Health Data Management articles from August 2008

Health Data Management archives from August 2008

A new editorial leader, a continued focus on you.
August 1, 2008... Im extremely pleased to announce that Gary Baldwin is rejoining our staff as editorial director. Id like to explain how Gary will take Health Data Management further down the path toward fulfilling its mission to be the most comprehensive and...

HDM On The Web.
August 1, 2008... Health Data Managements award-winning Web site, healthdatamanagement.com, now features a revamped Marketplace section designed to simplify your search for the right information technology to meet your needs. This easy-to-use online guide...

Editorial/AD Index.
August 1, 2008... 3M Health Information Systems 48 A AHIMA 46 Allscripts LLC 36, 40 Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions Inc. 36 Augustine, Hal, Health Partners 59, 60 B Blair, Doug, Mt. Carmel Health System 36 Bone &...

The next administration should put far more government funds and resources behind the national health information network than the bush administration has done.
August 1, 2008... AGREE Jeffery Schaefer Account Executive Siemens Healthcare, Seattle It is time that our government got behind improving health care through the implementation of information technology. Rosalyn Ben-Chirit Vice...

A New Approach to Public Health Data.
August 1, 2008... A year into his role as director of the National Center for Public Health Informatics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Leslie Lenert, M.D. is taking the center in different directions from his predecessors. For instance,...

E-Rx Rules Proposed for Controlled Substances.
August 1, 2008... The Drug Enforcement Administration in the Department of Justice has published a proposed rule to permit electronic prescribing of controlled substances. The DEA believes these drugs account for 10% to 11% of all prescriptions; industry...

Lessons from a Go-Live.
August 1, 2008... Soon after Cancer Treatment Centers of America went live on a suite of clinical, financial and ancillary information systems earlier this year, 100% of employed physicians were using the computerized physician order entry software. Thats...

University to Tackle Data Breaches.
August 1, 2008... The University of California San Francisco has formed a senior level task force to investigate the organizations medical data security and how it reacts to data breaches after two breaches of patient data within a month. The university did...

Walter Reed investigates breach.(Report)
August 1, 2008... Walter Reed Army Medical Center has acknowledged a data breach affecting about 1,000 patients. A statement from the medical center described an investigation of the possible disclosure of personal identifier information through...

Medicare Allows Some Faxed Prescriptions.
August 1, 2008... A proposed rule setting Medicare payment policies for physicians for calendar year 2009 includes an exemption to the pending elimination of computer-generated faxes for prescriptions and refills. In the proposed rule, the Centers for Medicare...

SureScripts, RxHub Join Forces.
August 1, 2008... National electronic prescription network vendors SureScripts and RxHub LLC have formed a single company in what they call a cashless merger of equals. Both companies formed in 2001 and previously discussed combining forces. The National...

Groups Endorse PHR Best Practices.
August 1, 2008... Thirty-one organizations, working with the Connecting for Health public-private industry consortium, have endorsed consensus-based policies and practices for personal health records and related services on the Internet. The organizations...

CCHIT to certify PHRs.(Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, personal health records)
August 1, 2008... The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology has appointed a 17-member advisory task force to help create a personal health records certification program to begin in 2009. CCHIT planned to conduct an environmental scan in...

GAO: Privacy Laws Need Revamping.
August 1, 2008... Congress should revise the scope of federal privacy laws, including those pertaining to medical information, to cover all personal information and limit the use of that information, according to recent congressional testimony from the...

ACLU blasts I.T. bill.(American Civil Liberties Union)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... Health care information technology legislation introduced in the House does not adequately protect patient privacy, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Leaders of the Energy & Commerce Committee introduced H.R. 6357, and the health...

Group Tackles Security Best Practices.
August 1, 2008... The Health Information Trust Alliance, an industry consortium, expects in January 2009 to introduce its Common Security Framework for Electronic Health Information. Participants in the group, formed in December 2007, are working to develop a...

Hospital I.T. Spending Up.
August 1, 2008... HIMSS Analytics, a market research and consulting unit of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society in Chicago, expects hospital information technology spending to increase 10% in 2008. However, analysts then expect smaller...

Blues Parent Buys MEDecision.
August 1, 2008... Health Care Service Corp., which owns Blues plans in four states, has purchased MEDecison Inc., a vendor of software for managed care organizations. The Chicago-based payer paid $7 per share for the company, in a deal estimated to be worth $121...

Hospitals to Subsidize I.T. for Docs.
August 1, 2008... Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, Ill., is testing integrated practice management/electronic health records software with five independent physicians, with the intent to offer it to 100 other physicians in the community. The 336-bed...

CCHIT Certifies 18 More EHRs.
August 1, 2008... The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology in recent weeks has certified specific versions of 18 more ambulatory electronic health records systems under 2007 certification criteria. Several of these products received...

Study Cites RFID Interference.
August 1, 2008... A study conducted more than two years ago but only now being published contends radio frequency identification technology can cause significant electromagnetic interference on critical care equipment. The study of interference by two RFID...

