Health Management Technology articles from April 2004

Health Management Technology archives from April 2004

From here to publicity.(healthcare organizations publicize services )(Editorial)
April 1, 2004... HIMSS coaxes out the sociologist in me. Personally, I like to use the event as a barometer of change on the healthcare IT landscape, and especially as a predictor of organizational and behavioral trends. As most readers know, Health...

Patient safety, heftier IT budgets top list of CIO wants.(HIMSS Leadership Survey)
April 1, 2004... Patient safety and reducing medical errors rank among the top priorities for healthcare IT executives, according to the 15th Annual HIMSS Leadership Survey. Yet, many healthcare organizations lack the financial resources to implement such...

FDA passes final bar coding rule.(Patient Safety)(Food and Drug Administration)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Medication manufacturers and distributors must bar code all drugs beginning this month, under the terms of a recently passed U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule. The FDA issued the final rule, effective April 26, requiring bar codes on...

Insurer gives members access to hospital treatment outcomes.(Health Plan Technology)(Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts uses Select Quality Care Consumer)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... A Northeast Blues plan has introduced a Web-based tool that will allow members to compare hospital treatment outcomes. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA) has employed HealthShare Technology's Select Quality Care Consumer to allow...

E-visits for non-urgent care gain ground.(Online Physician Consults)
April 1, 2004... Online communication among patients and their physicians can reduce the cost of care and help physicians use office time more efficiently. So says recent research by Stanford University and UC Berkley. Researchers evaluated Emeryville,...

MS-HUG releases list of 2004 winners.(MS-HUG Awards)(Microsoft Healthcare Users Group)
April 1, 2004... Microsoft Healthcare Users Group (MS-HUG) recently announced the winners of the 2004 MS-HUG Awards. The annual MS HUG awards, a part of HIMSS, recognize individuals and organizations in the healthcare industry for innovative development on, and...

Baylor boosts systemwide IT overhaul.(IT Investment)(Baylor Health Care System)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... With an eye toward increasing patient safety, a North Texas health system will invest $119 million in a systemwide IT overhaul. Dallas-based Baylor Health Care System will redesign its clinical process and seamlessly link the information...

Core data sets released for physician practice EMRS.(Electronic Medical Records)
April 1, 2004... The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) recently released model core data sets designed to help physician practices implement electronic health records (EHRs). Caregivers require practical, related information during...

Free PDA decision support tool.(personal digital assistants)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released a clinical decision support tool for personal digital assistants (PDAs) to help clinicians deliver evidence-based medicine at the point of care. AHRQ's new Pneumonia Severity...

CFOs predict spending upswing.(chief financial officers)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Nearly three-quarters of health system and hospital CFOs said they will increase capital spending over the next five years, citing new technology as a primary driver behind the upturn. Seventy-two percent will focus technology spending on...

CGE&Y named top firm.(Cap Gemini Ernst & Young)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Gartner Inc., an independent research and advisory firm, has named Cap Gemini Ernst & Young as the top healthcare IT consulting and systems integrator for the provider market. The No. 1 ranking is based on worldwide revenue for 2002; it is...

Report guides docs on disease registry use.
April 1, 2004... Computerized disease registries are an affordable and practical way for physicians seeking to improve management of patients with chronic conditions, according to a new report by the California Health Care Foundation and First Consulting Group....

Bases covered: multistate managed care organization uses information technology to meet regulatory requirements and save more than $1 million in labor costs.(Health Plans & Technology)(Molina Healthcare Inc. uses QMACS software)
April 1, 2004... For a managed care company to be successful and competitive, it must cut costs without cutting corners. When that company deals exclusively with Medicaid patients, the need to save money and improve efficiencies becomes imperative. Long...

Better for brokers: New England health plan uses IT initiatives to build strong broker relationships.(Health Plans & Technology)(Harvard Pilgrim Health Care)
April 1, 2004... A strong relationship with the independent broker community is fundamental to the success of small to medium-sized healthcare payer organizations. Building and maintaining these critical relationships, however, is no easy task, and outdated IT...

Keeping data storage healthy: University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center takes action to manage research data files efficiently.(Tech corner: data storage: case history)(Managed Server HSM)
April 1, 2004... All men may be created equal, but all data is not. True, all those microscopic magnetic fields residing on the drives of an enterprise's storage servers look pretty identical to the read/write heads, but the value that people assign to them...

