Health Management Technology articles from February 2006

Health Management Technology archives from February 2006

1-800-get-real.(management of health care services)
February 1, 2006... Some people--such as Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs--enjoy the kind of fame that brings instant media coverage whenever they inhale. Steve Case, founder of America OnLine (AOL), seems to share that type of notoriety. Case inhaled in October...

Healthcare groups voice concerns.(IT Adoption)
February 1, 2006... Through its professional associations, the healthcare industry has stepped up to the plate with substantive feedback for federal government about how to remove barriers to IT donation and adoption. The feedback is in response to proposed rules,...

Certification pilot launched.(Electronic Health Records)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) published proposed final criteria for certifying ambulatory EMRs and launched a pilot test of the criteria in December 2005. Criteria cover functionality,...

Good and bad news.(CPOE)
February 1, 2006... Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) continues to stir debate. Three recent pediatric medical journal articles examining the implementation of computerized physician order entry at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh connected CPOE to both a...

D.C. to get victim tracking system.(Disaster Recovery)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... An automated pilot program is due to be in place by May for tracking disaster victims in the Washington, D.C. area. Systems integrators were invited in December 2005 to submit bids for a development contract. Four hospitals, four regional...

Streamlining implementation.(e-Prescribing)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... A work group of key healthcare industry stakeholders, including members of the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) and Health Level Seven (HLT), completed the first phase of a standards coordination project to facilitate...

Blues forms bank for consumer-directed health plans.(Briefly)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is forming a new bank--Blue Healthcare Bank--to handle financial transactions under consumer-directed health plans. The bank will administer health savings accounts, health reimbursement arrangements...

NCQA and others lobby Congress to pass P4P legislation.(Briefly)
February 1, 2006... The National Committee for Quality Assurance, AARP, the AFL-CIO and other influential organizations representing tens of millions of Americans are calling upon Congress to support comprehensive Medicare Value Based Purchasing legislation. The...

Formulary available at POC.(New Medicare Part D Program)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... San Mateo, Calif.-based Epocrates Inc. is making formulary information for the new Medicare Part D program available to its network of nearly 500,000 healthcare professionals on its free and premium mobile and Web-based Rx software. With...

2+2 = benefits by the dozen: two large end-user organizations deploy two robust clinical information systems and prove that great expectations, coupled with great preparations, can lead to exactly the desired results.(Clinical Information Systems)
February 1, 2006... Hospital administrators who have abandoned the realm of paper for the digital world have given their clinicians greater access to information, improved diagnostics and safer procedures. But to maximize the benefits of any clinical information...

Payer contracts: the key to practice revenue: a Tennessee-based medical group identifies potential underpayments, negotiates better payer contracts and strengthens their bottom line.
February 1, 2006... According to industry estimates, as much as 20 percent of a medical group's claims volume is paid incorrectly. When it comes to tracking payment errors and recovering lost revenue, these groups must deal with the growing complexity of today's...

Delivering informed care: Boston IDN uses data to customize automated clinical decision support to meet users' needs and to improve medication safety.(Drug Information Systems/Medication Safety)
February 1, 2006... The 2005 Physicians Desk Reference lists more more than 4,000 different drugs. In a 2002 Sloane study, 7 percent of adults took five or more prescription drugs each week. Factor in the number of new drugs introduced each year, and it's not...

Going once, going twice ... Arizona hospital introduces online shift bidding and staffing system, reducing the time nurse managers spend scheduling and saving contract nursing labor costs.(Scheduling: Case History)
February 1, 2006... In today's competitive labor market, healthcare organizations need to retain qualified staff and effectively use existing resources. When faced with the ongoing challenge to fill open shifts, we decided to make the best use of our own workforce...

All Onboard for Scheduling: Ohio hospital rolls out scheduling/staffing solution for its entire organization, saving time and money.(Scheduling: Case History)
February 1, 2006... Many organizations have realized the benefits of rolling out an automated scheduling/ staffing solution for their nursing units. These benefits include reducing costs by cutting overtime expenses, decreasing the use of expensive outside...

Hospital systems recovery in a worst case scenario: New Orleans' East Jefferson General Hospital and its outsourced IT department utilize a comprehensive disaster plan, along with their courage and wits, to emerge victorious from Hurricane Katrina.(Disaster Recovery and Outsourcing)
February 1, 2006... When a citizen of New Orleans, or any American, needs emergency medical care, is first call usually is to a nearby community hospital. Meeting the emergency healthcare needs of New Orleans' Jefferson Parish and surrounding communities is a core...

