Health Data Management articles from March 2006

Health Data Management archives from March 2006

It's Time to Honor Nurses Who Are I.T. Leaders.
March 1, 2006... Across the country, at hospitals and clinics large and small, nurses are playing a bigger role in the selection and implementation of information technology. And that's good news, because nurses clearly are among the biggest users of clinical...

Payers Build a Rulebook for HIPAA Transactions.(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996)
March 1, 2006... An initiative to build on the HIPAA transactions standards and make them easier to use is approaching its initial goal. More than 80 industry stakeholders, including insurers, providers, government agencies, vendors and others, are...

Allscripts Looks to Broaden its Horizons.
March 1, 2006... For many years, Allscripts LLC has had a lucrative strategic alliance selling its TouchWorks electronic medical records software to the physician practice management customer base of IDX Systems Corp. But that relationship was thrown into...

An Electronic Lifeline for Families in Need.(National Institutes of Health in Bethesda)
March 1, 2006... Seven-year-old Nino Todaro of Carlisle, Pa., has periodic fever syndrome. The immune system disorder makes him regularly suffer from dangerously high fevers, often in the 107-degree range. The treatment is unconventional and experimental. ...

Brailer Finalizes His Senior Team.(Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has filled the top positions for four offices within the unit. The directors of the offices will report to David Brailer, M.D., the national coordinator. Brailer announced...

HIMSS Analytics Expands Portfolio.(Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... HIMSS Analytics LLC, which collects and sells competitive data on provider use of information technology, is introducing new services. The company is a subsidiary of Chicago-based Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. The new...

HHS Funds E-Rx Pilots.
March 1, 2006... The Department of Health and Human Services has awarded a total of $6 million in funding to four pilot projects that will test electronic prescribing standards the department has proposed under the new Medicare Part D prescription program. The...

Continuity of Care Standard Approved.
March 1, 2006... Standards development organization ASTM International has given final approval to the Continuity of Care Record standard. The standard is designed to be a set of medical data that can be transmitted and shared among physicians and facilities....

Feds Boost Funds for E-Grants.
March 1, 2006... Twenty of 26 federal grant-making departments and agencies achieved a fiscal 2005 goal of making 25% of their discretionary funding opportunities available on the Grants.gov Web site. Programs within the Department of Health and Human Services...

Misys Purchases Payerpath.(Misys Healthcare Systems has acquired claims clearinghouse Payerpath Inc)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Misys Healthcare Systems has acquired claims clearinghouse Payerpath Inc. for $49 million. Raleigh, N.C.-based Misys is a vendor of practice management/electronic medical records software for physicians, ancillary software for hospitals, and...

Johnson Controls Makes a Deal.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls Inc. has made a minority investment in Emergin Inc., a Boca Raton, Fla.-based systems integration firm. Terms were not disclosed, but Johnson Controls will package Emergin's integration technology with its...

Qualis Health Buys Outlook Associates.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Seattle-based Qualis Heath, a not-for-profit health care quality improvement organization, has acquired Outlook Associates, a Tustin, Calif.-based health care I.T. consulting firm. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Qualis Health is the...

WebMD Health Buys More Content.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... WebMD Health Corp., a vendor of online medical information content for clinicians and consumers, has acquired eMedicine.com Inc., which offers complementary services. New York-based WebMD Health paid $25.5 million for eMedicine.com, which had...

Accuro Acquires CodeCorrect.(Accuro Healthcare Solutions Inc)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Accuro Healthcare Solutions Inc. has acquired CodeCorrect LLC for an undisclosed sum. Yakima, Wash.-based CodeCorrect sells a variety of coding compliance and revenue management software for hospitals. It recently introduced software to verify...

MedAssets Makes Another Buy.(Avega Health Systems)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... MedAssets Inc., a group purchasing organization, has acquired Avega Health Systems, a vendor of financial management software for acute care hospitals. Acquisition terms were not disclosed. The deal is the latest for Alpharetta, Ga.-based...

North Carolina Blues Wants E-Scripts.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina will distribute electronic prescription software and related equipment to 1,000 primary care physicians. The Blues plans has signed a contract with DrFirst Inc., Rockville, Md., to offer the...

Cisco, Intel, Oracle Pay for Quality.
March 1, 2006... Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and Oracle Corp. have formed a consortium that will reward doctors for using technology to share information and improve care. The Silicon Valley Pay-for-Performance Consortium will include technology companies,...

One Records Vendor Buys Another.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Medsphere Systems Corp., Aliso Viejo, Calif., has acquired Clinical Informatics Associates Inc. of Indianapolis. Terms were not disclosed. Both vendors sell electronic medical records software to the ambulatory and hospital markets based on the...