Streamlined support: centralized desktop management improves IT service at an Atlanta-based children's healthcare system.(Network/systems integration: case history)(Children's Healthcare of Atlanta uses ScriptLogic)
April 1, 2004... Most IT solutions are aimed at making health care end-users more efficient in their work. Sometimes the IT staff that implements and manages those solutions need a helping of that same efficiency. Renowned for excellence in patient care,...

Gaining credence and fast payments with software; a Midwest medical group eliminates redundant paperwork with a provider-credentialing program.(Credentialing: case history)(Cooper Clinic uses OneApp)
April 1, 2004... Manual provider credentials processing can create hours of data entry work and build mountains of paperwork. An Arkansas medical group learned that lesson quickly--and responded by implementing a credentialing software program that has helped...

Setting safe standards: homegrown bar coding medication administration system helps VA hospitals minimize mistakes at the point of care.(Bar coding: case history)(Department of Veterans Affairs)
April 1, 2004... Medication bar coding has become a mainstay of many patient safety initiatives, helping to reduce the number of medical errors and associated complications. Wireless devices that scan medications at the bedside help caregivers quickly assess...

Essentials of a good RIS/PACS contract: following the rules of engagement in negotiating a partnership can prevent surprises or disappointments in a RIS/PACS implementation.(PACS/Diagnostics Imaging)(RIS/PACS contract)
April 1, 2004... In almost every major RIS/PACS contract, a phrase appears that lets you know that all promises, understandings or agreements other than those expressly set forth in the contract are void. If this statement does not make you uncomfortable,...

Where there's a will, there's a way; Alabama referral hospital combines scheduling and document imaging systems to create a paperless order-tracking system.(Old tracking: case history)(Southeast Alabama Medical Center)
April 1, 2004... When it comes to orders for diagnostic or preadmission tests, no hospital can afford to be lax. For one thing, medical necessity checking is a must; for another, JCAHO requires that an order be on file before any diagnostic test is performed on...

In with the old: "writing" is the newest form of technology, thanks to digital pens and paper.(Digital Ink)
April 1, 2004... As a tech-savvy physician, I have longed for a way to capture clinical data that would make it instantly available to my colleagues. Unfortunately, most of my colleagues still rely on pen and paper. While these colleagues might be intrigued...

1 year, $3 million, 0 problems: Chicago hospital achieves a 6-month ROI with new emergency department information system, and goes from impairing profitability to improving it.(What works: emergency dept. information systems)(Rush University Medical Center uses ibex Pulsecheck)
April 1, 2004... It's no longer enough for a healthcare organization to expect, or even to derive, only clinical benefits from a software system. The software system that works clinically for patients and doctors must also work financially for hospital and...

Patient Safety solution.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2004... Patient Safety Expert is an Internet-based decision support application designed to help healthcare providers record, monitor and report medical errors and adverse clinical events by collecting and analyzing data. Part of the Performance Expert...

Surgical Instrument Management.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Surgical Instrument Management software helps hospital staff ensure that the correct surgical instruments and trays are available when and where they are needed. Its features include: simplifying the tray assembly process; facilitating...

Bar code label software.(New Products & Services)(WASP)
April 1, 2004... Compatible with most scanning systems, WASP bar code software offers pre-defined templates and the ability to create custom layouts for virtually any type or size of unit dose label. It permits any color print, which can assist in...

High-resolution PET/CT system.(New Products & Services)(CPS Innovations)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The high-speed, high-resolution LSO HI-REZ PET/ CT scanner system utilizes enhanced spatial resolution to improve early detection of cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders and lesions as small as 2 mm. By merging a patient's biological...

ADE surveillance, reporting.(New Products & Services)(adverse drug events)(TheraDoc Inc.)
April 1, 2004... ADE Assistant is designed to perform automated trigger-based surveillance and enhanced voluntary reporting of adverse drug events (ADEs) in hospitalized patients. To infer possible ADEs, it monitors and evaluates critical patient data stored...

Pathology voice recognition.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Vox Papuli software works . with the WindowPath anatomic pathology information system to allow cytotechnologists to interact with their computers through a series of voice commands to complete cytology cases. Unlike other voice recognition...

EMR data protection.(New Products & Services)(Electronic Medical Record)(iMedica Corp.)
April 1, 2004... Utilizing redundant array of independent disks (RAID) technology with real-time hot-swapping and SQL replication server support, the PhysicianSuite EMR now provides clients with five tiers of data redundancy and secure, anytime, anywhere access...

Payer/provider contract mgmt.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2004... Guardian Contract Manager is end to-end, modular software that is designed to help health plans quickly and easily manage the requirements in any given contract to ensure timely payments to medical providers at agreed-upon rates. It lets...

