Health Management Technology articles from April 2005

Health Management Technology archives from April 2005

Make mine McMedicine.(MinuteClinic with medical software)(Editorial)
April 1, 2005... Linda Hall Whitman is the CEO of a company that's posing the most attractive, affordable and technology-backed challenge to traditional medicine that I have seen in many moons. MinuteClinic is, essentially, a walk-in clinic housed in a...

Safety and EMRs are top priority.(Patient Safety)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Fifty-seven percent of healthcare IT executives said increasing patient safety would be their top business concern in the next two years, according to the 16th annual HIMSS leadership survey. Sponsored by Superior Consultant Company/ACS...

Wireless hospital opens this month.(State-of-the-art Hospitals)(Memorial Hospital Miramar)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Patients will sport bar codes on their wristbands matching bar-coded medications when Memorial Hospital Miramar opens this month in Miramar, Fla. Nurses and doctors will input vital signs, symptoms and other medical notes via an online, bed...

EHRs more affordable for small practices.(Physician Practices)(electronic health records)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The average total cost of an electronic health record (EHR) for a typical three-doctor practice--under $10,000 per doctor per year--is approaching affordability for many small practices, a recent survey shows. The American Academy of Family...

Computerized decision support tool tested.(Evidence-based Medicine)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Applying evidence-based clinical guidelines to patients' electronic medical data, a computerized clinical decision support system called CareEngine flagged potentially serious clinical errors, improving patient outcomes and reducing costs, a...

Computer-generated alerts update.(Medication Management)(computerized safety alerts for clinicians and pharmacists)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Clinicians value medication safety alerts, but community pharmacists override most of them, according to two recent surveys published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Busy clinicians generally find computerized safety...

Electronic claims attachment pilot under way.(Payers and Providers)(Electronic Data Interchange )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... A pilot program is testing how Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) can reduce administrative costs and lengthy payment delays caused when providers send electronic attachments for Medicare claims to payers. Attachments to be tested include...

Americans split on electronic records.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Most survey respondents (48 percent) say the benefits of electronic medical records (EMRs) outweigh the risks to privacy, while 47 percent disagree. Five percent are unsure. The phone survey of 1,012 adults conducted in February by Harris...

100K lives campaign off and running.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... More than 1,000 hospitals have joined the campaign sponsored by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in Cambridge, Mass. To save 100,000 lives in U.S. hospitals during the next 18 months and beyond, the IHI is asking the hospitals to...

Siemens and NextGen form strategic alliance.(partnerships)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Siemens Medical Solutions will add NextGen Healthcare Information Systems' electronic medical records and practice management solutions to its global portfolio of medical equipment and IT solutions. The move gives Malvern, Pa.-based Siemens a...

Plans push IT: with an eye to the future, three very different health plan organizations look to a new generation of information management solutions.(Health Plans & Technology)(information management services)(Cover Story)
April 1, 2005... The ever-changing landscape of managed care is prompting some health plans to take another look at their information management solutions. A system that can accommodate growing membership rolls and automates well the claims and benefits...

Integration and automation transform medication administration safety: successful eMARs mandate a multifold integration strategy that includes people, process, applications and technology.(Systems Integration)(electronic medication administration record)
April 1, 2005... Adoption of enhanced clinical automation is on the rise, with initiatives such as enterprise imaging and provider order entry on the strategic plans of virtually every healthcare organization (HCO) in the country. However, these initiatives...

Maximizing the gains of mobility: mobile technology's workflow improvements for physicians have a downstream effect throughout entire healthcare systems.(Workflow Automation)
April 1, 2005... Physicians are a mobile work force. They work in a variety of different environments and interact with a myriad of other healthcare workers, including nurses, administrators, billing personnel, pharmacists and medical records staff, not to...

Credentialing software: the ayes have it! Pennsylvania eye clinic uses credentialing software to improve accounts receivable.(Case History)
April 1, 2005... Pat Smith gets more shuteye now that she's traded 3" X 5" tickler cards for customized and automatic electronic alerts in Sy.Med's OneApp credentialing solution. As director of patient accounts at the Pennsylvania College of Optometry's (PCO)...

Healthcare sweeps across the plains: university telemedicine program allows Native Americans on North Dakota reservations to consult with specialists hundreds of miles away.(Telehealth/Telemedicine)
April 1, 2005... Capable of providing personalized healthcare to people living great distances from medical specialists, telemedicine programs are quickly becoming popular for government initiatives and academic health centers interested in obtaining grants....

The five foundations of successful e-prescribing programs: the right combination of technology, people, process and commitment drive success for electronic prescribing.(e-Prescribing)
April 1, 2005... The healthcare IT industry has witnessed some e-prescribing programs succeed, while others have failed. In aggregate, these programs have provided a body of learning that has served to refine a business model poised for broad adoption. The...

