Health Data Management articles from July 2007

Health Data Management archives from July 2007

Tempests Swirl Over I.T. Donations and Adoption.
July 1, 2007... Physicians are being harried by everyone from President Bush to 15-year-old patients to ditch their paper charts and accept the warm embrace of technology, more specifically, electronic health records. The federal government is trying to...

Editorial/Ad Index.(Editorial)
July 1, 2007... A AMD Telehealth Inc. 38 American Telemedicine Association 38 Angood, Peter, JCAHO 44 B Banchy,Pam, Summa Health System 46 Bauer, Jeffrey, Affiliated Computer Services 34 Bayne, C. Gresham, Call Doctor...

Readers' Perspective.
July 1, 2007... The relaxation of the Stark regulations, which enables hospitals to help fund clinics' automation projects, will lead to rapid growth of electronic health records in outpatient settings in the next year. Agree or disagree? AGREE ...

IRS Rules on I.T. Donations.(Internal Revenue Service)(information technology)
July 1, 2007... The recent Internal Revenue Service ruling that permits not-for-profit hospitals to donate information technology and related services gives a boost to efforts to accelerate physician I.T. adoption, industry observers say. At the same time,...

Bill Offers $4 Billion in Health I.T.
July 1, 2007... Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) have introduced legislation to authorize more than $4 billion in grants to providers over five years to adopt interoperable information technology. The Health Information...

AMA Reaches Out to Docs Online.
July 1, 2007... Two new online offerings by the American Medical Association are part of an initiative to enhance its Internet presence. "We see the Internet as another tool to communicate with and get feedback from our members," says Cecil Wilson, M.D.,...

Report: I.T. Can Boost Child Coverage.
July 1, 2007... Information technology can play an important role in increasing the number of children enrolled in health insurance plans, according to a new report. The report from The Children's Partnership and the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the...

Guide Outlines RFID Security Steps.
July 1, 2007... Health care organizations that use or are planning to use radio frequency identification should evaluate the possible security and privacy risks involved with the technology, as well as best practices to mitigate them, according to a new...

Blues Plans May Have brief NPI Contingency Plans.
July 1, 2007... While most payer organizations have welcomed the extra year of time to comply with the HIPAA National Provider Identification rule that was granted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last April, not all of them will take the full...

Progress for DOD/VA Integration.(Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have made some progress during a nine-year effort to share information among their computer systems, according to recent congressional testimony from the Government Accountability Office, an...

Workstations Connect Dialysis Units.
July 1, 2007... The Dialysis Center of Lincoln (Neb.) is using mobile clinical workstations to support remote physician consultations and patient education using telemedicine technology. The center includes two facilities in Lincoln, one in Beatrice 41...

HP Joins California Network Effort.
July 1, 2007... CalRHIO has added Hewlett-Packard Co. to its vendor team for building a statewide health information exchange in California. CalRHIO expects other big-name technology vendors to join the effort. The organization in March selected Salt Lake...

Kansas to Test Remote Home Monitoring.(Windsor Place At-Home Care)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Windsor Place At-Home Care, a Coffeyville, Kan.-based home health agency, will place remote patient monitoring devices in the homes of 50 patients. The agency is participating in a 12-month test of remote monitoring with the Kansas...

Apps Let Heart Patients Test at Home.
July 1, 2007... Tucson, Ariz.-based Pima Heart, a group practice, has licensed a testing device and related software to better monitor the blood clotting time of patients at home. The practice will offer the INRatio PT/INR portable monitoring device of...

Henry Ford Focuses On 'Pit Stops'.
July 1, 2007... Henry Ford Health System has embarked on a program to offer online "pit stops" to chronically ill patients, including those fighting ongoing battles with depression. The bulk of Detroit-based Henry Ford's e-visits are with patients wanting...

Group to Fight for Health I.T. Legislation.(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Two former members of Congress will lead a coalition that will push Congress to enact health care information technology legislation. Former Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.) and former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) announced the Health IT Now!...

CalPERS Looks to Invest $700 Million.
July 1, 2007... The California Public Employees' Retirement System, working with David Brailer, M.D., former national coordinator for health information technology, will invest up to $700 million in health care improvement initiatives, including those using...

