Health Data Management articles from November 2008

Health Data Management archives from November 2008

Universal Truths.(Editor's Note)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Gary Baldwin Walking home the other day, I encountered a noisy group of protestors outside a downtown office building here in Chicago. The group was picketing for "universal health care." Their mantra: Medicare for all. ...

Board members named to new AHIC.(Newsline)(Report)
November 1, 2008... AHIC Successor Inc., the new organization that will succeed the American Health Information Community advisory body, has named its board of directors. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt in 2005 created the American Health...

Blues: ICD-10, 5010 Dates = Meltdown.(Newsline)
November 1, 2008... The federal government's proposed deadlines for implementing the ICD-10 diagnosis and procedure code sets and HIPAA 5010 transaction standards "will result in a major meltdown in the health care industry," according to Scott Serota, president...

HHS Issues Privacy Rule Guidance.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... The Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights has published new guidance for complying with aspects of the HIPAA privacy rule. The office is responsible for enforcing the rule. The guidance documents-one each for...

Survey: Medicare PQRI Data Not Useful.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... An online survey of the more than 450 physician practice members of the Englewood, Col.-based Medical Group Manage-ment Association who participate in Medicare's Physician Quality Reporting Initiative finds large amounts of dissatisfaction with...

Bill Hikes Medicare Pay for Quality.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) has introduced legislation to create a Medicare value-based purchasing program to reward quality treatment. The Quality First Act, H.R. 7067, would authorize up to 2% in additional reimbursements for hospitals...

CAQH Issues Phase II eligibility rules.(Newsline Digest)(Brief article)
November 1, 2008... CAQH, a Washington-based payer advocacy organization, has released its Phase II rules for a more uniform version of the HIPAA eligibility transactions. The rules come from CAQH's Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange initiative,...

Survey: HIEs/RHIOs Reducing Costs.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... Sixty-nine percent of health information exchanges and regional health information organizations that consider themselves fully operational report reductions in health care costs among participants, according to results of an annual survey from...

DoD, VA to Exchange Trauma Data.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... U.S. Army medical facilities soon will electronically transfer a standard set of information about patients transferred to a "polytrauma unit" at one of four Veterans Administration medical centers. These units, at VA facilities in Tampa, Fla.;...

Study: EHR Subsidies Off to Slow Start.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... A new study of 24 hospitals confirms that efforts to subsidize the implementation of electronic health records at doctors' offices are being slowed by the burden of other I.T. projects, budget limitations and a lack of physician interest. The...

Cardinal Health to Spin Off Tech Units.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... Cardinal Health plans to spin off its clinical and medical products businesses as a separate public company. The Dublin, Ohio-based vendor will retain the core pharmaceutical and medical supply chain services that comprise 95% of its revenue....

Stark Introduces I.T. Bill.(Newsline)
November 1, 2008... U.S. Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) has introduced legislation to lay out the federal government's role in national adoption of electronic health records systems and development of a national health information network. The legislation, titled...

HealthPort acquires rival ChartOne.(Newsline Digest)(Brief article)
November 1, 2008... Document imaging and management vendor Health-Port has acquired ChartOne Inc., a Burlington, Mass.-based competitor, for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition does not include the eWebHealth technology subsidiary of ChartOne, which was spun off...

Booklets Explain Deep Vein Thrombosis.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has posted on its Web site two booklets to help consumers and clinicians prevent and treat deep vein thrombosis, which is a life-threatening blood clot in the deep veins of the body, commonly in...

Misys Pays More for iMedica Technology.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... Misys Healthcare Systems and iMedica Corp. have settled a dispute over a year-old contract under which Misys licensed and markets iMedica's integrated practice management and electronic health records software for smaller physician practices....

Hospital to Subsidize Doctors' EHRs.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... The Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula will offer ambulatory electronic health records software to area physicians under relaxed provisions of the Stark Act and I.T. safe harbors to federal anti-kickback statutes. The Monterey,...

Tools to Aid Genetic Test Decisions.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality will fund development of four computerized decision support applications to better use genetic tests to evaluate and treat breast cancer. Two applications will assess whether a woman with a...

Medicare PHR Pilot to Add DoD Data.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will expand its personal health records pilot program for South Carolina Medicare beneficiaries by adding data from Department of Defense health facilities. CMS is in the early stages of testing...

Group seeks uniform consent policies.(Newsline Digest)(Brief article)
November 1, 2008... The New York eHealth Collaborative has released a draft white paper with recommendations for standardizing policies covering patient consent for release of information. The collaborative is a public-private consortium working to build consensus...

North Carolina HIE Reaches Milestone.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... The last of 16 hospitals participating in the Western North Carolina Health Information Exchange has gone live with a physician Web portal, completing the first phase of the initiative. Physicians use the portal to access such hospital data as...

Free E-Prescribing for Florida Docs.(Newsline Digest)
November 1, 2008... Health insurers Humana Inc. and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida are offering free Web-based electronic prescribing software and hardware to physicians in their networks in Florida. The insurers are offering the technology of Prematics...

