Health Management Technology articles from February 2008

Health Management Technology archives from February 2008

Dirty laundry.(using information technology by health maintenance organizations)(Editorial)
February 1, 2008... According to the 2007 HIMSS Leadership Survey, which every year asks CIOs and IT directors to specify which IT technologies are most important to their healthcare organizations now and in the future, 54 percent of respondents indicated that...

Bankrupt.(Briefly)(Synova Healthcare Group Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reorganised)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... Synova Healthcare Group Inc., maker of the Today Sponge contraceptive and other feminine healthcare products, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy while it seeks to reorganize liquidity and capital resources issues. Synova and its four subsidiaries...

CT and MRI technology expands in India.(Briefly)(General Electric Co. GE Healthcare )(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... GE Healthcare is expanding its India operations, announcing that it is forming a public/private partnership initiative with Sanya Hospitals and Diagnostic Centre (SHDC) and the government of Madhya Pradesh. The partnership is setting up a...

New York HMO going under.(Briefly)(trends in health insurance damages business of Health maintenance organizations)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... 20,000 residents of the cities, Nassau and Suffolk in New York are losing their health insurance coverage in May as MDNY Healthcare, an HMO, goes out of business. Melville made the decision based on its financial condition, which in recent...

Golden state mandates healthcare for all.(Legislative Watch)(rules governing health isurance for employees of healthcare industry)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... Lawmakers in California moved their state's healthcare system a step closer toward universal health coverage by approving the Health Care Security and Cost Reduction Act. Among the Act's provisions, everyone in the state will be required to...

BCBSA supports e-prescribing.(Medicare Reform)(Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) has added its voice of endorsement via a statement supporting HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt's push for Congress to mandate electronic prescribing in Medicare. The BCBSA statement specifically...

PHR portability standards.(Health Plans, Managed Care)(Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, America's Health Insurance Plans and Health Level Seven Inc. recently signed a memorandum of understanding)(personal health records)
February 1, 2008... Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and Health Level Seven Inc. (HL7) recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to create a collaborative process for the maintenance of portability...

Healthcare legislation.(Healthcare Legislation)(rule governing State Children's Health Insurance Program and health care industry)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... President Bush recently signed legislation that would extend, but not expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) through March 2009. The program extension covers some 6.6 million poor children currently eligible for the...

Merge Healthcare revenues down.(Financial)(Financial report)
February 1, 2008... Merge Healthcare reported a net loss for the second quarter of 2007 of $10.7 million, or 32 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $9.7 million, or 29 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2007 and a net loss of $211 million, or $6.27...

Record-setting year for healthcare bills.(Healthcare Spending)(trends in health care cost and cosumer spendings)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... $2.1 trillion--that's how much the nation spent on healthcare during 2006 alone. The astronomical sum is the result of an analysis conducted by economists with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Details were published in the...

Consumers want healthcare pricing data.(Health Plans, Managed Care)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... The latest survey from The Regence Group reiterates that patients will shop for healthcare similar to durable goods consumers when provided with the desired healthcare pricing data--albeit starting at greater than twice the median price range...

The language of healthcare: variance in the English language is harming patients and hospitals' bottom lines. Is healthcare IT the solution?(Patient Safety)(Cover story)
February 1, 2008... "But no language is perfect, no vocabulary is adequate to the wealth of the given universe, no pattern of words and sentences, however rich, however subtle, can do justice to the interconnected gestalts with which experience presents...

The value of data.(Patient Safety)(health care industry using information technology )
February 1, 2008... One area ripe with patient safety issues is medication dispensing or adverse drug events (ADE). Incident report studies have identified more than 380,000 annual preventable ADEs in hospitals and 800,000 in long-term care facilities. While these...

Ongoing surveillance.(Patient Safety)(hospitals use information technology to maintain patient health record)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... Clearly, paper charts cannot be in two places at once, which creates access and information sharing problems and, thereby, a patient safety issue. Patients are mobile and paper charts are cumbersome at best and in the worst-case scenario may be...

The speed to know: the convergence of biomedical devices and IT for the ED may lead to improved patient care.(Emergency Department Information Systems)(Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Nowhere in healthcare is the dilemma of rising costs coupled with rising pressure to deliver quality care more pronounced than in the emergency department (ED). The 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active...

What gets measured gets managed; how an EDIS can be used to collect and manage patient throughput to ease ED overcrowding.(Emergency Department Information Systems: Case History)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The problem of Emergency Department (ED) overcrowding is fast becoming a national crisis. According to a 2005 report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention titled "Visits to U.S. Emergency...