Emergency Rx Program Expands.
July 1, 2007... With the hurricane season underway, three more pharmacy chains have joined an effort to offer clinicians access to patient prescription records during a local or regional emergency. The newest members of the In Case of Emergency...

Newsline Digest.
July 1, 2007... CMS UNVEILS NPI DATA DISSEMINATION The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has announced how it will enable access to data from its National Plan and Provider Enumeration System. According to guidance published in the May 30 edition...

Stock Chart.
July 1, 2007... Health Care Technology Companies, as of June 1, 2007 Price Price as a One Six One Mkt Company on % of 52 month month year YTD Cap name Ticker 6/1/2007 wk...

Technology Integration at the Point of Care: Providers synch hardware, software and wireless networks to enable clinicians to access patient data from multiple locations.
July 1, 2007... Duncan (Okla.) Regional Hospital CIO Roger Neal had a single, yet extremely important, requirement for a point-of-care medication administration system: It had to fit within nurses' workflow. That single requirement, however, could only be...

Challenge: The point of care is everywhere.
July 1, 2007... When Gay Madden became vice president of information systems at The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast almost three years ago, she was confronted by a daunting task. She was told to implement an integrated point-of-care system for an...

Bringing I.T. Into the Home: Vendors are delivering new ways to monitor telehealth patients, but users still wish for more.
July 1, 2007... Getting adults to rigorously comply with their treatment regime isn't easy. Getting teenagers to comply is even more difficult. When teens with Type 1 diabetes don't effectively manage their disease, Mark Piehl, M.D., sometimes winds up...

A Doctor Is in the House.
July 1, 2007... Some doctors do still make house calls. C. Gresham Bayne, M.D., has "done nothing but house calls" for more than two decades. He's tried dozens of information systems to support his work, "and none of them could do everything we needed a system...

Medication Reconciliation: What Role Will I.T. Play?: Hospitals are developing customized approaches to tackling the challenging process of tracking inpatient and outpatient meds.
July 1, 2007... Medication reconciliation, the difficult process of keeping track of all prescribed and over-the-counter medications a patient takes before, during and after hospitalization, can have a profound impact on patient outcomes. "If we fail to...

Rolling with the changes: After more than two decades of serving smaller hospitals, Healthcare Management Systems chases an ever-shifting market.
July 1, 2007... Hospital information systems vendor Healthcare Management Systems Inc. has had the same overriding market strategy since its formation in 1984. "Our proposition from the beginning was an integrated product for the small hospital market," says...

Online Records Get Personalized: Instead of just test results, docs are giving in-depth information on the meaning of patient treatments.(Website overview)
July 1, 2007... For patients who see physicians from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in California, getting the results of a cholesterol test can involve more than just a phone call from a nurse. Patients can sign up to receive the readings-along with...

Spartanburg Straightens Out Document Fulfillment Process: To improve its delivery, provider uses I.T. to work on release.
July 1, 2007... For hospitals and clinics alike, responding to requests from patients, attorneys and insurance companies for copies of treatment documents and other information contained in medical records can be a time-consuming, cumbersome and costly...

Taking The 'H' Out Of HR: Web-based system simplifies task of processing simple tasks.
July 1, 2007... The human resources department at Blue Shield of California used to rely on paper for virtually every administrative task. Paper forms for employee address and phone number changes. Paper forms to confirm raises and promotions. With 4,500...

Contracts Update.
July 1, 2007... The Contracts Update section includes announcements of contracts that health care information technology vendors have signed with customers in recent weeks. Contract news can be sent to Health Data Management by e-mail to...

Stats Snapshot.(doctors and patients are more comfortable using the Internet to communicate with each other)(Survey)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Physicians increasingly are comfortable using the Internet to communicate with patients and are more accepting of patients using the Web to compile treatment information, according to a survey from New York-based Manhattan Research. The survey...

Keeping I.T. On The Track: CIOs can learn a lot about running an I.T. shop from watching NASCAR.
July 1, 2007... The work place is getting progressively tougher. There's tremendous pressure to perform; competition for scarce resources; unrealistic expectations; lots of heat generated in the C-suite; and a longing for a lifestyle that affords time for...