Medical Imaging Tests Storage Capacity; A single cardiology study on an advanced CT scanner can yield 7,000 images. Enough said.(Cover Story)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor Wichita Clinic PA, a multi-specialty practice with 160 physicians, has a wide range of diagnostic imaging modalities throughout its 12 south-central Kansas sites. It has a picture archiving and...

HIS Vendors Make Strategic Buys.(A Closer Look)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor Two health care information technology vendor acquisitions announced within a week of each other signal a strategic shift for both buyers. Atlanta-based Eclipsys Corp. closed a major product gap by...

Integration tool improves access to images.(Cover Story)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor Physicians don't spend a lot of time thinking about diagnostic storage strategies. But they do want tools to get to the held images and reports quickly and easily, says Stuart Seides, M.D., associate...

So far, so good for Shriners.(Cover Story)(Brief article)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor Shriners Hospitals for Children in 2007 started implementing computed radiography diagnostic imaging modalities and picture archiving and communication systems in its 22 hospitals, and is halfway done...

Shipping I.T. out; more hospitals are outsourcing infrastructure but continuing to manage applications on their own.(Special Report)(Report)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Howard J. Anderson, Executive Editor In the early 20th century, most factories had their own power plants; now they get their power off the grid. When it comes to I.T. infrastructure, hospitals at the turn of the 21st century are...

The Devil Is in the Details.(Special Report)
November 1, 2008... When outsourcing some or all of their information technology management tasks, hospitals need to craft contracts that precisely spell out service level expectations, experts say. "Define the roles and responsibilities of the client and the...

A Group Practice Reaches out for Help.(Special Report)
November 1, 2008... When a small physician group practice set a goal of doubling in size within 10 years, it faced some tough decisions about ramping up its information technology. Cawlitz Family Health Center, which serves low-income patients in the...

Taking the Next Step in Revenue Cycle Management; Business intelligence software enables financial managers to pinpoint cash flow hangups.(Feature)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Howard J. Anderson, Executive Editor Many clinical experts acknowledge that electronic health records are an important first step toward a much broader effort to study what treatments yield the best outcomes, paving the way to...

Keeping up With the Times; As its target market changes, so changes the corporate strategy of clinical messaging software vendor Axolotl Corp.(Corporate Strategy)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor Formed in 1995, the San Jose, Calif.-based company initially focused on physician management groups, such as independent practice associations. Since then, the focus has shifted to hospitals, followed by...

Technology Draws in the Crowd; Mayo Clinic enhances live presentations with survey tool.(Hospitals)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Gary Baldwin, Editorial Director For Jeff Stelley, the key to a successful presentation is simple: involve the audience. Stelley's had plenty of opportunity to develop that philosophy. As media production specialist in the...

Patience is a Virtue; More than a decade into its EHR effort, an internal medicine group looks to tie up loose I.T. ends.(Group Practices)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Gary Baldwin, Editorial Director When he is treating patients, internist Mike Kerkering, M.D., shows up empty-handed every time - so to speak. Rather than toting in a paper chart, Kerkering swings out a monitor mounted on a flexible...

Despite a Bonus, P4P Skepticism Remains.(Group Practices)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Gary Baldwin, Editorial Director Although Spokane Internal Medicine won a $25,000 bonus from Premera Blue Cross for upholding quality standards, the group will be cautious in enrolling in other incentive programs. The Premera bonus...

Lessons from the HIE Front; An insurer shares experiences after spending $50 million to jump-start health information exchanges.(Payers)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Joseph Goedert, News Editor A decade ago, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts started a series of small pilot projects to encourage providers to adopt information technology and electronically exchange data. By 2004,...

Contracts update.(Directory)
November 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:...

Decision Support For Nurses; Moving to an evidence-based approach.(My Two Cents)
November 1, 2008... Byline: Judy Murphy, R.N., Vice President, Information Services, Aurora Health Care, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Information technology has been changing the face of health care for more than 20 years, but we are now (finally) moving into an era...

CCHIT Quantifies EHR Incentives.(Newsline)
November 1, 2008... At least 50 hospital organizations have launched programs to partially subsidize the cost of electronic health records for physicians as permitted under federal regulations announced in 2006, a new study shows. Exceptions to the so-called Stark...

State Officials Push E-Prescribing.(Newsline)
November 1, 2008... The State Alliance for eHealth has issued its inaugural report, emphasizing the importance of electronic prescribing as a first step toward broader use of information technology in health care. An initiative of the National Governor's...

Wal-Mart Takes the PHR Plunge.(Newsline)
November 1, 2008... Employees at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who qualify for health insurance are being offered personal health records using technology from WebMD Health Corp., New York, and Dossia, an employer coalition. The records initially will be populated with...

PBMs To DEA: E-Script Rule Flawed.(Newsline)
November 1, 2008... The Drug Enforcement Administration's proposed rule to permit electronic prescribing of controlled substances won't work, according to the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association. Representing pharmacy benefit management firms, the...

GAO: HHS Has More Privacy Work to Do.(Newsline)
November 1, 2008... The Government Accountability Office says the Department of Health and Human Services has yet to fully implement its January 2007 recommendations to develop an overall privacy approach to protecting personal health information exchanged within...