Music to call center manager's ears: software distribution reduces management and desktop support costs, while providing agents with fast, flexible and dependable systems.(Call Centers)
April 1, 2005... Managed care call centers are facing extraordinary customer service, IT and economic challenges because of the emergence of two trends--consumer directed healthcare (CDH), and the greater demands placed on the call center. If a call...

Recovering buried revenue potential: New Hampshire medical center deploys document management solution that attracts at-home coders and enables reduction of unbilled days.(Case History)(Concord Hospital)
April 1, 2005... Decreasing the number of unbilled days, or the time it takes to generate and mail a bill and get it into the hands of a discharged patient, by just several days can reduce a hospital's weekly cost of unrealized revenue from delayed payments by...

Meeting the future without paper: Midwest specialty medical group deinstalls a disappointing EMR, but adopts new technology to still create a computerized chart in a paperless environment.(Document Management)(electronic medical record)
April 1, 2005... Information technology can be a saving grace for specialty practices and hospitals alike. It can enable organizations to administratively achieve more with less and can put providers on the cutting clinical edge of patient safety. But when it...

Quality as a passion: CIGNA Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer W. Allen Schaffer, M.D., describes how a national health plan combines IT and human resources, and embraces national evidence-based standards, to influence the individual health status of millions of members.(The Corner Office)
April 1, 2005... Twenty-plus years ago, employers and providers watched as health plans ushered in the era of managed care. "Gatekeeper" became an integral part of everyone's vocabulary. Costs declined and utilization was managed, for a while anyway. But that...

Health plans & technology hotlist.
April 1, 2005... Health Plans & Technology HotList Company Affiliated Network Amisys Synertech Service Inc. RSLeads Number www.rsleads.com/ www.rsleads.com/ ...

Home health clinical documentation.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Deployable on laptops and handheld devices, Horizon Homecare Clinical Assistant enables home health care and hospice providers to make Horizon Homecare available for mobile use by employees of any discipline, including therapists, therapy...

Integrated radiology suite.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... SIENET Cosmos is an integrated RIS/PACS suite for hospitals and imaging centers, enabling users across the enterprise to access patient exams and reports with a standard Internet browser from any location in the network. In addition to...

Practice management, billing software.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... AdvancedMD version 4.2, a Web-based practice management and billing system, offers new insurance management abilities, a flexible claims reporting platform and enhanced automated data backups. Features for the solo or group practice or billing...

Digital bed board for PDAs.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Eliminating the need to make phone calls or find an available computer terminal, bedboardmobile is a digital bed ' board that allows anyone from patient-placement coordinators to nurse managers to view the entire hospital's bed availability,...

Online claims re-pricing.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2005... The new version of ClaimPassXL Internet Repricing System offers real-time re-pricing for a majority of claims, allowing health plan customers to enter a claim and immediately obtain the appropriate negotiated discount. It also can be used for...

Breast imaging workstation.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The Synapse Multi-modality Breast Imaging Workstation is designed for any facility performing full field digital mammography and other modalities such as breast MR or ultrasound. It incorporates dual, high-brightness 5-megapixel flat panel...

Supply chain registry for MMIS.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2005... The SupplyCentral database is a central registry of standardized medical and surgical product information designed to increase the accuracy, speed and efficiency of the supply chain of hospitals, IDNs, distributors, manufacturers and group...

PC management, remote control.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... NetSupport Manager version 9.0 includes new features that enable systems administrators, technical support managers and telecommuters to remotely access, control and manage remote or networked PCs over a LAN, WAN or the Internet. They include...

Discharge-planning software.(New Products & Services)
April 1, 2005... eDocManager, a module for the eDischarge discharge-planning services application, provides paperless import of electronic medical records (EMRs) to increase case managers' productivity. Case managers "print," or output, the EMR documents to a...

Speech-enabled forms for phone users.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Designed for clinical situations ranging from small physician practices to hospital systems, EMscribe VFx Interactive Voice Response (IVR) automatically fills out medical forms over touch-tone telephones via speech recognition leveraging...

Data management for health plans.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Portico version 5.0 is a browser-based data management application that allows health plans to integrate their many disparate components and deliver more efficient and effective business processes and transactions in areas that rely upon...

EHR selection guide for practices.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2005... "EHR Implementation: A Step by Step Guide for the Medical Practice," a book published by the American Medical Association Press, features flowcharts, graphs, checklists, a request for proposals and clear implementation steps to assist small and...

Next-generation health plans: managing the customer experience.(Thought Leaders)
April 1, 2005... There is a significant missing piece today in the complex puzzle of managing and delivering healthcare services to the consumer. Increased financial and clinical decision-making responsibilities are being thrust upon our nation's citizens, yet...