Clarity from chaos: incremental changes are key to making EHR adoption wireless--and painless--for a Tennessee clinic.(electronic health record )
February 1, 2006... Imagine arriving at work one day to find that your native language is no longer in use, and you quickly must learn another to do your job. Switching from a pencil and paper or a tape-based notes system to an electronic health record (EHR) might...

Carstens WALKaroo III.(Hardware: Mobile Workstations)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... The WALKaroo III Mobile PC Cart, from Carstens Inc., is designed to help healthcare facilities more efficiently and effectively implement point-of-care computerized patient charting, and secure expensive electronic charting equipment. For easy...

Flo 4000.(Hardware: Mobile Workstations)
February 1, 2006... The Flo 4000 from Flo Healthcare brings mobile computing and vital signs monitoring to the point of care in one wireless mobile workstation. The slim-design, cart-based system includes a 17-inch LCD display, an Intel Pentium M processor,...

Ergotron StyleView.(Hardware: Mobile Workstations)
February 1, 2006... StyleView point-of-care carts from Ergotron feature the company's proprietary Constant Force (CF) lift-and-pivot technology, which is designed to provide fluid, nearly effortless up, down and side-to-side movement of the display and work...

Lionville iCart.(Hardware: Mobile Workstations)
February 1, 2006... The iCart/pc mobile workstations from Lionville are designed for medication administration and clinical documentation at the point-of-care. They come in three configurations: an all-in-one with a touchscreen monitor, thin or thick client, and...

Stinger Medical Levitator.(Hardware: Mobile Workstations)
February 1, 2006... The compact Stinger Medical Levitator Mobile Workstation for laptops is designed to offer a durable, customized patient documentation solution for the healthcare environment. It features advanced ergonomics, including ball-bearing slides, a 160...

Datalux IPIX.(Hardware: Mobile Workstations)
February 1, 2006... Datalux introduces one new model and two new upgrades for their IPIX Series of mobile point-of-care workstations. The UX2000 features an integrated 20-inch LCD display with a 1200x 1600 (UXGA) native resolution. By integrating the display with...

Rioux Vision Liberty.(Hardware: Mobile Workstations)
February 1, 2006... The Freedom wireless-ready mobile workstation is Rioux Vision's most compact model, and according to them, the smallest nursing unit on the market. It features a 16-inch non-tip base, 17inch touch or non-touch high-resolution (1280x1024) flat...

Artromick Initi.(Hardware: Mobile Workstations)
February 1, 2006... Artromick's Initi mobile computer workstation features motorized height adjustment that takes the work surface from 30 inches to 42 inches. It's designed with a small footprint for maneuverability and features a 17-inch LCD flat panel display,...

Putting meat on the e-prescribing bone: Maryland-based CareFirst re-ups for a second year of e-prescribing for its network physicians.(Health Plans & Technology)
February 1, 2006... Experiments in giving away information technology to providers--right along with the vision of the national health information network--have produced a couple of widely-held popular opinions. The first is that physicians and physician practices...

RHIO nation: community hospitals and small or solo physician practices are among the many players who need to prepare for the future world of electronic data sharing.(regional health information organizations)
February 1, 2006... For an entity that won't exist for another five years at least, the national health information network (NHIN) and its data-sharing building blocks, RHIOs (regional health information organizations), have garnered humongous attention. Type...

Shop till you drop: only two weeks to go before the healthcare IT trade show of shows commences in San Diego.(HIMSS 2006 EXHIBITOR SHOWCASE)
February 1, 2006... Looking to establish new relationships or shore up old ones? Find the latest and greatest in available healthcare IT? Strut your latest new product or regale decision makers with the merits of your latest service? Dust off your comfortable...

Web-based programs work for the lab manager.(Web-based Education)
February 1, 2006... Laboratory supervisors are challenged with what may seem another full-time job--providing education on diverse topics to employees to help them excel at their jobs. A relatively new solution to this responsibility is the Internet. Harnessing...

A custom approach to online learning.(Web-based Education)
February 1, 2006... When Sysmex America wanted to achieve greater efficiencies in its customer training, it turned to Knowledge Anywhere to create an online educational program to support lab technicians in the field. Knowledge Anywhere builds technology-based...

More European docs have EMRs.(Physician Practices)(Electronic Medical Records)
February 1, 2006... The ratio of physicians in Europe compared to U.S. doctors who answered "yes" to the question "does your office use electronic medical records?" was 3 to 1 in a recent Manhattan Research telephone survey. On the other hand, asked if they used...

Little progress in six years.(Patient Safety)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Six years after the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) report To Err is Human was published, significant improvement is still needed in the area of patient safety in the United States. That is the conclusion of a report in the Dec. 14, 2005 issue of...

