Health Management Technology articles from February 2005

Health Management Technology archives from February 2005

People power.(From the Editor)(electronic health records)(Editorial)
February 1, 2005... The main players in the healthcare industry--hospitals, integrated delivery systems, physicians and payers--often underestimate the power of consumers. As an industry, healthcare is known for a few factors beyond its lag in IT adoption....

IT plays important role in 100K Lives Campaign.(Patient Safety)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... To save 100,000 lives in U.S. hospitals during the next 18 months and beyond, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Mass., has kicked off the 100,000 Lives Campaign to get 1,000 hospitals to adopt at least one of the following...

Wired hospitals offer better care, study says.(Patient Safety)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Patients in the Veterans Affairs (VA) system, where doctors nationwide have electronic access to everything from old treatment notes to recent X-rays, received 67 percent of the recommended care for their conditions, according to a study...

Technology helps, but no panacea for medication errors.(Medication Management)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Computer systems designed to prevent medication errors in hospitals can actually contribute to mistakes, but the severity of the errors is significantly less than in healthcare settings without IT, according to a study by U.S. Pharmacopeia...

IT spending, jobs and salaries looking up.(IT Spending)
February 1, 2005... Multiple experts predict blue skies for those who spend IT dollars--and those who make them, too. According to the Jan. 6 issue of Forbes, healthcare IT spending will hit $60 billion this year. What's more, healthcare IT investment as a...

The best backup = no downtime.
February 1, 2005... El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, CA, is truly the "Hospital of Silicon Valley," where patients experience firsthand electronic medical records, wireless handheld devices and a hospital with 99 percent physician participation in CPOE. ...

"Tag" technology turns hospitals into "smart space".(RFID Technology)
February 1, 2005... The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved UK technology for sale in the U.S., making another option available for tracking and managing resources. Ubisense is a UK-founded but Denver-based developer of tracking systems that use...

CMS to cut medicare payment error rate.(Payers and Providers)(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... To cut the Medicare payment error rate from 9.3 percent to 4 percent, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is implementing a new initiative. Measuring the Medicare payment error rates more accurately and comprehensively at the...

States launch health information networks.(Health Information Networks)(eHealth Collaborative)(electronic health records)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Massachusetts and Delaware are two states that have climbed aboard the collaboration wagon, taking steps to make electronic health records (EHRs) a universal reality. In Massachusetts, 34 organizations known as the Massachusetts eHealth...

Blues make news with use of IT.(Health Plans)(Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina recently added a hospital comparison tool on the plan's member Web site to help consumers research hospitals anywhere in the U.S. and decide which hospital best suits their needs. It also is launching a...

Putting patients first: regardless of the application implemented, healthcare organizations are on a steadfast mission to improve patient safety with the use of IT systems.(Clinical Information Systems)(Sibley Memorial Hospital)(Memorial Health Partners)
February 1, 2005... Healthcare organizations that roll out clinical information systems are looking way beyond efficiency gains. "The real goal here is patient safety," says Joan Vincent, R.N., vice president and chief nursing officer at Sibley Memorial Hospital...

Clinical information systems hotlist.(Directory)
February 1, 2005... Clinical Documentation A4 Health Systems 5501 Dillard Dr. Cary, NC 27511 919-851-6177 Founded: 1970 Target: Physicians practices HealthMatics EMR organizes communications within physician practices by managing...

Nothing but 'net: a nonprofit hospital system's first CIO leads the transition from disparate, server-based clinical and financial information systems to a streamlined ASP hosted approach.(Internet Applications/ASPs)(DeKalb Medical Center)
February 1, 2005... When a hospital system hires its first CIO, the information technology assessment and changes that inevitably follow should come as no surprise to anyone. Getting the most bang for the buck while improving patient care is standard operating...

More than a pocketful of knowledge: a family practice group uses integrated mobile technology at the point of care to improve decision-making and patient care.(Decision Support)(Column)
February 1, 2005... Innovation is not a new term in healthcare. Physicians and researchers are continually making huge strides in the creation of new medicines and procedures. An illness that may have been terminal five years ago might now be treatable. Surgeons...

The path to the future: Illinois specialty practice finds that replacing a practice management system can deliver all the efficiencies on its "must have" lists.(Physician Practice Management)
February 1, 2005... Automation by itself isn't enough. A physician practice with a practice management (PM) system that doesn't serve its needs will soon be challenged to replace it or risk the financial consequences. Midwest Orthopaedic & Neurosurgical...

Processing for profitability: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island applies automation to remittance processing--and even has outsourcers saying they couldn't do it faster or better. The health plan successfully reduced the required staff count by 50 percent, but still avoided layoffs.(Health Plans & Technology)(Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island)
February 1, 2005... Not all information technology is glitzy. Some is of the more utilitarian, workhorse variety. Technology to support electronic remittance processing isn't loaded with razzle-dazzle, but there is probably no health plan in business that wouldn't...

Is speech recognition the Holy Grail? Speech recognition technology has been "two years away for the last 10 years." Here is a look at the issues and challenges that remain to be overcome.(Speech Recognition/Transcription)
February 1, 2005... Speech recognition technology has been lauded as the best thing to happen to healthcare technology since the advent of the computer, but is it really the Holy Grail? Speech recognition has the potential to overcome one of the most...

