WellPoint agrees to Drop Ingenix Database.(Newsline)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert WellPoint Inc. is the latest health insurer to agree to stop using a specific rate-setting database operated by Ingenix Inc., Eden Prairie, Minn. The Indianapolis-based insurer also will contribute $10 million...

Report: CIOs Should Prepare for Genomics.(Newsline)(Report)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert Health care CIOs need to start planning now for a future when a patient's longitudinal electronic health record will include comprehensive family history data and a complete sequence of their genome, according to a...

Newsline Digest.
April 1, 2009... Byline: Compiled by staff CMS Resumes Medicare RAC Program The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has resumed rolling out the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor program after the settling of protests from its selection of four...

The Team Approach to I.T. Building; CIOs discuss the challenges cross-functional teams face when implementing I.T. systems.(Special Report: Executive Management Series)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor For many big information technology projects these days, a cross-functional team representing various departments plans and oversees the efforts. This approach is essential to success, says Greg Walton,...

Keeping teams on target.(Special Report)(Report)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor By their nature, cross-functional teams bring in a wide variety of professionals, each with their own philosophies, experiences, territories to protect and ways of doing things. So what happens when a...

The 2009 Nursing I.T. Innovation Awards.(Special Section)
April 1, 2009... Winner Butler Memorial Hospital Finalists Howard County General Hospital New York-Presbyterian Hospital Sisters of Mercy Health System Springhill Medical Center Sutter Health Yavapai County Community ...

Nurses Replace Clipboards with Headsets to Document Their Work.(Special Section)
April 1, 2009... Butler Memorial Hospital Butler, Pa. 258-bed community hospital, a unit of Butler Health System Project: Speech recognition for IV nurses Faced with a nursing shortage, hospitals across the country are looking for ways to...

Finalists share their insights.(Special Section)
April 1, 2009... In reviewing the 41 entries for the Nursing Information Technology Innovation Award, the judges singled out six entries as finalists. Following are summaries of each of those innovative projects. Springhill Medical Center Mobile, Ala....

Reader Comments.(Readers' Perspective)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2009... Caleb Decker Director, Healthcare Advisory Services MicroStrategy Inc., McLean, Va. "Why not include the practice management vendors in this list, or the federal government? Real-time, point-of-service adjudication was halted when...

Rolling Out the Red Carpet; Health care organizations are rethinking their I.T. strategies in response to consumerism, focusing on improving service and documenting quality.(Feature)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Howard J. Anderson, Executive Editor American consumers are accustomed to using technology to get better service in almost every sector of the economy except health care. Now they're demanding that hospitals, clinics and insurance...

Where are we headed?(electronic health records)(Feature)(Report)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Howard J. Anderson, Executive Editor Advocates of the Medical Home model portray it as an example of how information technology will help meet health care consumer's needs in the 21st century. In the model, primary care practices...

A Major Payer Pushes PHRs.(Feature)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Howard J. Anderson, Executive Editor Aetna's aggressive effort to provide its enrollees with personal health records stems, in part, from consumer surveys that showed patients were concerned about inefficiencies in the delivery of...

RU REDY 4 THS?(Feature)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Howard J. Anderson, Executive Editor Responding to the communication preferences of younger consumers, one health insurer is capitalizing on the power of text messaging via cellular telephones. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of...

The power of a 'chat'.(Feature)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Howard J. Anderson, Executive Editor Sometimes, a "chat" can be a powerful communications tool for consumers seeking out information on treatments for a serious disease. Cancer Treatment Centers of America, which markets its...

How Green Was My Hospital; The path to environmental stewardship is not easy to follow, but many hospitals are trying.(Feature)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Gary Baldwin, Editorial Director When it comes to environmentalism in health care, any push to "green" operations is driven as much by the folding kind of green as the leafy variety. It's not that hospital executives are opposed to...

Keeping HIEs Safe; Health information exchanges take extra steps to protect patient data.(Feature: HIE Security Series)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor This is the first story in an in-depth, three-part series on health information security issues and technologies in Health Data Management during 2009. We will offer six other series throughout the year...

Understanding Privacy and Security Issues.(Feature: HIE Security Series)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor In late 2007, Washington-based eHealth Initiative published a report outlining multi-stakeholder consensus on ways to improve health care through information and information technology. The report,...

Bedside Manner and Hardware Choices; Hospitals consider the impact of devices on communication between clinicians and patients.(Feature: Hardware Series)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Howard J. Anderson, Executive Editor This is Part 1 of a three-part series on hardware issues. Part 2, on infrastructure, will appear in the August issue. When Guthrie Clinic prepared to implement electronic records, it took an...

Cutting Down on Temporary Staff; Scheduling software helps a delivery system dramatically reduce contracted workers.(Hospitals)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor During the summer of 2007, Memorial Health System in Colorado was using up to 100 nurses, therapists, administrative support personnel and other health professionals from outside staffing agencies at any...

Digging Into the Economic Stimulus Law.(A Closer Look)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert and Howard Anderson For years, proponents of expanding the use of health information technology and establishing a national health information network have tried to push health I.T. legislation through Congress. ...

An EHR Is Not always a Perfect Fit; One group practice has concluded that document imaging, dictation meet its needs.(GROUP PRACTICES)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Howard J. Anderson, Executive Editor Amidst all the hoopla about electronic health records, Ken Beasley is sticking to his guns. When it comes to a conventional EHR, he says "thanks, but no thanks." Instead, his group practice,...

Drilling Down; PACS comes to life with add-on database tool.(Clinical Quality Reporting)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Gary Baldwin, Editorial Director When urologists at Detroit's Henry Ford Health System wanted to do a quality study around abscess drainage, they were at a loss as to where to turn for data - despite having an electronic health...

Campaign Emphasizes Radiation Alternatives.(Clinical Quality Reporting)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Gary Baldwin, Editorial Director The Image Gently Alliance is a coalition of health care organizations that targets safety issues in pediatric imaging. Founding members include the Society for Pediatric Radiology and the American...

Forward thinker.(Executive Session)(challenge of tele-health)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Gary Baldwin Naomi Fried is all about future tense. She serves as vice president of the Innovation and Advanced Technology Group, a think tank that is part of Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser, a sprawling provider...

The Medicare Incentives.(A Closer Look)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's Medicare incentive program for "meaningful use" of electronic health records systems, each physician or other qualified health professional can receive $44,000 over...

Gartner: I.T. Spending to Grow 2.6%.(A Closer Look)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Howard Anderson The U.S. health care industry will increase spending on information technology by 2.6% to $28.4 billion in 2009, according to Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn.-based research and consulting firm. Because of the...

Where Does the $2 Billion Go?(A Closer Look)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act appropriates $2 billion in "jump start" funding to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The intent is to provide a near-immediate...

Sorting Out the Privacy Changes.(A Closer Look)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's health care information technology provisions include changes to the HIPAA privacy and security rules. Following is a summary, based on language in the Act and reports...

What The Stimulus Package Will, And Won't, Do.(A Closer Look)(Interview)
April 1, 2009... The government's stimulus package includes about $19 billion for health information technology. But where will it do the most good? What is the biggest concern? And will every health care organization benefit? To gain insight into those...

CVS Pays Big to Settle Privacy Case.(Newsline)
April 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Goedert CVS/pharmacy has agreed to pay a $2.25 million fine and institute a corrective action plan following a federal government investigation into potential violations of the HIPAA privacy rule. The investigation began...