Health Data Management articles from June 2007

Health Data Management archives from June 2007

From Front to Back, a New and Improved HDM.(Health Data Management)
June 1, 2007... Well, here it is, the redesign I've been telling you about. The goal of the effort was to visually open up the magazine and add new features that provide valuable information from cover to cover. The Newsline section was redesigned to...

Editorial/Ad Index.
June 1, 2007... A Albin, Jim, Mercy Health Partners 48 America's Health Insurance Plans 40 American Express Co. 46 AMICAS Inc. 52 Argus Connection Inc. 16 athenahealth Inc. 36, 56 B BayHealth Medical Center 18 Beebe...

Government Funding Of Information Technology Tools For First Responders Needs To Be A Higher Priority. Do You Agree Or Disagree?(survey)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Source: Health Data Management Web site, www.healthdatamanagement.com, April 2007 survey results. 495 responses AGREE Philip Powers Director of Health Informatics Health Policy Institute of Ohio, Columbus "Having accurate...

Real-Time adjudication Gets a Boost.(UnitedHealth Group Inc. UnitedHealthcare)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... In a trailblazing move for a national insurance company, the UnitedHealthcare division of United Health Group, has launched real-time adjudication of claims submitted through its physician Web site. The service is designed to adjudicate a...

Kaiser Offers Heart Program to Others.(Kaiser Permanente Hawaii)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Kaiser Permanente is expanding access to its Healthy Heart disease management program outside its enterprise via Web-based services, grants and consulting services. The Oakland, Calif.-based provider/payer organization believes the program...

Nanotechnology Standards Mapped.
June 1, 2007... The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a technological society and standards development organization, has published a roadmap for creating standards to aid in transitioning electronic applications based on nanotechnology from...

Security Update Part of Fed Agenda.
June 1, 2007... The federal government is getting ready to tighten the HIPAA security rule in the wake of several incidents of compromised patient data involving laptops and other mobile computing devices. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services...

Standard for ER Systems in Works.
June 1, 2007... A new "registered profile," or a subset of an existing standard, could ease the creation of criteria to certify the functionality, interoperability and security/reliability of emergency department information systems. Standards development...

Hospital Uses PDA App for Patient Transport.
June 1, 2007... For Potomac Hospital, managing patient transport requests via a paging system had become too cumbersome and time-consuming. After paging a patient transporter, nurses had to wait for them to call back, which often resulted in delays in patient...

Nurses Get Maps via Phones.
June 1, 2007... Swedish Medical Center's Home Care Division has deployed software that enables its nurses to receive maps and directions to patient homes via their mobile phones. The Seattle-based provider organization is using the TeleNav Track system...

Headgear Provides Injury Data.(Simbex introduced wireless technology)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Simbex, Lebanon, N.H., has developed technology that can wirelessly transmit a sports player's head injury data from their headgear to caregivers at the scene. The technology comprises a sensor that can be embedded into a variety of...

Medicare NPI Contingency May Be Brief.
June 1, 2007... Medicare could begin as early as July 1 to reject fee-for-service claims that do not contain a national provider identifier for the primary (or rendering) provider, according to a notice recently posted online by the Centers for Medicare and...

Assignment: Destroy Drives.
June 1, 2007... How long does it take to wipe 800 hard drives? The I.T. executives at Baylor Health Care System didn't want to find out. The Dallas-based delivery system, which has multiple hospitals and clinics around northern Texas, was undergoing a...

Wheaton Works Through $61 Million Project.
June 1, 2007... Ten-hospital Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare since 1998 has had a relationship with McKesson Corp., using the vendor's information systems across several of its facilities. But starting last July, the Milwaukee-based delivery system embarked...

Finally, a Statewide Network Goes Live.
June 1, 2007... Dozens of statewide health data exchanges have been in the talking stages for many months. But on March 29, the Delaware Health Information Network actually turned on the switch. Five hospitals in three delivery systems started transmitting...

Cerner Markets Benefit Tech to Others.
June 1, 2007... For 2007, Cerner Corp. offered its U.S.-based employees only consumer-driven health care plans that included an integrated identification and payment card, transactions processing services and Web-based benefits management tools. Now, the...