Symbol Keeps Iannuzzi in CEO Spot.
March 1, 2006... Holtsville, N.Y.-based Symbol Technologies Inc. has named Sal Iannuzzi as president and CEO, positions he's held on an interim basis since August. His goals are to extend Symbol's presence in the health care market and invest in next-generation...

Stock Chart.(Illustration)
March 1, 2006... (part 1 of 3) Price Price as on a % of 52 Health care software companies 2/2/2006 Wk High ...

Christiana Hospital Honored for Groundbreaking Project.
March 1, 2006... Before November 2004, Christiana Hospital had a hard time keeping track of the 100 or more patients in its emergency department. Manual data entry often lagged patient movement. The hospital's research found that multiple phone calls and...

About the Award Competition.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Health Data Management developed the Nursing Information Technology Innovation Award in collaboration with the Maryland Technology Workgroup, a groundbreaking organization studying the use of technology to assist nurses in caring for patients...

Honorable Mention: Under Pressure to Prevent Bed Sores.
March 1, 2006... When pressure ulcers go untreated they can be deadly. Nurses need to identify when there's a problem and notify wound care specialists to remedy the situation, but with so many responsibilities and dwindling numbers, sometimes ulcers go...

Honorable Mention: Online Checklists Replacing Paper Forms.
March 1, 2006... Typically there's a lot of paperwork when a nurse starts a new job at a hospital. Hospitals need to keep these records for regulatory purposes to prove that the staff is properly trained, but paper orientation checklists have a tendency to...

Honorable Mention: PDAs Bring Data to Point of Care.(Personal digital assistants)
March 1, 2006... Until last spring, there was very little clinical data available at the bedside at Virtua West Jersey Hospital Voorhees (N.J.). The Voorhees hospital is one of four in Virtua Health, a Marlton, N.J.-based delivery system. Virtua Health is...

Honorable Mention: Homegrown Tracking System Works Wonders.
March 1, 2006... Reducing long waits in the emergency department is a challenge for most hospitals. How they tackle the issue is different for each. At Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare, the delivery system's information systems department...

Making the Case for Electronic Records: Group practices find that saving money doesn't have to drive the business decision to automate.
March 1, 2006... Physician practices face several challenges after making the decision to adopt electronic medical records. Even if clinicians and staff have philosophically accepted the need to automate clinical processes, a practice still must make a...

System Saved to a Tablet PC Saves Practice.
March 1, 2006... Scott Needle, M.D., wasn't sure his pediatrics practice would survive as Hurricane Katrina aimed for the Gulf Coast last August. The storm did wipe out the practice, but its patient records were unscathed. The solo practitioner at Bay St....

Second Time's a Charm.(Darin M. Camarena Health Centers signed a contract to implement electronic medical records software)
March 1, 2006... Darin M. Camarena Health Centers in Madera County, Calif., recently signed a contract to implement electronic medical records software. The three-site, federally qualified health center expects to go live in late June with the IC-Chart...

Taking Advantage of EMR Capabilities.(electronic medical records)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... There are many reasons a physician practice chooses to implement electronic medical records. Launching targeted marketing programs wasn't one of them for Hanover Family Physicians in Mechanicsville, Va. Practices, however, often find...

Small Hospitals Take on Big Projects: Despite shortcomings of funds and I.T. staff, small providers find ways to deploy new technology.
March 1, 2006... Small hospitals may outnumber their larger peers, but they have a lot of catching up to do in terms of information technology. More than 70% of registered U.S. hospitals have fewer than 200 beds, according to the Chicago-based American...

Small Provider Becomes ASP.(Cascade Medical Imaging purchased a picture archiving and communication system)
March 1, 2006... When Cascade Medical Imaging purchased a picture archiving and communication system, it wanted to share its good fortune. The Bend, Ore.-based organization, a joint venture between two-hospital, 263-bed Cascade Healthcare Community and...

I.T. Modernizes House Calls: Home-monitoring systems enable agencies to check in on patients without daily visits.(Valley Home Health and Hospice)
March 1, 2006... Valley Home Health and Hospice has replaced some of its nurses with boxes. The boxes are a component of a home-monitoring system from Well at Home, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Patient Care Technologies Inc., that connect to other devices to...

Provider Searches for Accurate Data: Delivery system uses validation app to check demographics and determine charity eligibility.
March 1, 2006... For all the talk about e-health and computerized care, getting the mail out is still a significant challenge-and a financial black hole-for many organizations. At Parkland Health and Hospital System, inaccurate and false addresses created...

Advertiser Index.(Illustration)
March 1, 2006... Advertiser Site Addresses Page # Ambir www.ambir.com/hdm 36 ARINC www.arinc.com/hdm 49 ...

Do You Agree or Disagree?(health information networks are destined to fail )
March 1, 2006... "A national health information network and regional health information networks are destined to fail unless a national patient identifier is mandated. Do you agree or disagree?" AGREE Dawn Shedlock Medical Transcriptionist ...