National HIE Effort Launched.
August 1, 2008... Three major technology vendors have combined their services to create a national health information exchange network. The HIE is designed to enable consumers using the HealthVault personal health records technology from Microsoft Corp.,...

Initiate Pulls Planned IPO.
August 1, 2008... Initiate Systems Inc., which sells identity and data management software, has withdrawn its plans to conduct an initial public offering of stock it hoped would raise $75 million. The Chicago-based company last November filed a registration...

QuadraMed Returns to NASDAQ.
August 1, 2008... More than five years after losing its listing on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, hospital software vendor QuadraMed Corp. resumed trading on the exchange in July. Trading on the NASDAQ raises the visibility and prestige of publicly held companies...

Blues Plans Team With HSA Bank.
August 1, 2008... Health Care Service Corp., which licenses Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in four states, will enable members of consumer-directed health plans to access their plan and health savings account information on a secure Web site. The Chicago-based...

Health Standards Groups Merge.
August 1, 2008... Two health data supply chain standards organizations will merge their efforts.The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based not-for-profit Coalition for Healthcare eStandards will legally dissolve and serve as a committee under the Health Industry Group...

CVS to Offer Records Via HealthVault.
August 1, 2008... CVS Caremark will make prescription histories from its retail and mail order pharmacies, and medical records from its in-store MinuteClinics, available to consumers via a HealthVault account from Microsoft Corp. The alliance means consumers...

Changes at Sage Include Layoffs.
August 1, 2008... A restructuring initiative at Sage Software Healthcare Inc. has reduced the physician software vendors workforce by approximately 235 employees. The workforce at the Tampa, Fla.-based company, best known for its Medical Manager software, now...

EHRs a Big Challenge for Docs.
August 1, 2008... Selecting and implementing an electronic health records system is one of the five major challenges of running a physician group practice, according to results of a survey of practice managers by the Medical Group Management Association,...

JCAHO Seeks User-Friendly Standards.
August 1, 2008... The Joint Commission has published online, in new formats, its revised standards, rationales and elements of performance for 2009. The standards, effective on Jan. 1, 2009, have been published to give organizations time to become familiar with...

The Hospital as the Network Hub: Frustrated with the slow implementation of RHIOs and HIEs, more hospitals are building their own networks to link to area physicians.
August 1, 2008... A growing number of hospitals and integrated delivery systems are tired of the hurry up and wait game involved with many regional health information organizations. So theyre taking matters into their own hands, building hospital-centric...

Subsidies Are Off To A Slow Start.
August 1, 2008... Federal action that paved the way for hospitals to subsidize a portion of the cost of electronic health records for physicians has yet to trigger a surge of automation interest among physicians, some observers say. And some providers...

The Role Document Management Will Play in EHRs: Providers are using the technology to add data to electronic records. But for how long?
August 1, 2008... Early this year, The Cleveland Clinic started capturing images of electrocardiograms in its document imaging and management systems data repository and making the images available to clinicians via the clinics electronic health records system....

Does Document Management Have Staying Power?
August 1, 2008... If asked three years ago, Dan Slates, director of integrated enterprise applications at The Cleveland Clinic, would have said that document managements value would decrease as sophisticated EHR applications became more common. Now, he...

I.T. Helps ERs Get Connected: Hospitals integrate emergency department information systems with other applications.
August 1, 2008... In 2007, PHYSICIANS at Exempla St. Josephs Hospital in Denver requested that the hospital install a new emergency department information system so they could have a more organized view of current data for their patients. But they also insisted...

Mission: Finding Patient Data: eHealth Global Technologies Inc. is expanding its eHealthConnect health data exchange outsourcing service.
August 1, 2008... The service, launched in early 2007, is designed to enable data sharing by collecting a patients electronic and paper medical records from multiple providers, digitizing the paper or film, and transmitting the records to the requesting...

Is It Worth The Risk?: Serving as a beta test site can yield substantial benefits. But it also can mean plenty of headaches.
August 1, 2008... Hospitals considering whether they should serve as beta test sites for software must thoroughly assess whether the risks involved are worth taking in light of the potential benefits, consultants as well as CIOs advise. Its really critical...

EHR a Saint at Volunteer Practice: Doctors offering care to indigent patients reap benefits from a donated electronic records system.
August 1, 2008... St. Vincent de Paul Village Family Health Center, a not-for-profit group practice staffed by volunteer physicians, wanted to implement an electronic health records system. But to fund the purchase of the software, related hardware and network...

Easing The Transfer Of Data: A Medicaid HMO creates 'scripts' to move data between applications.
August 1, 2008... When managed care organizations receive electronic data from a third party, they usually have two options for how they can integrate it into their core systems. They can build a custom interface to transfer the data. Or they can transfer the...

Contracts Update.
August 1, 2008... The Contracts Update section includes announcements of contracts that health care information technology companies have signed with customers in recent weeks. Contract news can be sent to Health Data Management by e-mail to:...

PHRs raise many issues: where are we headed?(personal health record)
August 1, 2008... The personal health record landscape is rapidly changing. Many issues are being uncovered, including concerns over the privacy and security of an individuals personal health information in the PHR; access and control of data; secondary uses of...