Waves of efficiency: Midwest healthcare system forgoes the traditional document management fix and instead pursues a BPM solution to bolster its revenue cycle improvement.(Business Process Management)
February 1, 2005... Like many large health networks today, Sisters of Mercy Health System faced the "perfect storm" of providing high-quality patient care despite the challenges of declining reimbursements, a tight and costly labor market, rising numbers of...

Ultrasound workstation.(Hardware: POC/mobile workstations/PCs)
February 1, 2005... The Hi Vision 8500 Premium Ultrasound System contains a software upgrade that includes one-touch optimization, a new digital zoom with increased resolution and selectable sector size for maximizing the frame rate, and a DVD-RW storage...

Configurable notebook.(Hardware: POC/mobile workstations/PCs)
February 1, 2005... The VGN-B100P BTO Notebook offers a variety of features. LCD options are a 14.1-inch SXGA (1,400-by-1,050-pixel resolution) or 14.1-inch XGA (1,024-by-768-pixel resolution). Intel Pentium M Processor options are 755, 745, 735, 725 or 715....

Compact surgical cart.(Hardware: POC/mobile workstations/PCs)
February 1, 2005... The OR PACS Cart lets surgical personnel in operating rooms view radiological images on a compact, mobile platform. It holds one or two flat panel monitors at the correct height for ease of film interpretation. Other features include a...

Long battery life laptop.(Hardware: POC/mobile workstations/PCs)
February 1, 2005... The Lithium Li-3312 features a 12.1-inch diagonal WXGA active matrix TFT display with a resolution of 1,280 by 800 pixels and an auto-dim on/off feature for power conservation. It utilizes an Intel Centrino 1.7-GHz (Dothan Class) processor, 60...

High-resolution OR cart.(Hardware: POC/mobile workstations/PCs)
February 1, 2005... With a DICOM-compliant video card and software and a 3-megapixel grayscale display, the Dome RC3i is suitable for viewing soft tissue, neurological and orthopedic images in the operating room. It features dual 20.8-inch diagonal active matrix...

Eliminating sticker shock: automating charge capture and supply chain management delivers a host of gains to a large Tennessee-based IDN.(Supply Chain Management)(Iasis Healthcare Corp.)
February 1, 2005... The bane of nearly every hospital without automation technology is the ubiquitous piggyback sticker: the tiny price label pulled from a product as it is used and stuck on charge sheets. The problem with this manual approach is that the stickers...

Against the grain: University of Arizona Medical Center automates the organ transplant process in-house using rapid prototyping.(Clinical Information Systems)
February 1, 2005... Like agents in a Cold War novel, Kim Halloran and Dana O'Neill were practically handcuffed to their briefcases day and night, wherever they went. The two kidney transplant coordinators at the University of Arizona Medical Center (UMC) in Tucson...

The future of CIOs: Commonwealth Health Corp. CIO Matt Ebaugh speaks out on the changing role of the CIO--and how it may jeopardize the ability of healthcare organizations to compete.(The Corner Office)(Chief information officers)
February 1, 2005... In some healthcare circles, the phrase "market distinction" is barely acknowledged. Physicians don't accept new patients, or a health plan lets members struggle to navigate a self-serve Web site. No one bats an eye. In these circles, the...

Integrated EHR, PM software.(New Products & Services)(electronic health record and practice management system )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Total Practice Partner version 8.1 is an integrated electronic health record and practice management system that includes Practice Partner Patient Records, Order Entry, Medical Billing and Appointment Scheduler. It runs on a single database,...

Enterprisewide speech rec, dictation.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Designed to work in multiple departments and 33 medical specialties, VoxEnterprise is an enterprisewide speech recognition and dictation-based documentation and workflow management system. It offers both interactive and passive speech...

Integratable voice recognition.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Powered by SpeechMagic from Philips Speech Recognition Systems, Crescendo Speech Processing includes specialized word vocabularies for medical specialties such as radiology and pathology. Producing recognized text out of off-line voice files,...

Online insurance billing, payment.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... eBilling is comprehensive and dynamic electronic invoice presentment and payment application designed for health plans and their clients. It is composed of three modules: eBill Presentment, which distributes consolidated bills via the Internet...

Scheduling, surgery management.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Enterprise scheduling and surgery management software RMS/ ORMS version 6.04M features more than 40 improvements, including three new modules. Its Inventory Management System offers additional inventory control functions to maintain an accurate...

Claims monitoring tool for payers.(New Products & Services)(IntelliClaim Inc., Norwalk)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Designed for health plans, IntelliClaim Performance Analyzer helps payers streamline the task of effective claims activity monitoring by tracking processing performance more easily and finding relevant events within large amounts of operational...

RFID-based tracking suite.(New Products & Services)(Mobile Aspects, Pittsburgh)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Supporting both clinical and administrative processes, the One System of CARE is an integrated suite of radio frequency identification (RFID) hardware and software solutions designed to enable providers to automatically track supplies, drugs,...

Asset tracking system upgrade.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Assetrac version 5.0 offers several enhancements to the RFID-based asset protection, tracking and location system. By utilizing a turnkey data collection and decision-processing platform, it provides the openness needed to integrate with...

Web-based EDIS.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... MediLinks ED is designed to improve bed utilization in the emergency department by providing global visibility of bed assignments, patient arrivals and patients' anticipated medical needs. The Web-based system also reduces turnaround time for...

The CMS update cycle: short, short-sighted and short-changing the industry.(Thought Leaders)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
February 1, 2005... The healthcare industry faces tremendous pressure to stay current with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) regulatory changes. In fact, my company estimates that the average acute care hospital with 300 or more beds spends about...