Making the Most of Server Capacity.
June 1, 2007... The Data Resource Center at University of Utah Health Care was stretched to the limit-or so executives thought. The facility was so packed with hundreds of servers that it was running out of power capacity. Cooling was becoming an issue-and so...

Newsline Digest.
June 1, 2007... KOLODNER NAMED PERMANENT COORDINATOR Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt has named Robert M. Kolodner, M.D., as the permanent national coordinator for health information technology. Kolodner has served as...

Stock Chart.(of Health Care Technology Companies)(Statistical table)
June 1, 2007... Health Care Technology Companies, as of May 2, 2007 Price Price as a One Six One Mkt Company on % of 52 month month year YTD Cap name Ticker 5/2/2007 wk...

CFOs Measure the Benefits of New Technology: Financial officers are playing a lead role in assessing the value of information technology investments and then measuring the impact.
June 1, 2007... In the early days of applying information technology in health care, many CFOs were in the driver's seat. The first applications on the market were designed to automate the billing process, so it was only natural that the CFO called the shots....

CFOs provide real-world insights.
June 1, 2007... Health care CFOs are learning how to play a vital role in weighing the merits of information technology investments. Here's a sampling of their advice: * Build long-term relationships with vendors. Hospital CFOs need to take a lead role in...

One CFO's role, step by step.(Aaron Crane of Salem (Ore.) Regional Health Services)
June 1, 2007... CFO Aaron Crane was involved every step of the way in Salem (Ore.) Regional Health Services' journey toward installing a major new information system. "I was part of the process of looking at vendors so that I could understand the risks of...

Taking Consumer-Driven Health to the Bank: Financial institutions are playing an increasingly important role in a new model of health insurance.
June 1, 2007... Participation in consumer-driven health plans has not yet caught on to the degree proponents envisioned. Still, the number of consumers covered by these high-deductible plans that are coupled with health savings accounts isn't inconsequential....

I.T. helps employer navigate insurance.
June 1, 2007... Daniel Island Company, a resort in Charleston, S.C., has offered its employees high-deductible health plans with health savings accounts for three years. And the consumer-driven plans have worked as advertised-the resort's tab for health care...

Providers Illuminate PACS Enterprisewide: Organizations use various strategies to share electronic clinical images with all types of caregivers.(picture archiving and communication systems)(Mercy Health Partners)
June 1, 2007... Three years ago, executives at Mercy Health Partners decided to reevaluate how the seven-hospital delivery system manages clinical images. Images were playing a larger role in patient care, so executives wanted all types of images, including...

Sage Sets its Health I.T. Table: The Sage Group's September acquisition of Emdeon Practice Services felt like deliverance, says Andy Corbin, CEO at the new Sage Software Healthcare Division.
June 1, 2007... "We have been liberated here, MOrale is higher than ever," he adds. "Under Emdeon, no one knew what would happen tomorrow. It's a whole new culture here." Corbin previously served in senior positions, including CFO, within Elmwood Park,...

Software Becomes Hands-On: An ASP helps practice focus on what's important.
June 1, 2007... Secretaries and schedulers at Ohio Gastroenterology Group used to inch their way through a day-by-day electronic calendar to set up patient visits. They now can see three months at a glance and simultaneously view openings for all 21 physicians...

Building a RHIO, Bit by Bit: Years in the making, a modest Texas networking effort is taking off.(regional health information organization)
June 1, 2007... The longest journey starts with a single step, the old saying goes. In Texas, a project that is evolving into a regional health information organization had its roots in a modest 1998 effort to give doctors better access to data. Today,...

Reaching Out to Rural Residents: A Georgia telemedicine program provides access to specialists for those who live far from cities.
June 1, 2007... Spencer Welch, M.D., an endocrinologist and director of the Diabetes Resource Center at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, typically spends Friday afternoons doing administrative work in his office. After signing on as a consulting physician...

Contracts Update.(health care information technology)
June 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.
June 1, 2007... The majority of managed care companies say they are encouraging physicians to adopt information technology to participate in pay-for-performance programs. But most are not providing financial incentives for practices to do so, according to a...

Making the Clinicians Mobile: Doctors and nurses need unfettered access to information and patients.
June 1, 2007... Health care CIOs have broadly accepted and understand the value of mobility in the clinical setting. But it's incumbent on each of us to play a larger role in hastening adoption of the mobility infrastructure for the most important reason of...