Accounting of disclosure system.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2004... WebDisclose provides an enterprisewide, Web based system for managing, tracking and reporting protected health information disclosures. It obtains data from a variety of existing hospital files that are usea to reDort patient information to...

Speech rec system for practices.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2004... VoxNotes is a speech recognition based medical documentation and workflow management system designed to help group practices improve physician efficiency and productivity, reduce labor costs associated with transcription and chart pulls, and...

Wireless telemedicine device.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2004... Designed for home telemonitoring, the Polytel System consists of a set of Bluetooth-enabled instruments that communicate wirelessly over telephone lines to the Internet. Equipped with a miniature circuit board, devices such as a blood pressure...

Drug info system development.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Adapting to most operating systems and relational database management systems, Drug Information Framework version 3.1 is a suite of software applications for integrating drug information content from the National Drug Data File Plus and other...

Pharmacy materials management tools.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2004... Marketplace@Novation offers a variety of new online pharmacy supply analysis tools that: provide automatic daily alerts for products that exceed contract prices; flag new contract opportunities and validate savings based upon purchases; notify...

Upgraded SSL VPN device.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2004... Built upon the Neoteris Instant Virtual Extranet 4.0 platform, the SA-5000 is an SSL VPN appliance designed to provide dynamic access privilege management, granular role-based delegation and centralized management capabilities to network...

Online osteoporosis care center.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2004... A Web-based care center for osteoporosis provides doctors with a comprehensive assortment of disease-specific content and tools to guide patients from prevention to symptoms and treatment. Physicians can offer it as a single online personal...

Wireless print server.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2004... The EZ Connect Wireless USB Print Server allows access to a printer through a regular wired Ethernet LAN connection or by an 802.11b wireless LAN connection. As a wireless-enabled print server, it supports both ad hoc mode (point-to-point...

DICOM enterprise storage.(New Products & Services)(SIENET VA42 MagicStore)
April 1, 2004... The SIENET VA42 MagicStore system is a DICOM 3.0-compliant enterprise storage solution based on open standards, as well as deployed on industry-standard database technology and off the-shelf hardware, to help healthcare providers lower costs...

Predictive modeling modules.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2004... RiskSmart, the Web-based suite of predictive modeling tools, has three new modules. The Care and Disease Management module is designed to identify potential high-cost cases and target them for the appropriate level of disease and care...

Managed care hotlist.
April 1, 2004... Information in the HotList is based on survey responses collected from companies with products in the category covered. The HotList is not intended to reflect the quality of products or services, nor is it intended to be an inclusive list of...

OAO HealthCare.(News Makers)(Resolution released)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Woodland Hills, Calif.-based OAO HealthCare Solutions Inc. has released its flagship core administrative application, Resolution, a back-office solution for health plans built on HIPAA standards that uses Java and J2EE technologies. Developed...

QuadraMed Corp.(News Makers)(purchase of Affinity HIS)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Chester River Health System of Chestertown, Md., has purchased QuadraMed Corp.'s Affinity HIS. Under the terms of the three-year agreement, QuadraMed will implement Affinity Patient Financial and Clinical systems to include CPOE and Electronic...

Unibased Systems Architecture.(News Makers)(Resource Management System)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Rockford Health System, a healthcare delivery network serving Rockford, Ill., and southern Wisconsin, has selected Chesterfield, Mo.-based Unibased Systems Architecture's fully integrated Resource Management System.

McKesson Corp.(News Makers)(SureScripts Messenger Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. has formed an agreement with SureScripts of Alexandria, Va., to integrate SureScripts Messenger Services with its Pharmaserv pharmacy management system and, eventually, its physician office applications....

VitalWorks Inc.(News Makers)(EMtrack patient tracking system installation)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mountain States Healthcare Alliance, headquartered in Johnson City, Tenn., has selected Ridgefield, Conn.-based VitalWorks Inc. to provide a comprehensive emergency department information system solution to its network of EDs. VitalWorks will...

pMDsoft.(News Makers)(strategic partnership with Matrix Management Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Matrix Management Services has formed a strategic partnership with pMDsoft of Atlanta to implement pMDsoft's handheld data-capture system in more than 100 skilled nursing and assisted living facilities in New York, New...

Telemedicine works--now what?(Thought Leaders)
April 1, 2004... Telehealth technology is now known to be effective for improving patient outcomes in many disease states, particularly chronic diseases such as diabetes and congestive heart failure. But even as little as five years ago, it was easy to...