Consent redux: an Illinois medical center moves from paper to automated informed consent to meet regulatory compliance, reduce errors and facilitate communication.(Informed Consent: Case History)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Like most healthcare organizations, CGH Medical Center, based in Sterling, Ill., strives to remain compliant with the wide range of regulations governing healthcare today. Not long ago, however, the 99-bed community...

Autonomous information handling: new technology replicates information handling intelligence into small applications, benefiting a multihospital system in Michigan.(Health Information Exchange)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Healthcare is an information-rich environment, and while information systems help manage the deluge of data, the technology is still highly dependent upon labor-intensive processes. For each patient encounter,...

From the ground up: this family practice's preopening installation of an integrated PM/EMR streamlined billing and increased profitability.(Physicians Practice Management: Case History)(practice management)(electronic medical record)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Starting a physician practice from scratch provides an extraordinary opportunity to build a highly efficient and patient-focused environment from the ground up. Additionally, practices avoid the headaches of...

Strategic placement: addressing the data explosion in healthcare requires a sound strategy for turning data into information.(Data Management)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There is a data explosion occurring in healthcare. Frost & Sullivan's "2004 Healthcare Storage Report" predicts that by 2010, medical centers will need to be equipped to hold almost 1 billion terabytes of data, or...

Answering the call: an EMS replaces a modem-based dispatch system with a wireless-technology solution, improving response times with actionable information.(Wireless: Case History)(Company overview)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Established in 1984 as Puckett Ambulance Service, Puckett Emergency Medical Services (EMS) was built with a single mission--to provide the highest quality, reliable ambulance services to the communities they serve....

Tablet PC alternative.(Hardware: Mobile Computing)(Panasonic T7 of Panasonic Computer Solutions Co.)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... The Panasonic T7 is driven by an ultra-low voltage 1.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 1GB of expandable memory, powered for up to nine hours between charges. Security features such as the platform module (TPM) security chip, Computrace...

Ultramobile slate Tablet PC.(Hardware: Mobile Computing)(LS800 Tablet PC of Motion Computing Inc.)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... The LS800 Tablet PC from Motion Computing is encased in a carbon fiber housing with a metal plate coating for maximum durability and ruggedness and weighs 2.2 pounds. An 8.4-inch SVGA TFT LCD display with View Anywhere technology offers optimum...

Hand-held PC.(Hardware: Mobile Computing)(iPAQ 210 Enterprise Handheld of Hewlett-Packard Co.)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... The iPAQ 210 Enterprise Handheld operates on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 Classic and with a 624 MHz Marvell PXA310 processor. Standard ports include one mini USB, one headphone line-out, one microphonein, and one docking connector. One SDIO and...

Lightweight mobile workstation.(Hardware: Mobile Computing)(Flo 1800)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Flo 1800 provides a wide range of height adjustment along with a full-size monitor in a small 19- by 22-inch footprint that allows for easy maneuverability in the close confines of patient rooms and crowded...

Ultraportable Tablet PC.(Hardware: Mobile Computing)(tc4400 from Hewlett-Packard Co.)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The tc4400 Tablet PC from HP operates on Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, and offers a range of Intel Core 2 Duo processors, memory options and hard drives. Optical drive options include DVD MultiBay II, DVD/CD-RW or...

Rugged "lunchbox" portable.(Hardware: Mobile Computing)(ACME Portable Machines' FLP-200)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Powered by an Intel T2500 2GHz Core Duo processor and up to 2GB of expandable DDR2 SDRAM, the FLP-200 is ACME Portable Machines' field-friendly, off-road computer. A 100GB hard drive and enough space for an...

Mobile clinical assistant.(Hardware: Mobile Computing)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Motion C5 integrates technology from Intel Health and interfaces with existing EHR solutions, pulls up patient histories, updates patient records at the point of care and instantly displays real-time chart...

The supporting player: second generation CDS goes beyond the basics to become intuitive.(Clinical Decision Support)(clinical decision support system)
February 1, 2008... On a busy Friday night, a patient presented with shortness of breath in the emergency department (ED) at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, where I serve as attending physician. After examining her, I immediately considered that she might...

When consistency counts: now that medication reconciliation has become a mandate, healthcare organizations are looking for effective ways to implement it, and for some, the answer is information technology.(Drug Information Systems/Medication Management)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] According to a recent Institute of Medicine report, four out of five U.S. adults take at least one medication prescription, over-the-counter drug, vitamin/mineral or herbal supplement each week, while nearly a third...

RHIOs in reverse.(Thought Leaders)(Regional Health Information Organizations)
February 1, 2008... Efforts to establish regional health information organizations (RHIO) in various parts of the United States over the past few years have experienced decidedly mixed results. In 2007 alone, we saw failed or otherwise curtailed RHIO initiatives...