Health Data Management articles from January 2008

Health Data Management archives from January 2008

After 15 Years, Relationship Still Going Strong.
January 1, 2008... This year marks the 15th anniversary of Health Data Management being in the business of reporting on the latest and greatest developments in health care information technology. I've been flipping through HDM editions from the early 1990s,...

Editorial/Ad Index.
January 1, 2008... 3M 38 A Aetna Inc. 30 athenahealth Inc. 48 Awarix Inc. 50 B Bahremand, Baram, ProMed Health Care Administrators 76 Battery Ventures 50 Barto, Julie, Siouxland Women's Health Care 72 Bartzack,...

My vendors have been upfront about the hidden costs of implementing their software products.
January 1, 2008... DISAGREE Steve Hight Director of Strategic Technology Projects Catholic Healthcare West, Phoenix "If vendors were upfront about hidden costs, they wouldn't be called 'hidden.' Our experience has shown that relying solely on...

Sunday at HIMSS: The Show Before the Show.(Conference news)
January 1, 2008... Attendees looking for extended, in-depth educational sessions at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Annual Conference & Exhibition could have that experience if they show up a day early. Sunday, Feb. 24, the day...

Workshop Teaches Managers Security Basics.(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Health information security consultant Tom Walsh adheres to core teachings of the best practices for I.T. governance collected by United Kingdom's Information Technology Infrastructure Library. "It's people, processes and technology, in that...

CIO: Market I.T. Department Internally.
January 1, 2008... Health care CIOs need to do a better job marketing within their organization the value of the information systems department, says Chuck Christian, director of information systems and CIO at Good Samaritan Hospital in Vincennes, Ind. "If you're...

Session Topic: Writing an I.T. Donation Contract.
January 1, 2008... Hospitals that have launched information technology donation/subsidy programs to encourage community physicians to adopt electronic health records remain far and few between. But many more are considering such programs and an educational...

New Discovery Rules Have Twists.
January 1, 2008... New federal rules of civil procedure laying out how the government will ask organizations for electronic investigatory information and how to produce it, came out in December 2006. But most health care organizations still don't understand the...

Getting Paid from HSAs Can be Perilous.
January 1, 2008... Most provider organizations still do not know how to handle payment arrangements for patients with a health savings account, says consultant Steven Lazarus. During the HIMSS Conference, Lazarus, president at Denver-based Boundary...

Payers Inching Toward Transparency.
January 1, 2008... Managed care companies are starting to invest in technology that enables financial transparency, but companies first need to organize their own data, according to a report from Health Industry Insights, Framingham, Mass. To provide accurate...

JCAHO Releases Quality, Safety Data.
January 1, 2008... Hospitals in 2006 demonstrated more than 90% compliance with 10 of the patient safety goals issued by the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. The Oak Brook, Ill.-based organization on Nov. 12 released its second...

Newsline Digest: Newsline Digest presents highlights of the latest health care I.T. news as reported on the Health Data Management Web site. For extended versions of these and many other original news stories, visit www.healthdatamanagement.com.
January 1, 2008... GROUP SEEKS DRUG SAFETY APPS The eHealth Initiative, a consortium of industry stakeholders, has launched a program to identify and develop information technology tools to assess the risks and benefits of new drug treatments. Resulting tools...

Stats Snapshot.
January 1, 2008... To provide consumers with all the information they need to make health care decisions, cost information is paramount. Payer organizations are starting to make information technology investments that enable financial transparency, but there's...

Stock Chart.(Statistical table)
January 1, 2008... HEALTH CARE TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES, as of December 3, 2007 Price Price as a One Six One Mkt Company on % of 52 month month year YTD Cap name Ticker 12/3/07 wk high chnge chnge chnge chnge...

Making a Better Connection: Providers and payers are exchanging a wider variety of financial information and looking to share clinical data as well.
January 1, 2008... This story is the first in an in-depth, three-part series Health Data Management will publish this year about I.T. innovations and trends in revenue cycle management. We'll also be running three other series of feature-length articles on...

For One Payer, Clinical Data Is Priority One.
January 1, 2008... Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island is so convinced that electronic health records lead to improved quality of care that it's helping doctors pay for the software. In addition, the plan is taking the extraordinary step of offering doctors...

A Clinic Starts From Scratch.
January 1, 2008... Family Practice Clinic, a tiny office in rural Dyersburg, Tenn., has extremely limited resources, so clinic manager Mimi Cherry figured it would be far too expensive to file claims electronically. Earlier this year, however, she took the...

RFID Moves Beyond Assets: Provider organizations use tracking technologies to help improve workflow, quality of care and patient safety.
January 1, 2008... Columbus (Ind.) Regional Hospital executives wanted to get the most bang for the buck from their new nurse call system. So when they discovered that the technology, from Rauland-Borg Corp., Skokie, Ill., can use radio frequency...

Passive RFID yields workflow benefits.
January 1, 2008... Active radio frequency identification often the RFID flavor of choice for tracking assets and people. But some facilities are finding that passive RFID, used strategically, can provide many of the same benefits. Active RFID uses...

Keeping up with supplies.
January 1, 2008... New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell is using passive RFID to improve patient care in its cardiac surgery department. The hospital initially implemented the tracking system, from Pittsburgh-based Mobile Aspects Inc., to manage...

No Let-Up for Health I.T. Mergers: Renewed industry consolidation in recent years hasn't slowed a bit.
January 1, 2008... Health care information technology acquisition activity that picked up speed in 2006 kept up the pace in 2007. There were no blockbuster billion-dollar buys, with the exception of the $2.35 billion Eastman Kodak Health Group acquisition by...

Business as Usual No Longer: Introduction last fall of a reseller program and a simplified version of its single-sign-on software mark new paths for Sentillion Inc.
January 1, 2008... The Andover, Mass.-based vendor in November launched a "Channel Partner Program" under which it will certify resellers to market its products used by more than 525 hospitals and some large clinics. Sentillion sells the Vergence suite of...

Keeping an Automated Eye on Sepsis: Monitoring software enables clinicians to flag and combat deadly condition.
January 1, 2008... Sepsis is a killer, which is not news to inpatient facilities that struggle on a daily basis to keep their patients out of its devastating way. Sepsis, often referred to as blood poisoning, occurs when the body overreacts to an infection....

Bell Curve Tolls For Practice: Efficiencies abound with integrated EHR, practice management system.
January 1, 2008... Siouxland Women's Health Care P.C. has logged a number of benefits from using an electronic health record, and one of the most important has been creating a bell curve. When the four-physician, Sioux City, Iowa-based obstetrics practice...

Claims Processing Gets a Little Help: A TPA uses auditing software to verify claims are coded, processed and paid correctly.
January 1, 2008... As a third party administrator that serves two multispecialty Independent Physician Associations, ProMed Health Care Administrators handles a variety of payment contracts. The Ontario, Calif.-based TPA manages conventional fee-for-service...

The Three Wise Men: Building a team to get the I.T. job done.
January 1, 2008... This is a story of the three wise men of health care information technology, the chief medical information officer, the chief information officer and the chief medical officer. These three have been, in large measure, responsible for the...