A passage to India.(Global Healthcare)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... The latest in efforts to "transform" U.S. healthcare and make it affordable, involves a North Carolina company coordinating elective, uninsured procedures for American patients in two Indian hospitals, IndUShealth, based in Raleigh, acquires...

IOM releases first of three reports.(National Performance Standards)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... The IOM is calling for a national system to measure and report on healthcare performance. In September 2004, the IOM launched the Redesigning Health Insurance Performance Measures, Payment, and Performance Improvement Project in response to two...

AHRQ develops guide for patient registries.(Evidence-based Medical Practice)
February 1, 2006... The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is developing a "how to" reference guide to help healthcare organizations create patient registries for tracking the outcomes of medical treatments, including drugs. The guide, to be...

Misys gets new president.(On the Move)
February 1, 2006... Richard Atkin is the new president of Raleigh, N.C.-based Misys Healthcare Systems' hospital systems group. Atkin succeeds Andrew Lawson, who moved to the company's strategic business development group.

Industry veteran joins Sentillion.(On the Move)
February 1, 2006... Nancy J. Ham joined Andover, Mass-based Sentillion Inc. as president and member of the board of directors. Ham succeeds and reports to the company's founder, Robert Seliger, who continues as CEO.

Structured cabling for healthcare networks: cabling is the backbone on which IT networks function. And yet, as much as 50 percent of healthcare network problems are related to an inadequate or underperforming cabling infrastructure.(Infrastructure)
February 1, 2006... As we move forward in the 21st century, digital connectivity and networking technologies have become increasingly important in our everyday life. Just as our homes, offices, schools and factories have joined the "Digital Revolution," so too has...

Spheris.(NewsMakers)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Spheris, global outsource provider of medical transcription technology and services, will acquire Vianeta Communications. Vianeta, headquartered in northern California, is a developer and supplier of enterprisewide clinical documentation...

Dictaphone Corp.(NewsMakers)
February 1, 2006... St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton in Canada selected Stratford, Conn.-based Dictaphone Corp.'s dictation, transcription and speech recognition software to improve the turnaround time and quality of its clinical documentation. The applications...

Health Management Corp.(NewsMakers)
February 1, 2006... Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Summit Reinsurance Services Inc., (Summit Re) selected Richmond, Va.-based Health Management Corp. to provide targeted disease and maternity management services for its health plan clients. Summit Re is a full-service...

MediServe Information Systems.(NewsMakers)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Four hospitals--Sarasota Memorial Health Care System (Sarasota, Fla.), Banner Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center (Phoenix), Overlook Hospital (Summit, N.J.) and Sante Rehab (Euless, Texas)--are adding Tempe, Ariz.-based MediServe's...

Softricity.(NewsMakers)
February 1, 2006... As part of a major IT infrastructure overhaul, Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, the largest nonprofit health provider in the Pacific Northwest, selected Boston-based Softricity's SoftGrid application virtualization platform. It expedites...

MedeFinance.(Partners Healthcare contracts)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Boston-based Partners Healthcare signed a contract with MedeFinance of Emeryville, Calif. to implement several financial analytics applications across the enterprise including revenue cycle, reserve analytics and payer profile analytics. The...

GE Healthcare.(Rockwood Clinic contract for Centricity Physician Office products )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Rockwood Clinic in Spokane, Wash. selected GE Healthcare's suite of Centricity Physician Office products to help improve office efficiency and patient safety. The EMR will allow physicians to access patient data from multiple locations. The...

Siemens Medical Solutions.(NewsMakers)
February 1, 2006... DeKalb Medical Center at Hillandale, a new state-of-the-art, 100-bed hospital in Georgia, has signed a $12-million agreement with Siemens to provide a wide range of imaging technologies, including advanced fiat panel radiography systems,...

ZixCorp.(NewsMakers)
February 1, 2006... Focus Diagnostics Inc., a national pharmaceutical and healthcare laboratory based in Herndon, Va., signed a three-year contract with ZixCorp for Dr. Chart online order entry and results reporting services. Dr. Chart is a Web-based tool that...

Picis.(Catholic Health East contract)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Catholic Health East (CHE) chose Wakefield, Mass.-based Picis as a preferred vendor for operating room and anesthesia management software at 32 community hospitals spanning 11 eastern states. Picis' CareSuite was selected to increase the...

Per-Se Technologies.(NewsMakers)
February 1, 2006... The Chicago-based American Hospital Association selected ClaimTrack.RCM by Per-Se Technologies of Alpharetta, Ga. to help enhance the efficiency of its member hospitals' financial operations and revenue cycle management.

VISICU Inc.(NewsMakers)
February 1, 2006... Baptist Health South Florida in Coral Gables, Fla., selected VISICU's eICU solution. Baltimore, Md.-based VISICU's technology uses early warning software and electronic monitoring to connect and provide its off-site intensivists and critical...

Encentuate Inc.(Porter information management contract)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Porter, a network of healthcare facilities throughout northwest Indiana, selected Encentuate's TCI Solution for Healthcare to help improve access security and comply with industry regulations. The solution will help reduce Porter's dependence...

athenahealth.(NewsMakers)
February 1, 2006... The California Medical Association (CMA) chose athenahealth of Waltham, Mass. for integrated insurance billing, collections and practice automation. The revenue and practice optimization tools will help CMA's 35,000 physicians move to a...

NextGen Healthcare Information Systems.(NewsMakers)
February 1, 2006... Onsite Neonatal Partners Inc., serving patients in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, selected NextGen electronic medical records from Horsham, Pa.-based NextGen Healthcare Information Systems. In conjunction with five area hospitals, with a...

Insurance management solution.(medical malpractice management software from 3i-Infotech )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... PREMIA is a medical malpractice solution from 3i-Infotech (formerly ICICI Infotech Inc.). The preconfigured software suite is designed to perform and manage an insurance company's daily operations. Individual PREMIA modules include General...

Mobile wireless patient monitoring.(Spacelabs Medical)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Spacelabs Medical, a division of Spacelabs Healthcare Inc., has released a wireless option for their Ultraview SL2400 monitor. The wireless solution can operate on any hospital's existing 802.1 lb wireless network and is designed not to...

Full-disk encryption.(WinMagic encryption software)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... SecureDoc 4.I is WinMagic's lastest version of their full-disk encryption solution. The product encrypts data during a computer's preboot and accepts security authentication from passwords, hardware tokens, biometrics and public key...

ED information system.(Emergency Department)(Amelior ED 2.0 to document patient care)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Amelior ED 2.0 is Patient Care Technology Systems' newest emergency department information system, designed to help ED staff document in real time ED patient care, while tracking the movements of both patients and assets. It combines the...

WAN optimization.(wide area networks)(Streamcore System Inc StreamOptimizer 4.1)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... StreamOptimizer 4.1, an application accelerator for wide area networks (WAN), is Streamcore System Inc.'s newest operating system for its StreamGroomer Distribution product line. Based on a new application behavior based acceleration (ABBA)...

Disk-to-disk storage.(New Products & Services)
February 1, 2006... Idealstor's FrankeNAS is an all-in-one disk storage and back up appliance that uses Raid5 redundancy and ejectable disk technology to provide a disk-to-disk storage solution. Designed to be a replacement for disk-to-tape storage systems,...

Branding and marketing services.(New Products & Services)
February 1, 2006... MedSeek, a provider of content management solutions, now offers a line of branding and marketing services that include online and offline marketing solutions, designed to provide a consistent brand identity across all mediums. The new programs...

Workflow automation technology.(New Products & Services)
February 1, 2006... Boston Workstation (BWS) Task Builder for MEDITECH Client Server Print Controller is Boston Software's second release in its Task builder line. Using BWS's scripting capabilities, Task Builders enable hospitals to automate repetitive or...

Patient ID wristbands.(New Products & Services)
February 1, 2006... Personal ID Foam Wrap wristbands, from General Data, are designed for patients with sensitive skin, and for frail patients who may be damaged by standard hospital wristbands. The hypoallergenic latex-free foam band accepts thermal labels on...

3D imaging Webserver.(New Products & Services)
February 1, 2006... Medweb's Advanced 3D Web PACS is designed to provide, on a standard PC, many of the imaging features and functions required by surgeons, oncologists and other medical doctors, such as 3D templating and autosegmenting of image data from spiral...

Image storage and retrieval services.(service for medical images)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Service for Medical Images (SMI) is a study management service from SunGard Availability Services designed for the safe, long-term storage and retrieval of digital radiological study images from a SunGard archive. SMI comprises two services:...

End-to-end imaging workflow.(product introduction)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Syngo Suite from Siemens Medical Solutions adds a comprehensive RIS/PACS solution, with built-in acquisition and post-processing tools for radiology and cardiology to the company's robust Soarian HIS. The soup-to-nuts product is role-based,...

Medicaid's next frontier.(Medicaid benefits )
February 1, 2006... As 2005 marked the 40th anniversary of Medicaid, policy makers and politicians alike told us the program is unsustainable. In 2004, Medicaid consumed 25 percent of states' budgets, and costs were expected to rise 12 percent by the end of 2005....